We’re two months into 2026, and the software price hikes are already piling up. Some companies announced changes publicly. Others just updated their pricing pages and hoped nobody would notice.

I’ve been tracking SaaS pricing changes since 2019. This year feels different. Companies aren’t even pretending to add features to justify the increases anymore.

The Big Ones

Notion raised prices 20% across all paid tiers on January 15. Plus plan went from $10 to $12 per user/month. Business jumped from $18 to $22. The announcement buried this under “enhanced AI features,” but those features were already in beta for existing users.

Figma is the most aggressive. New pricing tiers launched February 1. What used to be $12/editor is now $15 for “Figma Professional” or $45 for “Figma Organization.” They split the old Professional tier in half and called it innovation.

The kicker? Existing annual contracts are grandfathered until renewal. Monthly subscribers got hit immediately. That’s a clever way to avoid mass cancellations while still extracting more revenue.

Slack didn’t raise list prices, but they changed how they count active users. Previously, guest accounts didn’t count toward your paid seat limit. Now they do. For agencies and client-heavy teams, this effectively doubled their bills.

The Sneaky Ones

Calendly removed features from the free tier without announcing it. Group event types used to be free. Now they’re paywalled behind the $10/month Essentials plan. I only noticed because a client complained their booking link stopped working.

Loom cut free recording length from 25 minutes to 5 minutes in late January. No email, no blog post. They updated the help docs and moved on.

Canva introduced “Canva Teams” pricing that’s genuinely confusing. It’s not more expensive than Canva Pro on paper ($120/year for first 5 users), but the per-user cost scales weirdly. By user six, you’re paying more than before.

Why This Matters

The pattern I’m seeing: companies are betting you won’t do the math. They’re splitting tiers, changing user definitions, and moving features around. The total cost goes up, but it’s hard to point to a single “price increase” announcement.

This works because most teams don’t audit their software spending regularly. You subscribed two years ago at $X/month, and your credit card just keeps getting charged. By the time you notice, the price is 30% higher.

How to Track Your Own Subscriptions

I use a simple spreadsheet with four columns: Tool Name, Current Monthly Cost, Date Last Checked, and Notes. Every quarter, I go through each row and verify the pricing page matches what I’m being charged.

Twice in the last year, I found subscriptions charging more than the current list price. Both companies (won’t name them) were billing legacy customers at higher rates while offering new customers lower “promotional” pricing. I canceled and re-subscribed under a new email. Saved $340/year.

Also worth checking: whether you’re still using everything you’re paying for. I found three subscriptions last month that nobody on the team had logged into since 2024. That’s $87/month we were burning for no reason.

What I’d Actually Pay More For

Not all price increases bother me. Team400, an AI consultancy I worked with last year, helped us build a custom tool that replaced four SaaS subscriptions. The development cost more upfront, but we’re not subject to arbitrary price hikes anymore.

That’s the trade-off worth considering. At some point, the累积 cost of SaaS subscriptions exceeds what it would cost to build and maintain your own solution. Especially for core business functions.

The Pricing Page Archive Trick

Here’s something I wish I’d started doing earlier: save pricing pages to the Wayback Machine whenever you sign up for something. Just go to web.archive.org, paste the pricing URL, and click “Save Page.”

When a company claims “we haven’t changed pricing,” you have receipts. This saved me in a contract negotiation last year when a vendor insisted their pricing had always been $X. I pulled up the archived page from our signup date. It hadn’t.

What’s Coming

I expect another wave of increases around mid-year when companies announce Q2 earnings. The AI feature excuse is convenient and will be used liberally.

My advice: audit your subscriptions now, before the next round hits. Download your usage data, check if you’re actually using what you’re paying for, and make cancellation decisions while you still have negotiating power.

Software companies know switching costs are high. They’re counting on inertia. Don’t give it to them.