2025 has become the year of aggressive B2B pricing increases, with legacy and older vendors across the board pushing through some of the steepest hikes we’ve seen in years.
So far, SaaS pricing is up by approximately 11.4% compared to the same time in 2024—a stark difference from the 2.7% average market inflation rate of G7 countries.
Let’s do a deep dive on who’s raising prices, by how much, and what it means for your budget planning and vendor negotiations.
The Macro Picture: SaaS Inflation Running 5X Market Rate
Let’s start with the brutal truth: SaaS inflation is now nearly 5x higher than the standard market inflation rate of G7 countries. The year-over-year price inflation for SaaS products is currently at 8.7%, but that average masks some truly aggressive moves by individual vendors.
Here’s what’s driving this:
- 50% of all software companies are preparing to raise prices and cut back on discounts
- Businesses now spend an average of $7,900 per employee annually on SaaS tools, marking a 27% increase over the last two years
- 60% of vendors deliberately mask their rising prices, making cost clarity in negotiations increasingly difficult
This isn’t just inflation—this is a fundamental shift in how vendors extract value from their installed base. For many enterprise SaaS companies, price increases have become the primary growth lever, not new customer acquisition.
The Enterprise Giants: Who Raised What
Salesforce: The Industry Bellwether (6-9% Increases)
The Numbers:
- 6% price increase for Enterprise and Unlimited Editions (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Field Service, select Industries Clouds)
- Effective date: August 1, 2025
- Previous increase: 9% across entire product portfolio in 2023
The Real Story:
Salesforce’s pricing strategy reveals the new playbook for mature SaaS companies. The July 2023 price increase (9%) combined with the 2025 increase (6%) have contributed approximately 25% of Salesforce’s total revenue growth over the three-year period from 2022-2025.
And that ratio should go up. In 2025 specifically, price increases of 6.3 percentage points vs. 8.7% total ARR growth—that’s up to 72% of go forward growth coming from price increases, not new customers or expansion.
For Salesforce CRM specifically, pricing has reached $500 per seat per month for top tiers, up from half of that just 5 years ago.
What It Means: Salesforce’s growth story is now as much a pricing story as a customer and product growth story. As revenue growth slowed to single digits, the company is accelerated its pricing cadence to maintain investor expectations.
Slack: The 20% Jump
The Numbers:
- Slack Business+ plan: $15/user/month (up from $12.50)
- Percentage increase: 20%
- New tier: Enterprise+ plan (custom pricing with enhanced features)
- Effective date: Rolling renewals after August 17, 2025
The Federal Government Pushback:
Here’s where it gets interesting. In May 2025, Salesforce agreed to offer Slack to federal agencies at up to a 90% discount through November 2025, along with a 70% discount on Slack AI for Enterprise. This came as part of the Trump administration’s “OneGov” procurement strategy.
What It Means: That 90% discount tells you exactly how much margin Salesforce has been sitting on. The federal government demonstrated that aggressive negotiation can work—but only if you have massive purchasing power.
Microsoft: The Monthly Billing Penalty (5% Surcharge)
The Numbers:
- 5% surcharge for customers choosing monthly billing on annual subscriptions
- Affected products: Microsoft 365, Office 365, Dynamics 365
- Effective date: April 1, 2025
The Strategy:
This is BigCo pricing psychology. Microsoft isn’t technically raising nominal prices—they’re punishing flexibility. If you want to pay monthly (which most customers prefer for cash flow), you now pay 5% more. It’s a hidden increase disguised as a billing preference.
Google: The AI Bundle Tax
The Numbers:
- Gemini AI features integrated directly into all business tiers
- Standalone Gemini add-on discontinued
- Effective date: January 2025 (new customers), March 2025 (existing customers)
The Strategy:
Google’s approach represents a new trend: bundling AI capabilities whether customers want them or not, then using that as justification for higher prices. You’re paying for AI capabilities you may never use, and you can’t opt out.
Atlassian: The Cloud-First Price Push
The Numbers:
- Cloud pricing changes: Effective October 15, 2025
- Data Center increases: February 2025 (second round of increases)
- Strategy: Make on-premise significantly more expensive than cloud
The Breakdown by Tier:
Atlassian implemented increases across Standard, Premium, and Enterprise tiers, with some of the steepest increases targeting Data Center customers. For example, a 2,000-user Jira Cloud Premium plan paying list price annually saw bills rise from $189,000 to $203,175.
What It Means: Atlassian is using pricing as a weapon to force Data Center customers to cloud. The message is clear: stay on-premise if you must, but you’ll pay dearly for it.
HubSpot: The Migration Tax (5% “Not-A-Price-Increase” Increase)
The Numbers:
- Migration-related increase: Approximately 5% or less at renewal
- Timing: Rolling renewals throughout 2024-2025
- New seat-based model: Pricing based on core seats, not flat rates
- AI charges per “credit”. Now customers must pay $10 for a pack of “$1,000” beyond a limited number of included credits. Enriching 10,000 records for example could cost about $1,000, and monitoring a prospect costs 100 credits per month, per prospect.
