The Short Answer
- SaaS inflation hit 12.2% YoY in early 2026, peaking at 14.5%, roughly 2x general inflation (Vertice). The average company now spends about $9,100 per employee per year on software.
- The most dangerous increases are stealth ones: Klaviyo changed its billing unit definition and raised most stores 30 to 150% with no published price change.
- The fix for any tool over $500/month: audit usage, cancel dormant licenses, then evaluate a one-time custom build that stops billing forever.
- A custom build's cost stays flat. A SaaS bill at 12% annual inflation roughly doubles in five years.
I track software pricing because I migrate businesses off it. Over the last few months I have watched nine vendors raise prices, and in most cases the client did not find out until I pulled their statements line by line during a migration audit. This is the running list, with dates and sources, so you can check your own stack against it.
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The 9 Documented 2026 Price Increases
← Swipe to see full table →
| Vendor | What changed | Date | Real impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Webflow | CMS + Business merged into Premium | May 13, 2026 | Forced migration after June 29; headroom cut for CMS-tier sites |
| Microsoft 365 | Basic $6 to $7, Standard $12.50 to $14 | July 1, 2026 | First hike since 2022; 50-person co. +$900/yr |
| Klaviyo | Billing unit: emailable to active profiles | Feb 18, 2025 | Stealth: most stores up 30 to 150%, no price change |
| Recharge | New $25 starter tier (new merchants only) | Feb 9, 2026 | Existing customers cannot downgrade into it |
| Mailchimp | Free plan cut 500 to 250 contacts | Jan 2026 | Pushes free users onto Essentials ($13/mo) |
| Salesforce | Enterprise + Unlimited +6% | Aug 1, 2025 | 20-user Enterprise: +$2,520/yr |
| HubSpot | 5% migration-related increases at renewal | Late 2025 | Plus mandatory $3,000 Pro onboarding |
| Adobe | Creative Cloud restructured (Pro/Standard) | 2025 | Effective increases up to 27% |
| Atlassian | Cloud +5 to 15%, Data Center +15 to 40% | 2025-2026 | 2,000-user Jira Premium: $189K to $203K/yr |
The One That Should Worry You Most: The Stealth Increase
Of the nine, the Klaviyo change is the one I see catch businesses off guard most often. On February 18, 2025, Klaviyo changed its billing model from emailable profiles to active profiles. The published per-tier prices did not change at all. What changed was the definition of who counts toward your tier. Most stores immediately moved up two or three tiers without adding a single subscriber, and bills commonly rose 30 to 150%.
"In my experience auditing client stacks, the increases that hurt most are never the ones in the press release. They are the ones where the vendor quietly redefines the unit you pay for. The price-per-tier looks frozen. Your invoice is not.
The lesson: when you audit your stack, do not just check the published price. Check the definition of the billed unit (user, contact, ticket, message, transaction). That is where the stealth increases hide. Source: Klaviyo pricing.
Want us to audit your real software bill?
Send us your list of recurring subscriptions. We map them to current 2026 pricing, flag the increases you may not know about, and tell you which tools to keep, downgrade, or replace with custom code. Most first-pass audits find 25 to 40% in savings.
What to Actually Do About Each Increase
Reading the list is not the point. Acting on it is. Here is the decision for each kind of increase, in the order I run it during a client audit.
If a tool just raised its price (Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Adobe):check actual usage first. Productiv's 2026 data shows 23% of licenses have zero usage. Cancel the dormant seats before you accept the new rate, then downgrade any tier you are not fully using. This alone usually offsets the increase.
If a tool changed its billing unit (Klaviyo): this is the moment to price a switch. When the goalposts move, your loyalty is worth nothing. Brevo (pay-per-send) and a custom email layer on Zoho ZeptoMail ($2.50 per 10,000 sends) are the two cheapest exits for most stores.
If a tool restructured plans and forced you to migrate (Webflow): a forced migration is a free moment to ask whether you should migrate off the platform entirely. If you are being moved to a new plan anyway, the switching cost you were avoiding is now partly sunk. See our Webflow true cost breakdown for the math.
If a single workflow costs over $1,500/month (HubSpot Enterprise, Salesforce Unlimited): this is where a one-time custom build beats paying forever. The full decision framework is in our build vs buy guide, and the step-by-step audit is in how to cut your SaaS bill 40 to 70%.
"Software is the only line item that goes up 12% every year forever and rarely improves the business enough to justify it. Custom code is the only line item that goes to zero after you ship it.
Stop Renting. Start Owning.
Send us your recurring subscriptions. We will show you which 2026 increases hit you, what to cut, and what a custom replacement costs. Fixed pricing from $1,500. 90+ PageSpeed in writing or full refund.
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