The price on a SaaS pricing page is the most confident-looking number a vendor publishes, and it is usually the least durable.
The model underneath it is moving, from seats to usage to hybrid to outcomes, and half of 350 UK software executives surveyed in 2026 said their company had changed its pricing at least twice in the past year.8
Mystery Demo takes competitors’ sales demos as a credible buyer and records the pricing model the rep quotes once the call gets real. Your team gets it on one board, beside the model the competitor’s site advertises. The figures below come from public research, each re-checked against the source that first published it and footnoted to it; if you keep only a handful, keep these:
How B2B SaaS Prices in 2026
For a team benchmarking competitors, start with the structural snapshot, because the popular mental model is a decade out of date. The flat per-seat subscription is no longer the whole story, it is just the largest single slice of a much more fragmented picture. Among the 563 B2B SaaS companies in Benchmarkit’s 2025 survey:1
| Primary pricing model | Share of participants |
|---|---|
| Pure subscription | 61.2%1 |
| Subscription plus usage | 24.5%1 |
| Usage-based | 7.5%1 |
| Subscription plus outcome | 3.8%1 |
| Outcome-based | 2.9%1 |
Entry models are a separate choice:
Among AI products, the mix is already moving: 58% of AI companies in ICONIQ’s survey of about 300 builders still include a subscription or platform component, while consumption-based (35%) and outcome-based (18%) pricing are climbing.13 The rest of the market has fragmented into hybrid, usage and outcome models that no longer read as experiments.
Usage-Based Pricing Stopped Being a Fringe Idea
For years usage-based pricing was the thing analysts predicted and founders postponed. By 2025 the founders had stopped postponing.
Treat the highest figure with a little care. It comes from a billing vendor surveying its own corner of the market, and “having usage-based pricing” can mean anything from a metered add-on to a full consumption model.
The honest read is not the exact percentage in any single year. It is that a model most founders called risky in 2020 is now the default assumption, and the holdouts are the ones who have to explain themselves.
In Practice, Usage-Based Means Hybrid
Most companies that adopt usage pricing keep the subscription. They bolt usage onto it: in the 2026 PwC and m3ter survey of 350+ software leaders, 72% of companies running usage-based pricing use a hybrid model, against 28% pricing on consumption alone, and 52% of all companies surveyed now run usage-based pricing in production rather than as a trial.5
Growth and retention point in slightly different directions, depending on the source and year:
| Source | Data | Measure | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maxio | 2025 report | Median growth by model | Hybrid highest, 21%6 |
| Benchmarkit | 2024 | Median growth by model | Usage-based 44%, subscription 25%1 |
| Benchmarkit | 2025 report | Median net revenue retention | Hybrid 110%, above usage or subscription alone1 |
| Aleph and Benchmarkit | Full-year 2025 | Median net revenue retention | Usage-based 108%, seat-based 98%2 |
That is worth holding next to the adoption numbers. Whatever the cause, usage and hybrid models line up in these datasets with the two metrics every board watches, growth and retention.
How SaaS Gets Billed: Annual, Monthly, and Multi-Year
Pricing model is what you pay for. Billing is when and how often you pay, and ChartMogul’s data on 2,500 SaaS companies, cut by annual recurring revenue (ARR) and average revenue per account (ARPA), overturns a common assumption that bigger companies always skew toward annual prepay:7
| Segment | Share of ARR from annual plans | Share from monthly plans |
|---|---|---|
| By size: $3M to $8M ARR (the annual peak) | 47%7 | Not given |
| By size: $15M to $30M ARR | 28%7 | 72% |
| By price point: $1,000+ ARPA | 55%7 | 34% |
The size rows cover companies that offer both billing options, and offering both is the norm: 78% of early-stage SaaS companies do, rising to 95% at $8M to $15M ARR.7 Contracts are lengthening at the same time:
The two trends look contradictory and are not. Contracts are getting longer, with multi-year deals nearly tripling since 2022, while billing gets more frequent, which fits usage that is metered and invoiced in shorter cycles.
A modern SaaS company often does both at once: a three-year commitment, billed in pieces, with a usage meter running underneath. The single annual invoice is no longer the shape of the category.
Pricing Has Become a Moving Target
The old world set a list price and revisited it grudgingly; for anyone tracking a competitor, today’s market reprices on a schedule that would have looked reckless five years ago. Prices keep moving:
The rate has kept climbing. In Vertice’s 2026 data, SaaS inflation hit a record 16.4% in June, eased to 12.9% in July and 12.7% in August, and early September data put it back at 14.3%.10
A list price is now a snapshot with a short shelf life, and Vertice’s aggregate rate has stayed in double digits in every month shown. For anyone tracking a competitor’s pricing, a number captured six months ago may already be out of date.