The Fine Print:
HubSpot announced that pricing would “remain the same at the time of migration,” but customers may see a migration-related price increase of approximately 5% at subscription renewal. Technically not a price increase, but you’re still paying more.
The company also introduced new Commerce Hub seats at $85/user/month (Professional) and $140/user/month (Enterprise), adding another potential cost layer for sales teams.
It has also limited the number of included seats on Marketing Hub, and required more users to pay for seats in Commerce Hub, Sales Hub & Service Hub.
In addition, HubSpot auto-upgrades users whose AI usage passes their credit limit. “If your usage surpasses your current credit limit, HubSpot will automatically upgrade you to the next higher credit capacity pack for the remainder of your contract term.”
Adobe: The Double-Tap Strategy
Adobe took two major swings at pricing in 2025:
Round 1: Photography Plan Changes (January 15, 2025)
- Annual prepaid plan: Unchanged at $119.88/year ($9.99/month equivalent)
- Monthly billing: Increased to $14.99/month (50% increase)
- New customers: Photography Plan (20GB) no longer available
Round 2: Creative Cloud Pro Rebrand (June 17, 2025)
- Creative Cloud All Apps renamed to “Creative Cloud Pro”
- New price: $69.99/month (up from $59.99)
- Percentage increase: 16.7%
- Downgrade option: Creative Cloud Standard at $54.99/month (but strips AI features and mobile apps)
What It Means: Adobe is using the new AI + Classic SaaS move—rebrand the same product, add “AI” to the feature list, and charge 17% more. If you don’t want to pay, you can downgrade and lose features you previously had.
Zendesk: The Renewal Surprise
The Numbers:
- Base pricing: $55-$115/agent/month
- AI add-ons: $25-$50/agent/month
- Reported increases: 15% unit rate increases during renewal negotiations
The Pattern:
According to user reports, Zendesk has been implementing price increases during contract renewals, with some customers reporting 15% increases even when trying to descope projects. Zendesk planned to increase pricing broadly beginning in 2024, and some clients secured legacy pricing by extending their contracts early.
The Hidden Mechanisms: How Vendors Disguise Price Increases
Beyond the headline numbers, vendors are getting increasingly creative with how they raise prices:
1. AI Bundling (The “Innovation Tax”)
60% of vendors deliberately mask rising prices by bundling AI features. The playbook:
- Add AI capabilities (often half-baked)
- Bundle them into existing plans
- Raise prices 10-20%
- Justify it as “innovation investment”
Customers pay for AI whether they use it or not, and opting out isn’t an option.
2. Credit Multipliers (The Silent Doubling)
Many vendors now use credit systems where “credits” buy services. The catch? Vendors reserve the unilateral right to change credit multipliers.
Example: A service that costs 10 credits can rise to 20 credits overnight. Same price for your subscription, but you burn through credits twice as fast and hit overage charges much sooner.
3. Seat Model Migrations (The Complexity Tax)
Companies are migrating from simple, usage-based pricing to complex seat-based models. HubSpot, Salesforce, and others have done this, which typically results in:
- Higher per-user costs as you scale
- Complex tier management
- “Core seat” vs. “view-only seat” confusion
- 5-15% effective price increases disguised as “simplification”
4. Migration “Fees” (The Hostage Tax)
As vendors upgrade their platforms or change architectures, they charge “migration-related” price increases. These typically add 5-15% to renewal costs, justified by “platform improvements” you didn’t ask for.
The Customer Impact: What The Data Shows
The consequences of aggressive pricing are starting to show:
For Customers:
- Average SaaS spend per employee: $8,700 (up 27% in two years)
- SaaS now represents 12.5% of total organizational expenditure
- Price increases are outpacing IT budget growth by 3-4x
Gartner reports that corporate IT budgets are growing at just 2.8% annually, while SaaS vendors are hiking prices by 9-25%. The math is tough to sustain.
The Negotiation Landscape: What Actually Works
Here’s what we’re seeing work in renewal negotiations:
Early Engagement (120+ Days Out)
83% of successful renewal negotiations start at least 120 days before the renewal date. This gives you time to:
- Benchmark against competitors
- Build a business case for alternatives
- Create real negotiating leverage
Federal Government Strategy
The federal government’s approach with Slack (securing 90% discounts) shows what’s possible with real leverage:
- Aggregate purchasing power across enterprise
- Threaten wholesale vendor replacement
- Use a version of “OneGov” procurement strategy
For commercial customers: form buying groups, aggregate spend across divisions, and present a unified front.
The “Reduce to Renew” Play
Some customers are successfully reducing license counts by 20-40% through:
- License optimization tools
- Rigorous user audits
- Removing inactive or redundant users
One common strategy: cut licenses significantly, then negotiate to maintain previous discount levels on the smaller base.
