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Empirical Market Benchmark 2026 748 tools in the catalog

AI Pricing Index 2026: What Artificial Intelligence Really Costs

748 AI tools analysed: origin on a world map down to city level, categories, free plan rates and entry prices, calculated from sourced vendor data.

Tools analysed 748 every published catalog entry
Countries of origin 40 164 cities with a sourced headquarters
Free plan rate 54.5% 408 tools usable free of charge long term
Median entry price $20 per month, 214 tools with a US monthly price

World map: where AI vendors are based

Click a continent or country to zoom in. Inside a country you see the headquarters cities and the tools behind them. The colour shows how many tools come from each country.

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Tools per country12-45-1415-4950-149150+Cities

Source: AI Compare, headquarters per the vendor's legal notice, legal pages or company profile. 640 of 748 tools with a sourced country, 518 of them with a sourced city.

Categories: how the tools are distributed

Choose a category in the chart or legend. Below it you see its subcategories and every tool in them.

748tools in total

Subcategories of Productivity

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231 tools · 30.9% of the catalog

Assistants & workspaces77
Project management & forms22
Automation & AI agents20
Sales & CRM19
Customer service & chat19
Meetings, notes & planning15
Data analysis & BI12
Education & learning11
Science & research10
Research & knowledge work9
Data pipelines & reporting4
Legal & contracts4
Website & presentation builders4
Marketing automation & CRM3
Email assistants2

Source: AI Compare, analysis of 748 catalog entries based on sourced vendor data.

The largest subcategories

The 15 subcategories with the most tools, coloured by main category.

Source: AI Compare, analysis of 748 catalog entries based on sourced vendor data.

Cities with the most AI vendors

Headquarters by city. Click a city to show it on the world map. Some US vendors list only a registered address as their seat, for example in Wilmington or Dover, Delaware.

Source: AI Compare, headquarters per the vendor's legal notice, legal pages or company profile. 640 of 748 tools with a sourced country, 518 of them with a sourced city.

What getting started costs per month

Distribution of monthly entry prices in US dollars. Median: $20; 47.2% start below 20 US dollars.

30
< $10
71
$10-19
48
$20-29
31
$30-49
22
$50-99
7
$100-249
5
$250+

Source: AI Compare, US list price of the entry paid plan billed monthly, 214 tools.

How many plans a tool offers

Number of sourced plans per tool, including free and enterprise tiers. Median: 4.

1 plan
89
2 plans
79
3 plans
160
4 plans
197
5 plans
97
6+ plans
126

Source: AI Compare, analysis of 748 catalog entries based on sourced vendor data.

Categories in detail

Tools, free and trial rates plus median and mean monthly entry prices per category.

Category Tools Free plan Trial Median price/month Avg. price/month
Productivity 231 54.1% 20.3% $19 $37.28
Development & Code 159 69.8% 10.7% $24.50 $45.75
Design & Image 74 58.1% 16.2% $12 $16.58
Content & SEO 73 37.0% 47.9% $25 $37.72
Audio & Voice 60 65.0% 8.3% $16 $42.91
Media & Video 56 64.3% 8.9% $18 $28.09
Business & Finance 51 35.3% 27.5% $99 $97
HR & Recruiting 22 9.1% 63.6% $57 $104.25
Industry, Construction & Logistics 12 8.3% 25.0% - -
Agriculture, Energy & Tourism 10 60.0% 10.0% - -

Median: the middle value of the sorted prices, resistant to single outliers. Average price (mean): sum of all prices divided by the number of tools.

Source: AI Compare, US list price of the entry paid plan billed monthly, 214 tools.

Every figure is recalculated with each catalog update.

1

Strong concentration on a few locations

Largest country of origin: United States, with 341 of the 640 tools with a sourced origin (53.3%). The five largest countries of origin together make up 76.9%. Cities with the most headquarters: San Francisco (105), New York (20) and London (18).

2

Europe's vendor landscape

Vendors headquartered in Europe account for 169 tools (26.4%). European countries with the most tools: Germany (69), United Kingdom (26) and France (12). The free plan rate of European tools is 40.8%, compared with 54.5% across the catalog.

3

Free access depends heavily on the category

54.5% of all tools have a permanent free plan, another 20.5% offer only a trial and 15.8% are paid only. The free plan rate is highest in Development & Code (69.8%) and lowest in Industry, Construction & Logistics (8.3%).

4

Entry prices: widely spread

The median monthly entry price is $20, the mean $38.74. 47.2% of tools with a monthly price start below 20 US dollars, while 5.6% charge 100 US dollars or more. By median, the most expensive category is Business & Finance ($99) and the most affordable Design & Image ($12).

5

The US and Europe side by side

United States: free plan rate 60.7%, median entry price $20 per month. Europe: free plan rate 40.8%, median entry price $21.50 per month. The figures describe this catalog, not the entire market.

6

Many plans per tool

The median tool offers 4 plans. 56.1% of tools have four or more plans, only 11.9% exactly one. For comparisons it therefore pays to look at the matching plan rather than the entry price alone.

7

National focus areas

The clearest specialisation among the large countries of origin, Germany: 14.5% of its tools belong to HR & Recruiting, compared with 2.9% across the catalog. The heatmap above shows the pattern for all large countries of origin.

Methodology & citation

The basis is all 748 published tools in the AI Compare catalog. Prices, plans and free offers come from the vendors' official pricing pages. The entry price is the US list price of the entry paid plan; only plans billed monthly are included.

Headquarters come from the vendor's legal notice, legal pages, company register or company profile. The company address stated there counts, not the founders' origin. Tools without a sourced headquarters do not appear on the map.

Media, researchers and bloggers may use the figures freely with attribution:

Source: AI Compare, AI Pricing Index 2026 (https://www.aicompare.ninja/en/ai-pricing-index)

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