Original research · updated daily
State of AI tool pricing 2026
What 12,821 AI tools charge, and how many are free. Every number below is computed from the ToolCompass catalog, where prices are recorded from vendors' pricing pages and each tool carries its check date.
Key findings
- The median starting price of a paid AI tool is $19.00 a month (middle half: $9.99 to $39.00), across 4,248 tools with a published monthly price.
- 54% of priced tools start under $20 a month.
- 45% of all 12,821 tools offer an ongoing free plan, and 56% of the tools that also have a paid plan do.
- Code has the highest share of tools with a free plan (62%), and Voice & music has the lowest median starting price ($12.40).
- 28% of tools publish two or more plans; the rest list a single price or none.
How starting prices are distributed
Share of tools with a published monthly price, by starting price.
Most common prices
By task
A tool can cover more than one task, so groups overlap.
By category
The ten largest categories (at least 40 tools).
Method and limits
Snapshot generated 2026-10-07. The main figures cover 12,821 visible catalog records, including records with incomplete evidence. Missing prices are excluded from price statistics.
For comparison, the source-level-2-or-higher subset contains 12,821 records, with 4,248 recorded prices and a median of $19.00. This is a narrower catalog sample, not a separately completed vendor audit. We do not infer historical price changes from a single snapshot.
- “Starting price” is the lowest published monthly USD price of a paid plan. Where a vendor lists only annual billing we record the per-month figure it shows and label it as annual.
- Only 33% of the 12,821 tools have a published monthly price. The rest sell through quotes, free tiers or pages we could not confirm, and are left out of every price statistic rather than guessed.
- 100% of records have catalog source level 2 or higher. This classification does not establish that every price was checked today. Confirm the individual evidence date and vendor checkout before buying.
- Free plans are ongoing free tiers. Free trials and one-time credits are not counted.
Use this data
The underlying dataset is open under CC BY 4.0: use it, chart it, cite it. Please credit “ToolCompass” and link to this page.
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ToolCompass. "State of AI tool pricing 2026." https://aitoolcompass.net/research/ai-tool-pricing
Common questions
How much do AI tools cost on average?
Among the 4,248 tools with a published monthly price, the median starting price is $19.00 a month and the average is $75.08. The average is pulled up by a few enterprise-priced tools, so the median is the better guide.
What share of AI tools have a free plan?
45% of the 12,821 tools we track offer an ongoing free plan. Free trials are not counted.
What are the most common AI tool prices?
The most common starting prices are $19.00, $29.00, $20.00, $10.00 a month.
Where does this data come from and how often is it updated?
This report uses recorded catalog prices with varying source coverage. Check each tool’s evidence and billing interval. It is recalculated daily from the catalog (last built 2026-10-07). The full dataset is open under CC BY 4.0.