How we verify prices and test AI tools

Last updated: 2026-10-29

AI Stack Wise tracks what AI tools and AI APIs cost. This page explains where our prices come from, what the dates on each page mean, and how our calculators turn those prices into estimates. If something here does not match what you see on a pricing page, treat it as an error and let us know.

Where prices come from

Every price on AI Stack Wise comes from the vendor’s own official sources: its pricing pages, its documentation and its official announcements. We do not use reseller listings, comparison sites, forum posts, search-result snippets or screenshots shared by third parties, and we never take a price from an AI chatbot’s answer.

Each price is stored together with the URL of the official page it came from, and that source is shown on every pricing page. You can always follow the link and read the vendor’s own wording.

We record only amounts the vendor actually prints. If a vendor publishes “$17 per month billed annually”, that is what we store. We do not fill gaps with our own maths, and we do not copy a number from one plan to another just because they look similar. Where one subscription is sold under two product names, for example The X Subscription, which covers both Grok and Cursor, we treat it as one plan and say so on both pages.

If a vendor page cannot be read automatically, we read it in a normal browser. If we still cannot confirm a number, it is treated as unverified.

What “last checked” means

Each pricing page shows a “last checked” date. It is the date we last re-read the vendor’s official source for that vendor’s prices.

It is not the same as the date the site was built. A rebuild can remove an expired promotion, but it does not mean we re-read the vendor’s page. Only an actual check of the source moves the “last checked” date.

If a price has not been re-checked for more than 30 days, the page shows a “may be outdated” warning next to it.

Unverified prices

Sometimes a vendor does not publish a number. It might say “contact sales”, show a monthly price but not the annual one, or describe a limit in words such as “5x more usage” instead of a figure. Sometimes we simply cannot confirm the number on an official page.

In all of these cases, the page shows “Price not verified” (or “Not published” or “Contact sales” where that is what the vendor says). We never show an unverified price as $0, we never estimate it, and we never interpolate it from other plans or other countries. Calculators leave unverified items out of their totals and say so.

Annual-only and monthly-only plans

We show prices exactly as they are billed. If a plan costs “$17/mo billed annually”, we show it that way, not as a bare “$17/mo”. If a plan is billed monthly only, we say “billed monthly only” rather than leaving the annual column blank.

We do not convert an annual total into a monthly price, or a monthly price into a yearly one, unless the vendor states that figure itself. For example, if a vendor prints “$80/yr ($7/mo)”, we may show both numbers because both are printed. If a vendor prints only a per-month figure “paid yearly”, we do not invent a yearly total for the page. Some vendors only publish annual-billing rates; in that case the monthly-billing price shows as “Price not verified”.

Promotions and scheduled changes

Promotional prices with an end date are shown with that date, and they drop off the page automatically after it passes. Our daily rebuild takes care of this, so an expired offer does not linger.

Some vendors run introductory offers with no published end date. We label these as open-ended: the offer may end at any time. We never invent a deadline.

When a vendor announces a future price with a start date, we show it as a scheduled change and only treat it as the current price from that date. Calculators use list prices, not promotions.

How the calculators work

All calculators read from the same verified pricing data as the pricing pages. Every result is an estimate, and the assumptions behind it are shown next to the result.

AI subscription cost calculator. Multiplies the number of seats by the listed price for the plan and billing period you choose, as the vendor publishes it. Seat minimums and maximums, team fees and included credit pools are applied where the vendor publishes them.

API cost calculator. Divides your token counts by one million and multiplies by the model’s per-1M-token rate for input and output. Where the vendor publishes them, it also applies cached-input rates, batch discounts, long-context price tiers and per-request fees.

API vs subscription calculator. Compares a plan’s monthly price with the API cost of the usage you enter, and shows the break-even point. Vendors rarely publish exact message allowances, so the calculator does not claim that a plan equals a fixed number of messages or tokens. It relies on your inputs, which stay visible.

Token counter. The token counter runs in the browser; text is not sent to our servers. Some counts are exact and others are labelled as estimates, depending on whether an open tokenizer exists for that model family.

Browser tools (word counter, AI text cleaner, Markdown to text). These tools run in the browser and do not send your text to our servers. They do not use the pricing dataset.

Which AI plan quiz. Recommendations come from versioned, deterministic rules that reference plan ids. They are not generated by a model. Displayed prices, when shown, come from the same verified dataset as the pricing pages; unverified plans show “Price not verified”.

What the calculators leave out. Taxes, regional prices and usage caps are excluded unless the result says otherwise. So are negotiated discounts, free credits and promotions.

Currency

The English site shows prices in US dollars, as published by the vendor. Where a vendor lists an official regional price, for example in another currency for a specific country, we may mention it and label the region clearly. We do not present our own currency conversions as vendor prices.

Independence and ads

AI Stack Wise is supported by advertising through Google AdSense. Ads are kept separate from prices, calculators and results.

We do not currently use affiliate links. We run no affiliate programs and do not earn a commission when you click through to a tool or sign up for one. No vendor pays to appear on AI Stack Wise or to change a price, ranking or result. If we ever add affiliate links, we will update this page and our disclosure first.

Update cadence

The site rebuilds daily, so promotions with an end date expire on time. Vendor sources are re-checked on a rolling schedule, and each pricing page shows its own “last checked” date so you can see how fresh it is.

Report an error

If you spot a price that does not match the vendor’s official page, please tell us and include a link to the official source. Email us at [email protected]. When we correct a price, the correction is noted on the page.

Always confirm the final price on the vendor’s site before you buy. Prices can change between our checks, and taxes, regional pricing and account-specific offers can differ.