Who publishes a price, and who makes you ask
Of the 117 business software products we currently track, 88 publish a price you can read without speaking to anyone. That is 75%.
Why this number matters more than it looks
A published price is not just a convenience. It sets the floor for what a buyer can compare without entering a sales process, and it tells you something about who the product is built for. Vendors that publish tend to be selling to the person who will use the software. Vendors that quote are usually selling to a committee, and the price you are given depends on what they learn about your budget before they name it.
The pattern is visible per category. Categories aimed at small teams skew towards published pricing; categories bought by procurement skew towards quotes.
By category
| Category | Published | Quoted | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM | 4 | 3 | 7 |
| Email marketing | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Ecommerce platforms | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Website builders | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| HR Software | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| Accounting software | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Payroll software | 6 | 2 | 8 |
| Applicant tracking | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| Project Management | 6 | 0 | 7 |
| ERP | 2 | 6 | 8 |
| Help desk | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Business intelligence | 5 | 3 | 8 |
| Password managers | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Endpoint security | 5 | 3 | 8 |
| Cloud storage | 8 | 0 | 8 |
What to do with a quoted price
If a vendor will not publish, ask three things before the demo: the per-seat price at your headcount, which modules are excluded from that number, and the price at renewal after any first-year discount. Vendors that quote are not being evasive by default, but the second and third questions are where the surprise usually lives.
Method: counted from the pricing field of every tool in our category database on 4 September 2026. A product counts as publishing if a price or a free tier is stated on its own site without a sales conversation. Quoted products: Salesforce, Efficy, SuperOffice, Adobe Commerce, Personio, HiBob, BambooHR, Workday, NetSuite, ADP Workforce Now, Paychex Flex, Greenhouse, Teamtailor, Ashby, Lever, SmartRecruiters, Oracle NetSuite, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Acumatica, IFS Cloud, Infor CloudSuite, Epicor Kinetic, Looker, Sigma, ThoughtSpot, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X, WithSecure Elements.