Last Updated on July 10, 2026
Prices verified 2 July 2026. Every figure checked against the vendor’s own UK pricing page on a single day.
We price-checked 50 of the software tools UK businesses actually use, on one day, against the vendors’ own pricing pages. This index records what things really cost in July 2026: the entry prices, the currencies they are billed in, what a realistic stack adds up to, and how prices have moved.
- A five-person UK service business pays about £2,635 a year including VAT for a standard software stack, roughly £44 per person per month.
- About six in ten tools bill in US dollars or euros, so there is no fixed UK price for most of the stack.
- Advertised prices almost always exclude 20% VAT and assume annual billing.
- Free tiers shrank at four major tools in the last 18 months, including Mailchimp and MailerLite.
- QuickBooks Plus rose about 38% in January 2026; several vendors now raise prices annually.
- The cheapest credible sole-trader stack costs about £18 a month including VAT.
The index
Entry paid plans for the tools most UK businesses shortlist, shown as the monthly cost on annual billing. Dollar and euro prices are converted at typical card rates on 2 July 2026, about 79p to the dollar, and every price excludes VAT.
| Tool | Category | Entry paid plan | Per month, annual billing | Billed in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | Website builder | Core | £16 | GBP |
| Squarespace | Website builder | Basic | £12 | GBP |
| Hostinger | Hosting | Premium | £2.99 intro, renews £10.99 | GBP |
| Shopify | Ecommerce | Basic | £19 | GBP |
| Mailchimp | Essentials | about £10 | GBP shown | |
| MailerLite | Comfort | about £9 | USD or EUR | |
| Brevo | Starter | about £7 | GBP shown | |
| HubSpot | CRM | Starter | £18 per seat | GBP |
| Pipedrive | CRM | Lite | about £11 per seat | USD |
| Monday CRM | CRM | Basic | about £9.50 per seat, min 3 seats | USD |
| Trello | Project management | Standard | about £4 per user | USD |
| Asana | Project management | Starter | £9.49 per user | GBP |
| ClickUp | Project management | Unlimited | about £6 per user | USD |
| Xero | Accounting | Ignite | £16 | GBP |
| QuickBooks | Accounting | Sole Trader | £10 | GBP |
| Sage | Accounting | Start | £15 | GBP |
| Ubersuggest | SEO | Individual | about £29, or £290 lifetime | GBP shown |
| Ahrefs | SEO | Starter | about £23 | USD |
| Tawk.to | Live chat | Free | free | n/a |
| LiveChat | Live chat | Starter | about £15 per agent | USD |
| Intercom | Live chat | Essential | about £23 per seat | USD |
| Buffer | Social media | Essentials | about £5 per channel | USD |
| Hootsuite | Social media | Standard | about £74 | USD |
| Canva | Design | Pro | £13, or £100 a year | GBP |
| Plausible | Analytics | Starter | about £8 | EUR |
| Calendly | Booking | Standard | about £8 | USD only |
| TidyCal | Booking | Lifetime | about £23 once | USD |
| bOnline | Phone | Starter | about £8 per user | GBP |
| BreatheHR | HR | Micro | £22, up to 10 staff | GBP |
| BrightLocal | Reputation | Track | about £33 | USD |
| ChatGPT | AI assistant | Plus | about £16 | USD |
| Claude | AI assistant | Pro | about £14 | USD |
| Fillout | Forms | Starter | about £12 | USD |
| iubenda | Privacy compliance | Essentials | about £5 | USD |
Full reviews of every tool here, with UK reality checks and cost calculators, live in our tool reviews section.
What a real stack adds up to
Individual subscriptions look cheap. Stacks do not. Here are three realistic setups priced from the index.
| Stack | Sole trader, starting out | Five-person service business | Ten-person established firm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website | Hostinger hosting, £2.99 | Wix Core, £16 | WordPress on Cloudways, about £9 |
| Email marketing | Brevo free, £0 | Brevo Starter, £7 | Included in CRM |
| CRM | Spreadsheet, £0 | Pipedrive Lite x5, £55 | HubSpot Starter x10, £180 |
| Accounting | QuickBooks Sole Trader, £10 | Xero Grow, £37 | Xero Comprehensive, £50 |
| Phone | Mobile, £0 | bOnline x5, £40 | VoIP x10, £80 |
| Social media | Native tools, £0 | Buffer, 3 channels, £15 | Hootsuite Standard, £74 |
| Design | Canva free, £0 | Canva Pro, £13 | Canva Pro x3, £39 |
| Booking | TidyCal lifetime, about £1.92 in year one | Included | Included |
| Live chat | None | None | LiveChat x2, £30 |
| HR | None | None | BreatheHR, £22 |
| AI assistant | None | None | ChatGPT Plus x2, £32 |
| Monthly, before VAT | £14.91 | £183 | £516 |
| Monthly, including VAT | about £18 | about £220 | about £619 |
| Cost per year, inc VAT | about £215 | about £2,635 | about £7,430 |
The pattern worth noticing: software cost scales with headcount, not revenue. Per-seat pricing on CRM, phones and design licences means the ten-person firm pays 34 times what the sole trader pays.
