AI Compare Ninja AI Compare Ninja

Check prices, features and limits.

Pricing market
Automatic
Language
EN
Empirical Market Benchmark 2026 953 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 analysed 953 every published catalog entry
Countries of origin 40 171 cities with a sourced headquarters
Free plan rate 50.2% 478 tools usable free of charge long term
Median entry price $20 per 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.

Zoom
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.

953tools in total

Subcategories of Productivity

Open category →

284 tools · 29.8% of the catalog

Assistants & workspaces100
Automation & AI agents28
Customer service & chat25
Project management & forms23
Sales & CRM21
Data analysis & BI18
Meetings, notes & planning15
Education & learning12
Research & knowledge work12
Science & research12
Data pipelines & reporting5
Legal & contracts4
Website & presentation builders4
Marketing automation & CRM3
Email assistants2

Source: AI Compare Ninja, analysis of 953 catalog entries based on sourced vendor data.

The largest subcategories

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

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.

Category Tools Free plan Trial Median price/month Avg. price/month
Productivity 284 51.4% 20.8% $19 $35.95
Development & Code 188 63.8% 10.6% $24.50 $57
Design & Image 120 48.3% 15.8% $12 $15.59
Content & SEO 92 39.1% 43.5% $25 $37.58
Media & Video 88 47.7% 15.9% $20 $27.85
Audio & Voice 79 60.8% 11.4% $16 $39.23
Business & Finance 54 33.3% 29.6% $99 $95.60
HR & Recruiting 25 12.0% 56.0% $99 $113.38
Industry, Construction & Logistics 13 7.7% 23.1% - -
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 Ninja, US list price of the entry paid plan billed monthly, 219 tools.

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)

For press or research enquiries, reach us via About · Contact.