Year in Review

SaaS Pricing Year in Review: 2025

2025 was the year SaaS tools stopped pretending to be affordable. Free tiers shrank across categories. AI features became the new upsell. Per-seat pricing climbed. Here is every significant pricing change and what it means for your 2026 budget.

18 min readUpdated March 2026

Biggest Price Increases of 2025

ToolChangeOld PriceNew PriceIncrease
BardeenPro plan$10/mo$99/mo+890%
Ghost(Pro)Starter plan$9/mo$18/mo+100%
Close CRMTier restructure~$25/seat$49/seat+96%
TypeformPlan restructure~$25/mo~$39/mo+56%
SalesforceAll tiersVariousVarious+6%

Free Tier Changes

Mailchimp Free: 2,000 contacts down to 250

The most dramatic free tier reduction. From 2,000 contacts to 250 contacts over two years. Sends limited to 500/month.

Asana Free: 10 users down to 2

Asana Personal free tier went from supporting 10 team members to 2. Teams of 3+ must pay $13.49/seat/month.

Winners: beehiiv, Kit, PostHog

beehiiv Launch held at 2,500 free subscribers. Kit Newsletter held at 10,000 free subscribers. PostHog maintained 1M free events. These free tiers remained genuinely useful.

Tools That Held Prices

  • Make Core: $10.59/month (10,000 ops) — unchanged
  • Pipedrive Lite: $14/seat — unchanged
  • Brevo Starter: $9/month — unchanged
  • ClickUp Unlimited: $10/member — unchanged
  • Linear Standard: $8/seat — unchanged
  • Notion Plus: $12/user — unchanged

The AI Pricing Trend

AI features became the primary upsell mechanism in 2025. Notion AI at $10/user/month add-on. ClickUp Brain at $7/member/month. Intercom Fin AI at $0.99/resolution. Zapier AI actions counting toward task limits. The pattern: AI features are either priced as add-ons or used to justify higher tier pricing.

Predictions for 2026

  • More free tier reductions across all categories
  • AI features will become bundled (not add-ons) as competitive pressure increases
  • Usage-based pricing will grow (PostHog, Make model) at expense of per-seat
  • Expect 5-15% annual increases from enterprise tools (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk)
  • Open-source alternatives (n8n, PostHog, Ghost) will gain share from price-increase fatigue

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