How we calculate prices
Every price and total on SMB Stack follows the same rules, so you can check any number against the vendor’s own pricing page.
The rules
- Prices are in US dollars a month, read from each vendor’s own pricing page. Every tool page shows the date we last checked it.
- When a vendor offers yearly billing, we show the monthly equivalent of the yearly price. The month-to-month price is in the plan notes.
- Totals price the whole team, using a typical headcount for each team size: just me counts as 1, 2–10 people counts as 6, 11–50 people counts as 31, and 51–200 people counts as 126.
- Per-seat tools are counted once per person, at least as many seats as the vendor sells. A plan that includes some people charges only for the people beyond that, and stops at the plan’s top price.
- A plan that covers a set number of users counts only up to that number. A bigger team is priced on the vendor’s next plan that covers it. When we haven’t recorded a plan for that many people, the tool reads “Not listed” and the total leaves it out and names it.
- Accounting, business internet, AI receptionist & answering, social media, AI voice & video, SEO & local search, and web analytics tools, plus SurveySparrow and Survicate, count one seat whatever the team size, since one person usually runs them.
- A free plan counts as $0 only when it covers your team. When it stops at a headcount or is for one person, a bigger team pays for the plan it would need. The exception is a free plan that one or two people run for everyone, as with some inventory, invoicing, and chat tools: it stays at $0 and says how many users it includes.
- Totals leave out one-time fees, loan costs, card processing and usage fees, hardware, taxes, optional add-ons, and tools sold by quote or with no published price. Those tools show their own terms instead of a monthly figure.
- Partner links never change a price or a ranking.
Worked examples
Monthly prices as the stack builder adds them up.
Gusto2–10 people (6)$49 + 6 × $7$91 /mo
Booksy2–10 people (6)$29.99 for 1 + 5 × $20$129.99 /mo
Melio2–10 people (6)team plan $25 for 1 + 5 × $10$75 /mo
Vagaro11–50 people (31)$30 for 1 + 30 × $10, capped at $90$90 /mo
Connecteam51–200 people (126)past the free plan's 10: $29 for 30 + 96 × $0.80$105.80 /mo
Contractor Foreman2–10 people (6)the $49 plan covers 1, so the plan for up to 8, $166 flat$166 /mo
Sprout Social11–50 people (31)One seat for a team of 31: 1 × $79$79 /mo
Cost at your size
Tool pages show what a business like yours would pay, worked out from the vendor’s published prices. Each figure sits in the tool’s price notes with the date we checked it.
- Payroll, HR and other tools paid per person show the cost for 1, 6, 31 or 126 people, the middle of each quiz team size. A plan that covers a set number of users is priced up to that number, then on the vendor’s next plan that covers the team. Past the plans we have recorded, the page says “Not listed”. Seat minimums count as the vendor sells them.
- Point of sale, online store and invoicing tools show the plan price plus card fees on $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000 of card sales a month, at US rates. The average sale is $25 in person, $75 online and $500 on an invoice unless you change it. We use the cheapest published plan whose sales limit covers the amount.
- Email tools show the vendor’s price for 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 or 10,000 contacts on the cheapest paid plan, or free when the free plan holds the list.
- Accounting, SEO, social media, analytics, review and website tools show one seat, since one person usually runs them.
- Banking, loans, insurance and legal tools show no figure. Their prices come as quotes, rates or one-time fees.
- The median is the middle figure among the category’s tools at the same size. It appears when at least three tools have a figure, and leaves out estimates taken from quotes.
- The break-even line divides the plan price by $30 an hour, our assumption, which you can change. It leaves out card fees and is hidden for a free plan.
- Compare pages use the same figures: six people, 2,500 contacts for email tools, and $10,000 of card sales for payment tools.
Support and reliability
Tool pages show how each vendor says it offers help, and what its public status page reports. We don’t open accounts or time replies.
- Support channels, plans, hours, response times and onboarding come from the vendor’s own contact, help and pricing pages. Each fact links to its page with the vendor’s words. They read “not yet checked by us” until one of us has confirmed them.
- “Premium and up” means the vendor’s page shows it from that plan upward; “Premium only” means the vendor says only that plan has it. “None listed” means we read the vendor’s pages and they don’t mention that channel. “Not looked up yet” means we haven’t read them, or they didn’t load for us.
- Hours are given in the vendor’s own words and time zone. We don’t convert them.
- Incident counts come from the vendor’s public status page: every incident it posted in the 90 days before the date shown. Many status pages cover all of a vendor’s products and regions, and the line says so. “We found no public status page” means we looked on the vendor’s site and couldn’t find or open one. “Major or critical” is the vendor’s own label.
- A vendor that posts every small issue can show more incidents than one that posts few, so a count isn’t a reliability score, and we never rank tools by it. We refresh the counts before each update to the site. A count more than 30 days older than our latest refresh is replaced by a link, and compare pages show two counts side by side only when they end within 7 days of each other.
How we pick news
Tool pages list the last 12 months of changes a small business would notice.
- Three kinds: price changes (a plan’s price, name, seat rule or free limit), company events (acquired, renamed, shut down, a product retired) and launches (a new plan or a feature a small business would notice). Webinars, awards, hires and announcements with no effect on plans or prices are left out.
- Each item is one sentence in our words with a link to where it came from, usually the vendor’s own newsroom, blog or changelog. A dated item uses the vendor’s date. “Noticed” marks a price change our weekly price check found, dated when we saw it.
- Every week a job reads vendors’ news pages and re-checks 80 pricing pages, so each tool’s price is looked at about every four weeks. An AI model proposes items and price edits with the vendor’s exact words, and one of us reviews them before anything is published.
How we show reviews
Tool pages show each review site’s own score and review count, linked to the listing.
- Scores come from Capterra, Trustpilot, the US App Store and Google Play, as each site publishes them. G2 doesn’t allow automated reading, so its row is a link. We collect no reviews ourselves and copy no review text.
- We never average scores across sites or rank tools by them. Each site has its own reviewers: Trustpilot reviews are often about billing and support, and app ratings cover only the mobile app.
- A score with fewer than 20 reviews is marked “few reviews”. A score we haven’t been able to read for more than 90 days is replaced by a link.
- A job re-reads the scores every week. A score that jumps by more than half a star, or a count that falls by more than half, is held until one of us looks at it. “Not yet checked by us” means no one has yet confirmed the listing is the right product.
Each tool page lists the vendor’s plans in full. Take the quiz to see a total for your own team.