Pricing pages are designed to get you to the "Start free trial" button, not to tell you what you'll actually pay in month seven. For developer and AI tools especially, the headline number is often the least important thing on the page.
Here are seven things worth checking before you put a card in. They apply to newsletter platforms, site builders, AI writing tools, hosting, and pretty much anything billed monthly.
1. What is the unit you're actually paying for?
Every plan is priced on some unit: seats, subscribers, credits, words, API calls, builds, bandwidth, pageviews. Find it, then ask two questions:
- What will that number be for me in 12 months, not today?
- What happens when I cross the limit: a hard stop, an automatic upgrade, or overage charges?
A plan that's cheap at 500 subscribers or 10k words a month can be expensive at 5,000 or 100k. Run the numbers for where you expect to be, not where you are.
2. Monthly vs. annual, and what the discount really costs
Annual plans are often 15–20% cheaper, and that's a fair deal if you're sure. But the discount is paid for with flexibility. Check:
- Is the annual plan refundable, partially or at all?
- Can you downgrade mid-term, or only at renewal?
- Does the price lock for the year, or can it change?
A good rule: pay monthly for the first two or three months, then switch to annual once you know you'll keep it.
3. Credits that expire
AI tools love credits. Look for whether unused credits roll over or reset each billing cycle, and whether "unlimited" has a fair-use clause in the terms. "Unlimited" with a fair-use cap is just a limit you can't see.
4. The feature that's one tier up
Scroll through the comparison table and look for the feature you'll need, not the one you want today. Common ones that get gated:
- custom domains
- removing the vendor's branding
- API access or webhooks
- team members or roles
- export in a usable format
- SSO or audit logs (if it's for work)
If the one thing you need lives on the plan that costs three times as much, that's the real price.
5. How you leave
Before you start, find out how you'd stop:
- Is cancellation self-serve, or do you have to email someone?
- What happens to your data after you cancel, and for how long can you still export it?
- Does the export include everything (content, subscribers, history), in a standard format like CSV, Markdown or JSON?
If the help docs don't answer this, ask support during the trial. How they answer tells you a lot.
6. Trial terms
Check whether the trial needs a card, whether it converts to paid automatically, and on which day. Put a calendar reminder two days before. It's not paranoia, it's just how trials work.
7. Taxes and currency
If you're outside the US, the listed price is often before VAT, and the charge may be in USD. For a small monthly tool that's a few euros of difference, but it adds up across a stack of five or six subscriptions. If you're buying for a business, check whether you can add a VAT ID so the invoice is correct.
A quick worksheet
Copy this into a note for each tool you're comparing:
Tool:
Billing unit: (seats / subs / credits / ...)
My volume now / in 12 months: __ / __
Price now / in 12 months: __ / __
Over-limit behaviour: hard stop / auto-upgrade / overage
Annual refundable? yes / partial / no
Credits roll over? yes / no / n.a.
Needed feature on which tier: __
Self-serve cancel? yes / no
Full export format: __
Trial auto-converts on: __ (date)
Price incl. VAT, my currency: __
Two tools with the same headline price can end up very different on this sheet, and it takes about ten minutes per tool to fill in.
What's the pricing gotcha that caught you out? Drop it in the comments so others can add it to their list.
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