The big number on a pricing page is rarely what you pay. These are the six things we check every time we price a build, with real examples from our catalogue.
1. Per seat or per workspace
Some plans charge for each person on your team. Vercel Pro is priced per team member, so two people cost twice as much. Others charge one fee for the whole workspace. If you work with a friend or a freelancer, check this first.
2. Which "users" they count
Sign-in services charge by users, but they don't all count the same people. Supabase and Auth0 count monthly active users. Clerk counts retained users: people who come back at least 24 hours after signing up. The same app can show quite different numbers on each, which is why our sign-in comparison gives prices at several user counts.
3. Usage on top of the plan
A plan price is often a starting point. Cloudflare Workers Paid starts at $5 a month, then charges for requests above what's included. AI models charge per million tokens read and written, so the bill follows how much people use your feature. When a cost depends on usage, we say what usage we assumed.
4. Minimums and credits
Railway's Hobby plan is a $5 monthly minimum that includes $5 of usage. If your service uses less, you still pay $5. If it uses more, you pay the difference. It's neither a flat fee nor pure pay-as-you-go.
5. Monthly or annual billing
Many headline prices assume you pay for a year up front. Clerk Pro is $20 a month billed annually but $25 billed monthly. We show the monthly price unless a build says otherwise, because that's what you pay if you might stop.
6. Currency and tax
Many developer tools price in US dollars and quote prices without VAT. We convert at one stated exchange rate per page and show it in the header, and we leave VAT out of totals unless a page says otherwise. Your card provider's rate and your VAT position will move the final number a little.
A habit worth keeping
Write down the date you checked a price, because vendors change their pricing. Gemini 3.8 Flash, for example, is set to double in price on 1 January 2027. Every page on Stackguide shows when we last checked.