AI Price Index: Who Raised and Who Lowered Prices
Original data by RightAIChoice · computed from the live catalog, as of October 22, 2026 · October 1, 2026 edition · refreshed monthly · data CC BY 4.0
TL;DR — as of October 22, 2026
In October 2026, 45 AI tools changed a published price — 25 raised and 15 lowered — and the median starting price across the catalog is $19 per month.
- Only confirmed vendor changes count. Every pricing page is re-read on a schedule; a re-read that produced the same plans at the same prices in different words is classified as a re-read, not a change, and is excluded. A change counts only when the same named plan shows a different dollar amount with the same billing unit.
- Across all tracked months, raises outnumber cuts 53 to 33. The category table gives the median cheapest paid monthly plan where a clear monthly dollar price is published (334 of 8,222 tools); "contact sales" and usage-based pricing are left out rather than guessed.
- The biggest movers are listed with the vendor's own before-and-after price text so each row can be checked.
How many AI tools raised or lowered a price each month?
Tools with at least one confirmed vendor price change in the month, where the same plan carried a different dollar amount before and after. "Mixed" = raised one plan and lowered another.
| Month | Tools with a confirmed change | Raised | Lowered | Mixed | Share raised |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 18 | 10 | 6 | fewer than 5 | 55.6% |
| September 2026 | 32 | 18 | 12 | fewer than 5 | 56.3% |
| October 2026 | 45 | 25 | 15 | 5 | 55.6% |
What does an AI tool cost per month, by category?
Median of the cheapest paid monthly plan among tools that publish a clear monthly dollar price. Categories with fewer than ten clearly-priced tools show no median.
| Category | Tools | With a clear monthly price | Median starting price / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automation & Agents | 586 | 33 | $29 |
| Image Generation | 574 | 35 | $14 |
| Code & Development | 457 | 10 | $18.5 |
| AI Video Generation | 443 | 37 | $12.9 |
| Agent Frameworks & Orchestration | 389 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Data & Analytics | 358 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Productivity | 272 | 13 | $22 |
| Sales Prospecting & Outbound | 267 | 14 | $44.5 |
| Document Q&A & Summarizing | 267 | 19 | $9.99 |
| Writing & Content | 256 | 14 | $13 |
| Customer Support | 252 | 14 | $54 |
| Photo Editing & Enhancement | 245 | 14 | $9 |
| Voice & Speech | 236 | 17 | $11.9 |
| Research & Education | 228 | fewer than 10 | — |
| AI App & Website Builders | 225 | 15 | $20 |
| Autonomous Coding Agents | 222 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Developer Infrastructure | 214 | 10 | $20 |
| Voice AI Agents & Phone Automation | 210 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Business Intelligence | 201 | fewer than 10 | — |
| AI Governance & Guardrails | 194 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Video & Audio | 192 | 18 | $15 |
| AI Assistants | 191 | fewer than 10 | — |
| LLM Observability & Evals | 186 | fewer than 10 | — |
| MCP Servers & Agent Tooling | 185 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Business & Finance | 183 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Transcription & Speech-to-Text | 170 | 11 | $15 |
| Music Generation | 170 | 11 | $10.5 |
| Social Media Management | 169 | 17 | $22 |
| Ecommerce & Retail | 165 | 10 | $30 |
| Short-Form & Faceless Video | 157 | 17 | $15 |
| Everyday Life | 154 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Marketing & SEO | 151 | 11 | $41 |
| Ad Creative & Media Buying | 150 | 11 | $29 |
| Healthcare | 150 | fewer than 10 | — |
| 3D Generation & Scanning | 145 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Fun Photo & Video Apps | 145 | none recorded | — |
| Computer Vision | 144 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Graphic Design | 143 | 14 | $12.75 |
| Notes & Knowledge Management | 142 | 12 | $10 |
| Agent Memory & Runtimes | 139 | fewer than 10 | — |
| LLM App Frameworks & SDKs | 136 | none recorded | — |
| Local & On-Device AI | 134 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Market & Competitive Intelligence | 131 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Chatbot Builders | 128 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Study Tools | 120 | fewer than 10 | — |
| AI Avatars & Talking Video | 116 | 14 | $24.13 |
| Document AI & Data Extraction | 116 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Browser & Computer-Use Agents | 115 | fewer than 10 | — |
| GPU Cloud & Model Inference | 114 | fewer than 10 | — |
| CRM | 113 | fewer than 10 | — |
| AI Digital Workers | 112 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Multi-Model AI Chat | 110 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Meeting Assistants & Notetakers | 108 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Supply Chain & Logistics | 107 | none recorded | — |
| Audio Editing & Production | 105 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Presentations & Slides | 105 | 18 | $15.45 |
| Investing & Market Research | 104 | fewer than 10 | — |
| Translation & Localization | 101 | fewer than 10 | — |
Which AI tools changed a price the most in the last 90 days?