List Price Is the Opening Bid
All of which leads to the gap that defines pricing intelligence: the distance between the number a vendor publishes and the number a buyer pays. In Vertice’s Q3 2026 data, buyers saved more than 24% off list in all 16 software categories, from 24.38% in IT infrastructure to 41.54% in AI.11
A gap that size is no accident: many vendors print a list price partly so they have something to discount from, and the published figure works as an anchor rather than a quote. That is the single most useful thing to understand about SaaS pricing pages: many are built to be the high end of a range, not the price.
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You can read every benchmark in this article and still not know how your three closest competitors price, because the numbers that matter are quoted on live calls, not printed on pages. Below is one competitor’s page from our example board, where the company and every competitor on it are invented.
On a real project, the analysis on that page, floor price included, is written from the calls. Mystery Demo takes those calls for you and hands back the model they quote, the cadence they push, and the discount they reach for before you even ask. Our SaaS competitor pricing research turns them into a side-by-side you can price against.
The model on a pricing page is an opening position. The model quoted on a call is the real one, and most teams have never heard a rival say it out loud. Let us take the call for you, and you will have both.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common B2B SaaS pricing model?
61.2% of the 563 companies in Benchmarkit’s 2025 survey use pure subscription, followed by subscription plus usage at 24.5% and usage-based at 7.5%.1
How many SaaS companies use usage-based pricing?
45% did in OpenView’s 2021 report.3 In Metronome’s 2025 survey, a vendor survey with a broad definition, 85% of respondents said they already had it.4
Is usage-based pricing usually pure or hybrid?
72% of companies running usage-based pricing use a hybrid model, a subscription base plus usage, against 28% on consumption alone.5
Do usage-based SaaS companies grow faster?
44% median growth for primarily usage-based companies in Benchmarkit’s 2024 data, against 25% for subscription companies.1 In Maxio’s data, hybrid posts the highest median growth at 21%.6
Which pricing model has the best net revenue retention?
110% median net revenue retention for hybrid in Benchmarkit’s 2025 report.1 The 2026 edition puts usage-based at 108% against 98% for seat-based.2
What share of SaaS revenue comes from annual versus monthly billing?
47% of ARR comes from annual plans at the peak, companies with $3M to $8M ARR, among those offering both billing options; at $15M to $30M ARR it is 28%, with 72% from monthly.7
How common are multi-year SaaS contracts?
40% of SaaS agreements in Maxio’s 2025 data, up from 14% in 2022.6
How often do SaaS companies change their pricing?
Half of 350 UK software executives said their company changed pricing at least twice in the past year.8
What is the current SaaS price inflation rate?
14.3% in preliminary early-September 2026 data, after a record 16.4% in June, in Vertice’s data.10
How big is the gap between SaaS list price and what buyers pay?
More than 24% off list in all 16 software categories in Vertice’s Q3 2026 data, up to 41.54% in AI.11
Is a free trial or freemium more common in SaaS?
57% of products use a free trial as their main entry point against 26% for freemium.12
How is AI changing SaaS pricing models?
58% of AI companies still include a subscription or platform component, while consumption (35%) and outcome-based (18%) pricing grow, and 37% plan to change their AI pricing within a year.13
References
- Benchmarkit with Pavilion: 2025 B2B SaaS Performance Metrics Benchmarks (2025)
- Aleph and Benchmarkit: Net Revenue Retention Benchmarks for SaaS in 2026 (2026)
- OpenView: Usage-Based Pricing Adoption Up 32% (2021)
- Metronome with Greyhound Capital: State of Usage-Based Pricing 2025 (2025)
- m3ter with PwC UK: Is Usage-Based Pricing Right for My SaaS Business? (2026)
- Maxio, powered by Benchmarkit: 2025 Pricing Trends Report: Usage-Based Models and SaaS Growth (2025)
- ChartMogul: SaaS Billing Report (2025)
- m3ter with PwC UK: Revenue Integrity and Usage-Based Pricing Survey (2026)
- Vertice: 2023 SaaS Inflation Index (2023)
- Vertice: SaaS Inflation Rate: 2026 (2026)
- Vertice: Average Discount From List Price: 2026 (2026)
- ChartMogul: The Conversion Report: Benchmarks for Trials, Freemium, and Conversion in 2026 (2026)
- ICONIQ: 2026 State of AI: Bi-Annual Snapshot (2026)
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