The currency problem nobody prices in
Of the tools in this index, roughly six in ten bill in US dollars or euros. That has two costs UK buyers rarely budget for: the exchange rate moves your subscription price month to month, and most UK cards add a 2 to 3% conversion fee on top. A £100-a-month dollar-billed stack quietly costs £102 to £103 before VAT even enters the picture.
The VAT gap
Nearly every price on every vendor pricing page excludes VAT. For a VAT-registered business that is a cash-flow question. For everyone below the threshold it is a real 20% surcharge on the advertised number. The five-person stack above is £183 a month on the pricing pages and £220 a month on the card statement.
Free tiers are quietly shrinking
The free plan you read about in a 2024 review may no longer exist. Verified changes:
| Tool | Free tier then | Free tier now, July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 500 contacts, 1,000 sends a month | 250 contacts, 500 sends a month |
| MailerLite | 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 sends | 250 subscribers, 2,500 sends |
| CharlieHR | Free for up to 5 users | Free for up to 2 users |
| Hotjar | About 20,000 sessions a month | 35 daily sessions, roughly 1,050 a month |
| Hootsuite | Free plan, 3 profiles | Killed entirely in 2023 |
| Still generous | HubSpot CRM, Tawk.to, Buffer (3 channels), GA4, Microsoft Clarity | Unchanged, and worth building on |
How prices moved
| Tool | What changed | When |
|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks | Plus jumped £34 to £47, about 38%. Roughly 75% up since 2022 | January 2026 |
| Xero | Grow £33 to £37, further rise already announced | September 2025, next September 2026 |
| Ubersuggest | Entry price roughly tripled, about £10 to £29 | 2024 to 2026 |
| Canva | Team pricing rebuilt as Canva Business, roughly £90 to £160 per user a year | 2025 |
| Hootsuite | Entry tier up around 40% in two years, free plan gone | 2023 to 2026 |
| BrightLocal | 5 to 10% rise across plans | 1 July 2026 |
| Intercom | Went the other way: Essential now about £23 a seat, far below its old entry price | 2025 restructure |
One fair note: prices do not only rise. Intercom’s 2025 restructure cut its entry price dramatically. But the direction of travel across accounting, SEO and design tools is up, annually, and usually a few weeks after you stop paying attention.
Common questions
What does software cost a typical UK small business in 2026?
Based on prices verified on 2 July 2026, a sole trader can run a credible stack for about £18 a month including VAT. A five-person service business pays about £220 a month (£2,635 a year), and a ten-person firm about £619 a month (£7,430 a year). The biggest cost drivers are per-seat tools: CRM, phone systems and design licences.
Why do advertised software prices differ from what UK businesses actually pay?
Three reasons. Most vendors quote prices excluding 20% VAT. Around six in ten popular tools bill in US dollars or euros, so the pound price moves with the exchange rate and your card adds a conversion fee. And headline prices are usually annual-billing rates, with monthly billing costing 20 to 30% more.
Are free plans still worth building a business on?
Yes, but check the current limits first. Free tiers at Mailchimp, MailerLite, CharlieHR and Hotjar have all been cut sharply since 2024. The reliable free foundations right now are HubSpot CRM, Tawk.to live chat, Buffer at 3 channels, GA4 and Microsoft Clarity.
Which software prices rose most?
Among tools we track, Ubersuggest roughly tripled its entry price since 2024, QuickBooks Plus rose about 38% in January 2026 alone, and Canva team pricing nearly doubled in 2025. Rises are now an annual event across the category, so budget for them.
How were these prices verified?
Every figure was checked directly against the vendor’s UK pricing page on 2 July 2026, using annual-billing monthly equivalents. Dollar and euro prices were converted at typical UK card rates, about 79p to the dollar on the day. Nothing in this index is affiliate-weighted.
All 50 tools were price-checked against their vendors’ UK pricing pages on 2 July 2026 by the Whito research team. We recorded entry paid tiers on annual billing, billing currency, and VAT treatment. USD and EUR prices are converted at 79p and 85p respectively, typical UK card rates on the day, before card conversion fees. Stack costs are illustrative setups priced from the index, not averages of observed businesses. Whito earns affiliate commission on some tools; commission had no bearing on inclusion or figures, and several tools listed pay us nothing.
Cite this research
Suggested citation: Whito, UK Business Software Price Index, July 2026. whito.co.uk/research/uk-business-software-price-index/
Journalists and researchers are welcome to reuse these figures with attribution. Contact us for the underlying data.
Read next
