Every listing on SaaSDB is built around the same four facts: the pricing model, the starting price, how billing works and what the free plan or trial includes. We fill them in from the product’s own website, leave them blank when we can’t confirm them, and show the date of the last check on every listing.
A directory listing is only useful if it answers the questions you would otherwise answer by opening the product’s pricing page. Most listings don’t. They give you a logo, a tagline and a category, and leave you to find the price yourself. When you are comparing ten tools, that means ten pricing pages, each laid out differently.
We decided every SaaSDB listing should carry the same facts, in the same place, so that comparing tools means reading down a column instead of opening tabs. This article explains which facts we chose, how we complete them and why each listing tells you when it was last checked.
The four facts every listing carries
We picked four facts because they are the ones people need before they sign up, and the ones that are hardest to compare across products.
Pricing model
The first fact is whether a product is Free, Freemium or Paid. Free means you can use the core product without paying. Freemium means there is a free plan with limits and paid plans above it. Paid means you pay from the start, sometimes after a trial. This one word decides whether a tool is even an option for someone with no budget.
Starting price
The second fact is the lowest amount you can pay to use the product. We record it as the product shows it, with its currency and period, for example $9 per month. If a product has several plans, the starting price is the cheapest paid one, not the one the pricing page highlights.
Billing model
The third fact is how you pay. A tool at $10 per user per month costs something very different for a team of eight than a tool at $10 per month flat. Billing models we record include monthly, yearly, per seat, usage based and a single payment. A single payment matters to many buyers, which is why it also has a collection of its own.
Free plan or trial
The fourth fact is what you get without paying: the limits of the free plan, or the length of the trial and whether it asks for a card. Two tools can both be called Freemium and still be very different. One gives you three projects for ever, the other gives you seven days.
How we complete a listing
When we complete a listing, we take each fact from the product’s own website. We start with the pricing page, because that is where products state their prices, and we use the home page when there is no pricing page.
We don’t take prices from review sites, comparison tables or old press articles. Those copies are often out of date, and an out-of-date price passed from site to site is still wrong. The product’s own site is the only source that the product itself stands behind.
Alongside the facts, each listing gets one or more use tags that say what job the tool does, such as Invoicing & quotes or PDF & file tools. Tags are what make the use filters work, so we add them to every listing instead of only to new ones.
When a fact can’t be confirmed
Some products don’t publish their prices. They ask you to book a call, or they show prices only after you sign up. When we can’t find a fact on the product’s website, we leave it empty.
That is a deliberate choice. An empty field tells you something true: this product doesn’t show its price publicly, so ask before you plan around it. A guessed price tells you something that may be false, and you only find out when you are already on the product’s checkout page.
When a product stops working
While completing listings, we also find products that have closed, whose sites no longer load or whose domain now points somewhere else. We take those listings out of the directory and out of our sitemap. A listing that leads to a dead site is worse than no listing, because it makes every other listing look less reliable.
Why each listing shows a check date
Prices change. Free plans shrink, trials get shorter, starting prices go up after a funding round or down when a competitor arrives. A price is a fact about a product on a given day, not a fact about the product for ever.
So every listing tells you when its facts were last confirmed. If you see a starting price checked last week, you can plan around it. If the check is older, you know to open the product’s pricing page before you commit. Either way, you know how much weight to put on what you are reading, which is something most directories never tell you.
Price history
When we check a listing again and something has changed, the new facts replace the old ones and the check date moves forward. The old facts are not thrown away. They go into the listing’s price history, which shows each change and when it happened.
Price history is useful in two ways. If you are about to buy, it shows you whether a product’s price is stable or moves often. If you already pay for the product, it helps you see whether new customers are getting a different deal from the one you signed up for.
What this means for founders
If you list a product on SaaSDB, your listing will show your real prices and the date we confirmed them. If your prices change, your listing will change too. Some founders would prefer a listing that says only nice things and never goes out of date. We think buyers trust a listing more when they can see it is kept accurate, and that trust is what makes a listing worth having.
Paid listings that pass the check also get a Checked by SaaSDB badge with the date of the check. You can read what that badge means in Meet Our Badges: Checked and Reviewed by SaaSDB, and how the whole directory works in How SaaSDB Works.
Frequently asked questions
Why do some listings have no starting price?
Because the product doesn’t show one on its website. Some products only quote prices after a sales call or after sign-up. Rather than guess, we leave the field empty so you know to ask before you plan around a price.
Which price do you show when a product has several plans?
The cheapest paid plan, as the product’s own pricing page states it, with its currency and billing period. If that plan is billed per seat or only yearly, the billing model says so.
Do you count yearly prices shown as a monthly amount?
We record the price the way the pricing page charges it. When a product shows a monthly figure that is only available on a yearly plan, the billing model says it is billed yearly, so you don’t mistake it for a monthly plan.
Where do I see if a price has changed?
On the listing itself. When a listing’s facts have changed at least once since we first checked them, a price history appears under the facts, showing what the product cost before and when it changed.