Confirmed vendor changes to a named plan, same billing unit on both sides, largest percentage move first. Both price strings are shown exactly as the vendor published them.
| Tool | Plan | Before | After | Change | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zarla AI Website Builder | Premium Website Builder | $2.99/mo (36-month prepaid) | $10.99/mo (36-month prepay, $395.64 total; $29/mo | +267.6% | September 21, 2026 |
| One More Shot | Hyper | $83.50/mo (billed yearly, $100 monthly) | $214.92/mo billed yearly ($269/mo monthly) | +157.4% | September 22, 2026 |
| Clarm | Team | $2,000/mo | $5,000/mo | +150% | October 8, 2026 |
| ZeroBounce | Pay-As-You-Go | From $16 per 2,000 credits | From $39 for 2,000 credits | +143.8% | September 14, 2026 |
| Zarla AI Website Builder | Business Website Builder | $6.99/mo (36-month prepaid) | $16.99/mo (36-month prepay, $611.64 total; $49/mo | +143.1% | September 21, 2026 |
| SigmaMind MCP | Pay as you go | $0.04/min voice AI, $0.005 per AI message | $0.096/min voice AI, $0.006 per chat message | +140% | October 9, 2026 |
| Riveter | Pay as you go | $25 | $60 one-time (2,000 credits) | +140% | September 27, 2026 |
| Riveter | Pay as you go | $50 | $120 one-time (4,000 credits) | +140% | September 27, 2026 |
| DataFeedWatch | Shop | $29/mo (billed yearly) or $35/mo (monthly) | $64/mo (yearly) or $77/mo (monthly) | +120.7% | August 21, 2026 |
| Minvo | Creator | $3.49/mo (yearly) or $6.99/mo (monthly) | $7.49/mo (annual) or $9.99/mo (monthly) | +114.6% | September 23, 2026 |
| Cosmic AI Agents | Builder | $49/mo | $99/mo | +102% | September 14, 2026 |
| LabFig | Starter (Monthly) | $9.9/mo month-to-month | $19.9/mo | +101% | October 13, 2026 |
| Kompozy | Starter | $99/mo | $199/mo | +101% | October 9, 2026 |
| Clippie AI | Lite | $9.99/mo | $19.99/mo | +100.1% | August 25, 2026 |
| Clippie AI | Pro Max | $34.99/mo | $69.99/mo | +100% | August 25, 2026 |
Related
How is this report computed?
Every published tool's pricing page is re-read on a rolling schedule (deep-refresh). Each write to the pricing record is kept in tool_state_history with the previous and new value.
Each pricing change is classified (tool_change_origin) as a vendor change, a re-wording, an extraction difference, a first capture, or a capture error. This report reads only rows whose latest classification is "vendor change".
Within those rows, plans are matched by name (case-insensitive). A pair counts only when both prices parse as a US-dollar amount, both carry the same billing unit (monthly, yearly, or other; per-seat is treated as its own unit), and the amounts differ. Moves larger than 4x are treated as a plan restructure and excluded from the movers list.
As-of date: October 22, 2026, the newest confirmed vendor change read. Median prices use the catalog as it stands on that date.
Sources. tools (pricing_details) · tool_state_history (field = pricing_details) · tool_change_origin · categories / tool_categories · SQL function research_price_index()
How this report is made: every number is computed directly from the RightAIChoice catalog by a fixed database query (named under Sources) — no number on this page is estimated or generated by a language model. The explanatory text is drafted with a mixture of AI models and reviewed by a human editor before publication. Report rows describe what we observed on the dates shown; they are not verdicts about any vendor.
Download the data
Every table on this page, as of October 22, 2026(CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution).
Cite as: RightAIChoice, “AI Price Index: Who Raised and Who Lowered Prices” (as of 2026-10-22) — https://rightaichoice.com/research/ai-price-index · License: CC BY 4.0
FAQ
What counts as a price change here?
A confirmed vendor change: our scheduled re-read of the pricing page produced a different dollar amount for the same named plan, with the same billing unit (monthly to monthly, yearly to yearly), and the change classifier marked it as a vendor change rather than a re-wording, an extraction difference, or a capture error. Plan renames, new plans and removed plans are not counted as price changes.
Why are there so few changes compared with the number of tools?
Because most pricing pages do not change in a given month, and because the bar is high: of every pricing re-read we record, the overwhelming majority are the same prices in different words, and those are deliberately excluded. The figures here are the ones a buyer would notice on an invoice.
How is the median starting price computed?
For each tool we take the cheapest plan with a non-zero monthly dollar price; free plans and "contact sales" plans are skipped. The median is across tools in the category that have such a plan. Annual-only prices are not converted to monthly, so categories where vendors quote yearly will look under-represented.
Can I use or cite this data?
Yes. The tables on this page and the JSON and CSV files linked from it are published under CC BY 4.0 — free to use, including commercially, with attribution. Cite "RightAIChoice" with a link to this page and the as-of date shown at the top.
How often is this report updated?
A new edition is computed on the first of every month from the live catalog. Each edition carries the date of the newest observation it read, so a quoted figure can always be tied to a date.