Free-Tier Tracker: Which AI Tools Went Paid, and Which Opened Up
Original data by RightAIChoice · computed from the live catalog, as of October 23, 2026 · October 1, 2026 edition · refreshed monthly · data CC BY 4.0
TL;DR — as of October 23, 2026
In October 2026, 332 AI tools closed a free option and 200 opened one; today 71.6% of 8,222 tracked tools offer a free way in.
- Every tool carries one of four pricing models — fully free, a free plan with paid tiers, paid only, or contact sales — re-derived each time its pricing page is re-read. This report tracks the moves between them.
- A move counts only when it is stable: the tool did not flip back within 30 days and still carries the new model on the as-of date. The raw count of recorded moves is shown beside it so the filter is visible rather than hidden.
- On October 23, 2026, 5,887 of 8,222 tools offered a free plan or were fully free.
How many AI tools dropped or added a free option each month?
"Closed" = moved from free or free-plan+paid to paid-only or contact-sales; "opened" = the reverse. Only stable moves count: the tool did not flip again within 30 days and still carries the new model today.
| Month | Closed a free option | Opened a free option | Became fully free | Left fully free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 107 | 88 | fewer than 5 | 17 |
| September 2026 | 39 | 142 | 42 | 28 |
| October 2026 | 332 | 200 | 44 | 60 |
How many AI tools are free today?
Pricing model of every published tool on the as-of date.
| Pricing model | Tools | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Fully free | 1,368 | 16.6% |
| Free plan + paid tiers | 4,519 | 55% |
| Paid only | 1,087 | 13.2% |
| Contact sales | 1,248 | 15.2% |
Which pricing-model moves are most common?
All months combined. "Recorded" is every observed transition; "stable" is those that held for 30 days and still hold.
| From | To | Recorded | Stable |
|---|---|---|---|
| free plan + paid | paid only | 632 | 438 |
| paid only | free plan + paid | 471 | 342 |
| free | free plan + paid | 116 | 95 |
| free plan + paid | free | 84 | 78 |
| contact sales | free plan + paid | 90 | 77 |
| contact sales | paid only | 69 | 60 |
| free plan + paid | contact sales | 47 | 30 |
| paid only | contact sales | 26 | 19 |
| free | paid only | 10 | 9 |
| contact sales | free | 9 | 9 |
| paid only | free | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
| free | contact sales | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
Which categories are closing free options fastest (last 90 days)?
Stable moves in the last 90 days by category. Categories with fewer than five moves in a column show a phrase instead of a count.
| Category | Tools | Closed a free option | Opened a free option |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Video Generation | 443 | 48 | 26 |
| Automation & Agents | 586 | 45 | 44 |
| Image Generation | 574 | 38 | 31 |
| Ad Creative & Media Buying | 150 | 34 | 16 |
| Sales Prospecting & Outbound | 267 | 33 | 35 |
| Customer Support | 252 | 28 | 24 |
| Ecommerce & Retail | 165 | 28 | 11 |
| Marketing & SEO | 151 | 28 | 26 |
| Social Media Management | 169 | 20 | 19 |
| Short-Form & Faceless Video | 157 | 19 | 10 |
| Voice & Speech | 236 | 18 | 13 |
| Voice AI Agents & Phone Automation | 210 | 18 | 21 |
| Video & Audio | 192 | 17 | 11 |
| Business & Finance | 183 | 17 | 11 |
| Data & Analytics | 358 | 16 | 24 |
| Writing & Content | 256 | 15 | 15 |
| AI App & Website Builders | 225 | 14 | 7 |
| Autonomous Coding Agents | 222 | 14 | 7 |
| Chatbot Builders | 128 | 14 | 10 |
| AI Digital Workers | 112 | 14 | 13 |
| Document Q&A & Summarizing | 267 | 13 | 8 |
| Photo Editing & Enhancement | 245 | 13 | 12 |
| Transcription & Speech-to-Text | 170 | 13 | 11 |
| CRM | 113 | 13 | 13 |
| Productivity | 272 | 11 | 17 |
