Research & Analysis: Price Ladder (2026) — entry prices by tier
The published entry prices of all 56 recorded Research & Analysis tools, grouped by billing unit (monthly, per user, one-time and the rest of the recorded units), with each group's price range, the channel's pricing.model distribution, and how each group's recorded Value-for-Money scores compare. Prices are compared only within the same billing unit — entry prices with different units are never placed on one scale.
Entry-Price Ladder by Billing Unit
| Billing unit (recorded) | Tools | Entry price range | Median entry | Median Value-for-Money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly unit="mo" | 48 | $0 – $49 | $10 | 84 |
| Per user unit="user" | 7 | $9.99 – $49 | $12 | 78 |
| Per 1k requests unit="1k-req" | 1 | $7 – $7 | $7 | 80 |
Ranges and medians are computed within each billing unit only. The highest median recorded Value-for-Money currently sits in the "Monthly" group (84/100) — a statement about recorded rubric scores, not a price-performance claim across units.
Pricing-Model Distribution
| pricing.model (recorded) | Tools | Median overall | Median Value-for-Money | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| freemium | 34 | 81.3 | 80 | CHChatGPTGEGeminiPEPerplexityOPOpenAlexNONotebookLMELElicitTATavilyFIFirecrawlPAPaperguideKAKagi AssistantQWQwen ChatSCSciSpacePHPhindUNUndermindREResearchRabbitMIMicrosoft CopilotKIKimiKOKomoGEGensparkANAnswerThisLELe ChatYOYou.comGRGrokLILitmaps APILILitmapsREResearcher.LifeUNUnusual WhalesKEKeeniousOTOtioCOConsensusCOConnected PapersMIMiniMaxSCScholarcyPAPaperpal |
| free | 12 | 81.5 | 96 | |
| subscription | 7 | 80.3 | 70 | |
| usage | 3 | 83.2 | 80 |
Per-Tool Entry Prices (Complete Record)
| Tool | Overall | pricing.model | Entry price (recorded) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 90.9 | freemium | $20 / mo |
| Claude | 88.9 | subscription | $17 / mo |
| Gemini | 88.5 | freemium | $19.99 / mo |
| Perplexity | 88.4 | freemium | $20 / mo |
| Semantic Scholar | 87.5 | free | $0 / mo |
| Poe | 87.1 | subscription | $19.99 / mo |
| OpenAlex | 87.0 | freemium | not recorded |
| DeepWiki | 85.4 | free | not recorded |
| NotebookLM | 85.2 | freemium | not recorded |
| Elicit | 84.8 | freemium | $49 / user |
| DeepSeek | 84.7 | usage | not recorded |
| Metaso | 84.5 | free | not recorded |
| Tavily | 84.5 | freemium | not recorded |
| STORM | 84.4 | free | $0 / mo |
| Firecrawl | 84.2 | freemium | $19 / mo |
| Paperguide | 84.1 | freemium | $12 / user |
| Kagi Assistant | 83.9 | freemium | $5 / mo |
| Qwen Chat | 83.7 | freemium | $6 / mo |
| SciSpace | 83.5 | freemium | $12 / mo |
| Exa | 83.2 | usage | $7 / 1k-req |
| SciSummary | 83.2 | subscription | $4 / mo |
| Phind | 82.8 | freemium | $20 / mo |
| Undermind | 82.6 | freemium | $16 / mo |
| Doubao | 82.2 | free | $0 / mo |
| ResearchRabbit | 82.1 | freemium | $10 / mo |
| ERNIE Bot | 81.5 | free | $0 / mo |
| ChatGLM | 81.5 | free | $0 / mo |
| Microsoft Copilot | 81.4 | freemium | $9.99 / user |
| Kimi | 81.3 | freemium | $49 / mo |
| Komo | 81.3 | freemium | not recorded |
| Genspark | 80.9 | freemium | $24.99 / mo |
| AnswerThis | 80.8 | freemium | $35 / user |
| Le Chat | 80.8 | freemium | $14.99 / mo |
| You.com | 80.8 | freemium | $30 / user |
| Grok | 80.5 | freemium | $30 / mo |
| AlphaSense | 80.3 | subscription | not recorded |
| Litmaps API | 80.3 | freemium | $10 / mo |
| Brave Search API | 80.2 | usage | $5 / mo |
| Litmaps | 80.2 | freemium | $10 / mo |
| Researcher.Life | 79.9 | freemium | not recorded |
| Unusual Whales | 79.9 | freemium | $42 / mo |
| Inciteful | 79.7 | free | $0 / mo |
| Quartr | 79.7 | subscription | not recorded |
| Scite | 79.7 | subscription | $20 / mo |
| Keenious | 79.6 | freemium | $10 / user |
| HuggingChat | 79.3 | free | $0 / mo |
| Morphic | 78.6 | free | $0 / mo |
| Otio | 78.6 | freemium | $7 / mo |
| Andi | 77.9 | free | $0 / mo |
| Consensus | 77.8 | freemium | $12 / mo |
| Connected Papers | 77.7 | freemium | not recorded |
| MiniMax | 77.6 | freemium | not recorded |
| Scholarcy | 77.4 | freemium | $9.99 / mo |
| Paperpal | 77.1 | freemium | $12 / user |
| Perplexica (Vane) | 77.0 | free | $0 / mo |
| Fintool | 73.6 | subscription | not recorded |
Methodology — all figures read only published archives (data/tools, dimsVersion v2-5dim, snapshots 2026-09-06 – 2026-09-17; 56 research tools). The composite is the published deterministic weighting (quality 0.25 + features 0.20 + usability 0.15 + performance 0.20 + value 0.20); this page never recomputes or re-weights recorded scores, and medians use the standard median (middle element, or mean of the two middle elements rounded to 1 decimal). Entry prices are compared only within the same billing unit. No placement on this page is sponsored or affiliate-ranked; ordering is by recorded archive scores only.