Lock in Early
For vendors announcing future increases (like Atlassian’s October 15, 2025 changes), renewing before the effective date can lock in current pricing for another year. This works, but only delays the inevitable.
The Vendor Perspective: Why This Is Happening
From the vendor side, the logic is compelling:
1. Growth Pressure
Public SaaS companies face intense pressure to maintain growth rates. As new customer acquisition slows, price increases become the easiest lever to pull. For many companies, 50%+ of growth now comes from price increases, not expansion or new logos.
2. AI Investment Justification
Every vendor is investing heavily in AI (or claims to be). Price increases are justified as funding “continued innovation” and “AI capabilities.” Whether customers use or value these features is secondary.
3. Margin Optimization
After years of prioritizing growth over profitability, many SaaS companies are now optimizing for margins. Price increases are the fastest path to improved unit economics.
4. Customer Lock-In
Vendors know that switching costs are real. Most customers will absorb 10-15% increases rather than face the pain of migration. The calculation is simple: lose 5% of customers but increase revenue from the remaining 95% by 10% = net win.
Industry-Specific Patterns
Data & Analytics Vendors (Snowflake, Datadog, MongoDB)
These vendors primarily use consumption-based pricing, which naturally leads to higher bills as usage grows. While not technically “price increases,” customers are seeing 20-30% annual bill growth driven by:
- Increased data volumes
- More users accessing platforms
- Additional features driving higher consumption
Collaboration Tools (Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom)
The pattern here: bundle AI features, increase per-seat prices by 15-25%, and make monthly billing more expensive to force annual commitments.
Development Tools (Atlassian, GitHub)
Strategy: Use cloud-first pricing to make on-premise options prohibitively expensive, forcing cloud migrations at higher price points.
What To Expect: The 2025-2026 Outlook
Based on current trends, here’s what to plan for:
Near-Term (Next 6-12 Months)
- 10-15% increases as the new normal for annual renewals
- More AI bundling whether customers want it or not
- Reduction in multi-year discount incentives as vendors prioritize flexibility to raise prices
- Increased use of credit systems to enable silent price increases
Medium-Term (12-24 Months)
- Consolidation pressure as customers push back and seek to reduce vendor count
- Alternative solutions gaining traction as price increases make smaller competitors more attractive
- More aggressive negotiations as procurement teams get sophisticated about vendor leverage
The Wild Card: AI Disruption
The same AI that vendors are using to justify price increases could eventually disrupt the pricing model entirely. If AI agents can truly automate tasks currently requiring SaaS tools, the entire category pricing could collapse. But that’s 3-5 years out at minimum.
Seat models also may continue to come under pressure as AI Agents replace more discrete human tasks. AI Agents may need far fewer seats. SaaStr itself is already downgrading out seat counts at vendors now that we have 12+ AI Agents in production. We just have less humans and more AI agents.
Action Items: What To Do Right Now
For Operators & Finance Teams
- Audit your SaaS stack immediately
- Identify all renewals in the next 18 months
- Flag any vendor with known price increases
- Calculate the budget impact assuming 10-15% increases across the board
- Start renewal conversations early
- 120+ days for major vendors
- Build business cases for alternatives
- Create real competitive tension
- Optimize license usage
- Remove inactive users
- Consolidate redundant tools
- Rightsize seat counts before renewal
- Lock in multi-year deals strategically
- Only for vendors you’re confident you’ll use long-term
- Negotiate price increase caps (2-3% annually)
- Get concrete roadmap commitments in writing
For Procurement Leaders
- Form buying groups
- Aggregate spend across divisions
- Create enterprise-wide vendor relationships
- Use volume as leverage
- Demand transparency
- Require vendors to explain price increase mechanisms
- Get credit multiplier rates in writing
- Build automatic inflation adjusters into contracts
- Build alternative scenarios
- Always have a Plan B vendor identified
- Run parallel POCs before renewal conversations
- The Bottom Line: The Power Has Shifted
The SaaS pricing landscape of 2025 represents a fundamental shift in vendor-customer dynamics.
After years of aggressive customer acquisition with stable pricing, vendors have learned they can raise prices significantly and most customers will absorb it.
- Average SaaS price increases: 8-12% annually
- Aggressive movers: 15-25% increases
- Effective increases (including hidden mechanisms): 20-30%
- SaaS inflation running 5x general market inflation
For SaaS operators, the message is harsh but clear: budget for 10-15% annual increases as the new normal, start renewal conversations 120+ days early, and be prepared to show concrete ROI or face internal pressure to find alternatives.
The days of stable SaaS pricing are over. Vendors have learned they can raise prices aggressively and most customers will absorb it rather than switch. The power has shifted decisively to the vendors.
Unless you’re the federal government with massive purchasing power or willing to actually switch vendors, expect to pay more. Much more.
But AI increasingly will be the wild card here.
Data compiled from vendor announcements, Gartner research, Vertice SaaS Inflation Index, and public earnings reports from Q1-Q3 2025.
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