Original research
SaaS pricing models: what 100 pricing pages actually show
Of 100 SaaS pricing pages captured in October 2026, 43 mainly price per seat, 36 charge a flat fee and 47 have a contact-sales tier. See what that means.
The most common SaaS pricing model is still per seat. In our catalog of 100 SaaS pricing pages, captured from 2 to 7 October 2026, 43 mainly price by seat, 36 mainly charge a flat fee per account, site or workspace, 4 mainly price by usage, and 17 list no ordinary plan price.
Most pages combine models. 49 offer a free plan, 47 have a contact-sales tier and 25 have both, so the model name tells you only part of what you would pay.
Which models 100 pages use
| Main model | Pages | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Per seat | 43 | Notion, Slack, Asana, GitHub, Figma |
| Flat fee per account, site or workspace | 36 | Webflow, Shopify, Ahrefs, Vercel, Zapier |
| Usage or volume | 4 | Datadog, Hotjar, Constant Contact, Oracle Fusion |
| No ordinary plan price listed | 17 | 11 show usage rates or estimators, 5 are sales-only, 1 shows a trial and a quote |
A flat fee is not always fixed. Many marketing tools in this group raise the price with contact count, and developer platforms often add usage on top, so 5 flat-fee pages also list usage rates.
What each model means for your bill
| Model | What drives the bill | What to check first |
|---|---|---|
| Per seat | People who need access | Who counts as billable, seat minimums and true-ups. See per-seat vs per-user pricing. |
| Flat fee | Plan limits on sites, contacts or features | What happens when you pass a limit, and whether the listed price is a starting tier. |
| Usage | Events, hosts, credits or other meters | The meter, the included allowance and overage. See usage-based pricing. |
| Contact sales | A negotiated quote | Minimum commitment and renewal terms. See list price vs quote vs invoice. |
Models can change for the same product. Render's changelog records a move from USD 19 per member to a flat USD 25 Pro plan. A one-person team pays more after that change and a team of ten pays less, so keep a dated record of the terms you compared.
Free plans, sales tiers and billing
- Free plans. 49 of 100 pages list one. Check the limits and how a free trial differs from a free plan.
- Contact-sales tiers. 47 of 100 have one, and 5 pages are sales-only with no listed amount or free option: Smartsheet, ServiceNow, Similarweb, 1Password and ADP. That was how each page's captured scope read on the day, and other pages from the same vendor may differ.
- Annual billing. 66 of the 83 pages with a listed plan price show at least one price on an annual basis. Compare it with the monthly option and the commitment, because the lower number usually requires a longer term.
- Tax. Only 38 of the 364 plan rows we captured say whether tax is included: 35 excluded and 3 included. For the rest, the capture records tax as unknown.
How the mix changes by category
| Category | Pages | Per seat | Flat fee | Usage or no plan price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project management | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 |
| Development | 11 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| Marketing | 8 | 0 | 6 | 2 |
| Support | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Design | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Analytics | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
These groups are small, so treat them as a pattern to check and not a benchmark. The direction makes sense: project tools sell access for people, marketing tools sell capacity, and analytics tools meter what they process.
Read a pricing page in four checks
- Find the unit. Write down what one price buys: a seat, a site, a workspace or a number of events.
- Find the term. Note whether the number assumes annual billing, and what monthly billing costs.
- Find the wall. Identify the limit or feature that moves you up a plan. Security features are a common one, as our look at SSO pricing shows.
- Model your own case. Enter your people, usage and term in a same-basis comparison, then add first-year costs with the total cost worksheet.
You can browse the public records for dated source links.
How we measured this
- Source. Our catalog of 100 well-known SaaS products, with one first-party pricing page captured for each between 2 and 7 October 2026. The sample is not random and leans towards large brands.
- Status. Plan summaries are automated. They are not human-reviewed, and a page may have changed since capture. Each product's record shows its source and date.
- Classification. We sorted each listed plan by its stated unit and took the most common unit as the page's main model. A page's scope can be one product or suite, not the vendor's whole range.
- Location. Pages were captured from Finland, so currencies and terms can differ elsewhere.
SaaS pricing model questions
What is the most common SaaS pricing model?
Per seat was the most common main model in our sample, on 43 of 100 pages, followed by a flat fee per account, site or workspace on 36.
How many SaaS companies hide their pricing?
In our sample, 47 of 100 pages had a contact-sales tier, but only 5 were sales-only with no listed amount or free option. Most show some prices and hold back the top tier.
Is usage-based pricing replacing per-seat pricing?
This snapshot cannot show a trend. Few pages used usage as the main model for listed plans, though 18 pages listed usage rates somewhere, often alongside plans.