Empirical Market Benchmark 2026953 tools in the catalog
AI Pricing Index 2026: What Artificial Intelligence Really Costs
953 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 analysed953every published catalog entry
Countries of origin40171 cities with a sourced headquarters
Free plan rate50.2%478 tools usable free of charge long term
Median entry price$20per month, 219 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 Ninja, headquarters per the vendor's legal notice, legal pages or company profile. 736 of 953 tools with a sourced country, 597 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.
Source: AI Compare Ninja, analysis of 953 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 Ninja, headquarters per the vendor's legal notice, legal pages or company profile. 736 of 953 tools with a sourced country, 597 of them with a sourced city.
What getting started costs per month
Distribution of monthly entry prices in US dollars. Median: $20; 48.9% start below 20 US dollars.
32
< $10
75
$10-19
49
$20-29
30
$30-49
19
$50-99
8
$100-249
6
$250+
Source: AI Compare Ninja, US list price of the entry paid plan billed monthly, 219 tools.
How many plans a tool offers
Number of sourced plans per tool, including free and enterprise tiers. Median: 4.
1 plan
132
2 plans
86
3 plans
211
4 plans
227
5 plans
116
6+ plans
153
Source: AI Compare Ninja, analysis of 953 catalog entries based on sourced vendor data.
Categories in detail
Tools, free and trial rates plus median and mean monthly entry prices per category.
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 Ninja, US list price of the entry paid plan billed monthly, 219 tools.
Insights and market trends
Every figure is recalculated with each catalog update.
1
Strong concentration on a few locations
Largest country of origin: United States, with 359 of the 736 tools with a sourced origin (48.8%). The five largest countries of origin together make up 77.0%. Cities with the most headquarters: San Francisco (106), Beijing (22) and Singapore (22).
2
Europe's vendor landscape
Vendors headquartered in Europe account for 174 tools (23.6%). European countries with the most tools: Germany (70), United Kingdom (29) and France (12). The free plan rate of European tools is 40.2%, compared with 50.2% across the catalog.
3
Free access depends heavily on the category
50.2% of all tools have a permanent free plan, another 20.5% offer only a trial and 13.0% are paid only. The free plan rate is highest in Development & Code (63.8%) and lowest in Industry, Construction & Logistics (7.7%).
4
Entry prices: widely spread
The median monthly entry price is $20, the mean $40.20. 48.9% of tools with a monthly price start below 20 US dollars, while 6.4% 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 59.3%, median entry price $20 per month. Europe: free plan rate 40.2%, median entry price $20 per month. The figures describe this catalog, not the entire market.
6
Many plans per tool
The median tool offers 4 plans. 53.5% of tools have four or more plans, only 14.3% 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: 14.3% of its tools belong to HR & Recruiting, compared with 2.6% across the catalog. The heatmap above shows the pattern for all large countries of origin.
Methodology & citation
The basis is all 953 published tools in the AI Compare Ninja 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 Ninja, AI Pricing Index 2026 (https://www.aicompare.ninja/en/ai-pricing-index)
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