| Music Generation | 170 | 11 | 6 |
| Market & Competitive Intelligence | 131 | 11 | 16 |
| AI Avatars & Talking Video | 116 | 11 | 10 |
| Code & Development | 457 | 10 | 12 |
| Audio Editing & Production | 105 | 10 | 5 |
| Developer Infrastructure | 214 | 9 | 7 |
| Business Intelligence | 201 | 9 | 13 |
| Graphic Design | 143 | 9 | 8 |
| Multi-Model AI Chat | 110 | 9 | 7 |
| Agent Frameworks & Orchestration | 389 | 8 | 16 |
| Research & Education | 228 | 8 | 7 |
| 3D Generation & Scanning | 145 | 8 | fewer than 5 |
| Study Tools | 120 | 8 | none recorded |
| GPU Cloud & Model Inference | 114 | 8 | 13 |
| Meeting Assistants & Notetakers | 108 | 8 | 8 |
| Healthcare | 150 | 7 | 12 |
| Presentations & Slides | 105 | 7 | 5 |
| Browser & Computer-Use Agents | 115 | 6 | fewer than 5 |
| AI Assistants | 191 | 5 | 8 |
| Local & On-Device AI | 134 | 5 | fewer than 5 |
| AI Governance & Guardrails | 194 | fewer than 5 | 10 |
| Notes & Knowledge Management | 142 | fewer than 5 | 8 |
| Document AI & Data Extraction | 116 | fewer than 5 | 7 |
| Supply Chain & Logistics | 107 | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
| Translation & Localization | 101 | fewer than 5 | 8 |
| LLM Observability & Evals | 186 | fewer than 5 | 8 |
| MCP Servers & Agent Tooling | 185 | fewer than 5 | 6 |
| Everyday Life | 154 | fewer than 5 | 5 |
| Fun Photo & Video Apps | 145 | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
| LLM App Frameworks & SDKs | 136 | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
| Computer Vision | 144 | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
| Agent Memory & Runtimes | 139 | fewer than 5 | fewer than 5 |
| Investing & Market Research | 104 | fewer than 5 | 11 |
How is this report computed?
Each tool's pricing model (free, freemium, paid, contact) is set from its pricing page on every scheduled re-read. Every change is written to tool_state_history with the previous and new value.
A transition is "stable" when the tool's pricing model today equals the new value AND no further pricing-model change was recorded within 30 days of it. Transitions on tools no longer published are excluded.
Categories are the tool's assigned categories; a tool in two categories counts in both. Only categories with at least 100 published tools are listed.
As-of date: October 23, 2026, the newest pricing-model change read.
Sources. tools (pricing_type) · tool_state_history (field = pricing_type) · categories / tool_categories · SQL function research_free_tier_tracker()
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 23, 2026(CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution).
Cite as: RightAIChoice, “Free-Tier Tracker: Which AI Tools Went Paid, and Which Opened Up” (as of 2026-10-23) — https://rightaichoice.com/research/free-tier-tracker · License: CC BY 4.0
FAQ
What is the difference between "free" and "free plan + paid"?
"Fully free" tools publish no paid plan at all (often open-source or ad-supported). "Free plan + paid tiers" tools publish a free plan alongside paid ones — the common freemium model. Both count as "offering a free option"; moving from either to paid-only or contact-sales counts as closing it.
Why do you discount moves that flip back within 30 days?
Because a pricing page can be mis-read once — a temporary promotion, a region-specific page, or a layout change can make a plan look free or paid for one read. Requiring the new model to hold for 30 days, and still hold today, removes those. The "recorded" column keeps the unfiltered count honest.
Does closing a free option mean the tool got more expensive?
Not necessarily — it means the free entry point was removed or replaced by a trial or a sales conversation. Price levels are tracked separately in the AI Price Index.
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.