Alan Lui

Decisions · Notes

Paying monthly costs a quarter more: what 198 software pricing pages don't tell you

We read 198 software pricing pages one by one. Most lead with the yearly price, paying month to month costs a median 25% more, and 7% publish no price at all.

Alan Lui · 11 November 2026

Between 25 October and 10 November 2026 we read the pricing pages of 198 software products, from website builders to AI image generators and servers, for the cost comparisons on this site. Every figure below is counted from what those pages said on the day, and every fact behind it is in the data file linked at the end, with the vendor's own words.

What we found

1. The first price you see is usually the yearly one, and paying monthly costs about a quarter more. At least 54 of 191 pricing pages opened on a yearly or other prepaid price, or showed only that. In 62 cases our notes say which price came first and the tool sells more than one billing term. Of those, 52 (84%) led with yearly, 7 with monthly and 3 showed both. For the 64 tools where we recorded both prices for the same plan, month to month cost a median 25% more than "per month, billed yearly". Half fell between 20% and 33%. Four charged at least double: GoDaddy's website builder Starter is £14.99 a month paid monthly, £7.49 paid yearly. Only one tool charged the same either way.

2. Some tools publish no price at all. 17 of the 231 products whose pricing pages we could read (7%) show none: only "book a demo", "contact sales", a quote form or in-app prices. They cluster: 6 of 11 influencer-marketing tools, 4 of 11 loyalty apps, 2 of 9 SEO audit tools.

3. The cheapest plan often takes a cut of what you sell. Of 20 platforms for selling courses, websites, shop goods or paid newsletters, 9 take a percentage of sales on their cheapest selling plan, on top of card fees. At two of them, Shopify and BigCommerce, that applies only if you use another payment provider. At 6 of the 9, a pricier plan shrinks or removes the cut: Teachable's Starter takes 7.5% of each sale, its Builder plan nothing. Elsewhere, 3 of 9 project-management tools make a single user pay for two or three seats. Backups cost extra at 6 of the 7 server hosts where it was recorded (at one, only daily backups).

4. About 1 in 10 showed a sale or introductory price on the day we checked. That was 19 of 198 pricing pages: a Black Friday price (6), an introductory or limited-time price (7) or a struck-through "was" price (6). Seven say the price rises after the first term. Hostinger's website builder led with £1.79 a month: 48 months paid upfront in a sale, renewing at £10.99 a month. And one "monthly" plan is a year's contract: Pitchbox's FAQ says every plan needs a one-year commitment.

5. Free plans are common, but not always for business. 90 of the 170 tools where we recorded it have a free plan (53%), not counting trials or one-off credits. At least 6 say in their own words that it is for personal or non-commercial use: Framer, Magnific (formerly Freepik), Recraft, StatusCake, Basecamp and VirtualDJ. Six more pitch it at personal projects or homelabs, and 3 say commercial use is fine.

In one line each

  • At least 54 of 191 software pricing pages we checked open on a yearly or prepaid price. Where both prices were recorded (64 tools), paying month to month cost a median 25% more.
  • 17 of 231 software products we looked at publish no price at all. In influencer marketing it was 6 of 11.
  • 9 of 20 platforms for selling courses, websites, shop goods or newsletters take a percentage of your sales on their cheapest plan that can sell.

How it was counted

We used 25 decision pages: 220 vendor rows, 198 distinct pricing pages (rows sharing a URL count once). Five other pages cover affiliate commissions, creator pay and course fees, not software, and are left out. So is the per-token AI model API page, from findings 1 and 5. Each pricing page was read in Chromium (UK English, London time) with monthly billing chosen on the page's own controls. Its text was saved, and every quoted phrase was checked against it in Python.

For this study we re-checked those quotes: 2,504 of 2,586 were found again, word for word. The other 82 are all from the newsletter page, whose saved texts (30 October) are no longer on the server. Its facts are kept as recorded and flagged in the CSV: 2 of the 54 pages, 1 of the 64 price pairs, 2 of the 9 cuts and 6 of the 90 free plans. Three early pages (app hosting, rank tracking, transactional email) kept no saved-text paths; they add to the totals but to none of the counted facts.

Exclusions: 114 pricing pages don't record which price shows first. The notes flagged yearly defaults more readily than monthly ones, so 54 is a floor and 84% may run high. Left out of the 84% are 13 tools that sell one billing term and 2 that show only yearly prices without saying whether monthly exists. Price pairs use regular prices, never sale prices. Each "left out" entry on the pages was coded by hand. 38 sales-only tiers, 2 duplicates and 3 non-products are not counted as products. Neither are 14 products dropped before any price could be read (blocked, offline or shut down). For free plans, 19 pages with no record and 2 unclear ones are left out. The coding is in compute.py, tied to text the script checks is in the data. Nothing is estimated.

The full data, one line per fact with the vendor's own words: pricing-study-2026-11.csv. If you quote a number, a link back to this page is appreciated.

The comparisons it draws on

A related note: pricing pages show you the annual price.

The page this is about: What does a website builder really cost? — every figure sourced to the vendor's own page, with the date it was checked.

The price checks behind this note

What does a website builder really cost?

Nine website and landing-page builders priced month to month for three jobs: a site on your own domain, one that takes payments, and a landing page with a form; the headline yearly prices are far lower than what monthly costs.

Which platform should I use to sell an online course?

Seven plans across five platforms, re-ranked by what they really cost per year once each one's cut of your sales is counted.

What does it really cost to host a small app?

One always-on web service on six platforms, priced at 256 MB to 2 GB of memory: one is free up to 1 GB, one climbs to $250.

What does an online shop really cost to run?

Eight ecommerce platforms priced by their total monthly cost at £1,000, £10,000 and £50,000 of sales, card fees included: the card fees, not the subscription, are most of the bill.