SaaS Pricing Report 2026
Median costs, free plan adoption rates, and category benchmarks based on manually verified pricing data from 495+ tools.
Key findings, August 10, 2026
- The median entry price across all paid plans is $35 per month, measured on the lowest paid tier per tool.
- 62% of tracked tools (307 of 495) publish a free plan, making freemium the default go-to-market.
- CRM is the dearest category at a $60 per month median, databases the cheapest at $2.
- This report benchmarks 15 categories with at least five priced tools each.
- Published starting prices are floors. Seats, usage meters and enterprise tiers move the real bill well above the median.
Key figures
Median Price
$35/mo
across all paid plans
Free Plans
62%
307 of 495 tools
Tools Tracked
495+
manually verified
Categories
15
covered in this report
Median Price by Category
Starting price of the lowest paid tier, in USD per month.
| Category | Tools | Median | Free Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Hosting | 24 | $23/mo | 46% |
| Website Builders | 23 | $39/mo | 74% |
| AI / LLM APIs | 21 | $20/mo | 95% |
| Email Marketing | 20 | $29/mo | 70% |
| Project Management | 19 | $15/mo | 95% |
| CRM | 18 | $60/mo | 44% |
| Design Tools | 16 | $20/mo | 69% |
| Video Conferencing | 16 | $30/mo | 75% |
| Accounting | 15 | $40/mo | 47% |
| AI Productivity | 15 | $40/mo | 67% |
| ai-video | 14 | $49/mo | 93% |
| databases | 14 | $2/mo | 86% |
| AI Coding | 13 | $39/mo | 85% |
| ai-agents | 13 | $59/mo | 92% |
| ai-image | 12 | $39/mo | 58% |
Key Insights
AI APIs are price-compressing
LLM API tools have a 95% free plan rate, the highest of any category. Competition from open-source models is pushing token prices down quarter over quarter.
62% of SaaS tools offer a free plan
Freemium has become the dominant go-to-market for SaaS. Tools without a free tier face significantly higher conversion friction in 2026.
CRM remains the most expensive category
Median CRM entry price is $60/mo, 2x the overall SaaS median. Enterprise CRM deals average $200-500K/yr.
Project management nearly universally free
95% of project management tools offer a free tier. Price competition has made the free plan table stakes in this category.
Questions buyers ask
What is the median SaaS price in 2026?
The median entry price across all paid plans we track is $35 per month. That figure is the lowest published paid tier per tool, so real bills run higher once you add seats, usage and the tiers most teams actually buy.
Which SaaS category is the most expensive?
CRM carries the highest median entry price at $60 per month across 18 tools, against $2 at the cheap end (databases). Enterprise deals in the dear categories then scale well past the published starting rate.
How many SaaS tools offer a free plan?
62% do: 307 of 495 tracked tools publish a free tier. Freemium is now the default go-to-market, so a tool without one starts every sales conversation at a disadvantage.
Why is CRM pricing higher than other categories?
CRM sits near the top at a $60 per month median entry price because the software owns revenue-critical data and locks in through integrations and history. Enterprise CRM contracts routinely run into six figures a year once seats, add-ons and implementation are counted.
Explore the full dataset
All pricing data is manually verified and machine-readable.
Data sourced from manually verified vendor pricing pages. Median prices calculated from the lowest published paid tier per tool. Full methodology.