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Budgeting from the list price times twelve leaves you short
Run 5 products through the same case — a company of 3 people with a list of 2,000 contacts — and year one costs between 1.00x and 5.18x the list price times 12. Two of the 5 land exactly on list times 12, and only because 3 people happens to match the seat minimum. What moves the other 3 is not the plan price but a required onboarding fee, per-record and per-user overages, and per-transaction fees. (US pricing, US dollars, excluding sales tax, monthly equivalents on an annual commitment.)
The list price you see is the annual-commitment rate
Every headline figure on this page is what the plan costs when you commit to a year. Month to month, the same plan costs more: Semrush SEO is $117.33 a month on an annual commitment and $139 monthly, Shopify Basic $29 against $39, Shopify Grow $79 against $105, Asana Starter $10.99 against $13.49, HubSpot Starter Customer Platform $7 a seat against $10, both promotional rates for new customers against a $20 list price. monday.com Standard is $12 a seat either way. Which of the two is cheaper over the term is a separate calculation.
The second thing the headline figure leaves out is sales tax. monday.com states it on the pricing page.
HubSpot's terms of service, clause 3.6, likewise put tax outside the quoted fee. Whether a software subscription is taxable at all, and at what rate, depends on the state and city it is billed to, so there is no single percentage to add here. The number to budget from is the one the checkout page shows for your own billing address.
List price, and what year one actually costs
| Tool (plan) | Monthly list price | List × 12 | Year one at US prices | Multiple | How to read the figure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Marketing Pro | $800 | $9,600 | $12,600 | 1.31x | The extra $3,000 is onboarding, charged once and not declinable. The plan price is not the line to negotiate |
| HubSpot Starter Customer Platform | $7/seat (new customers only, limited time) | $252 | $852 | 3.38x | A multiple sitting on top of a limited-time price. $600 of it is contact overage. At the $20 list price, year one is $1,320 and 1.83x |
| monday.com Standard | $12/seat | $432 | $432 | 1.00x | 3 people simply happens to match the minimum seat count. At 4 people it becomes 5 seats and $720, and at 6 people 10 seats |
| Asana Starter | $10.99/seat | $395.64 | $395.64 | 1.00x | Again a matter of headcount. 6 people means 10 seats and $1,318.80 a year |
| Semrush SEO | $117.33 | $1,407.96 | $2,487.96 | 1.77x | All of the gap is the 2 extra users at $45 a month each. Used by 1 person it stays at 1.00x |
| Shopify Grow | $79 | $948 | $4,908 | 5.18x | 81% of year one is processing fees. The rate matters more than the plan price |
Scroll sideways to see every column
Sources: each vendor's own pricing page (verified August 2026; the US prices and rates in this table rechecked 6 September 2026). US dollars, excluding sales tax, monthly equivalents on an annual commitment. HubSpot Professional includes 3 seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, so the case adds no overage there and the $3,000 is the required one-time onboarding. HubSpot Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts, so a list of 2,000 adds $50 a month for the second thousand, or $600 a year, on top of $7 × 3 seats × 12 = $252. The $7/seat, and the $10/seat shown on monthly billing, both carry the note “New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time.” (rechecked 6 September 2026). Rebuilt at the $20 list price, $20 × 3 seats × 12 = $720 plus the same $600 gives $1,320 in year one, and ÷ $720 = 1.83x. Semrush SEO covers 1 user and the case adds 2 at $45 a month. Shopify Grow is $79 a month on annual billing, and the case puts $10,000 a month of online sales across 200 orders through the published online card rate of 2.7% + 30¢: 2.7% × $120,000 = $3,240, plus 2,400 orders × 30¢ = $720, or $3,960 a year against a $948 plan fee. Semrush's help center still carries articles under the former plan names (SEO Toolkit Pro $139.95 / Guru $249.95 / Business $499.95), but what can be bought from the pricing page is the 4 plans SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced.
At contact 2,001, HubSpot adds $3,000 to the year
A note on the Professional pricing page.
Onboarding is setup assistance at the point of adoption, and as the sentence says, it cannot be declined. The other step is marketing contacts — the contacts you are allowed to send to, counted separately from records merely held in the CRM. Professional includes 2,000 of them, and beyond that the charge is $250 a month per 5,000. Collect 50 business cards, reach 2,050, and that is $3,000 for the year. Budget with the $250 for the next 5,000 block.
Seats can only be bought in blocks
monday.com starts at a minimum of 3 seats and above that sells only in multiples of 5 (official support). 6 people means 10 seats, so on Standard $576 a year goes to 4 seats nobody uses. Asana sells 2 to 5 seats individually, but above 5 seats it moves in blocks of 5 up to 30 people, and hiring a 6th person after the 5th takes the seat cost to 2.00x.
Headcount, seats and monthly price (Asana Starter, annual billing, US dollars, excluding tax)
From 5 people to 6 is 2.00x (5 seats at $54.95/mo to 10 seats at $109.90/mo, an increase of $659.40 a year). From 3 people to 6 is 3.3x. Sources: https://help.asana.com/s/article/asana-subscriptions-and-pricing / https://asana.com/pricing (verified August 2026)
For Shopify, the plan fee is the small number
Grow is $948 a year on annual billing. Put $10,000 a month of online sales across 200 orders through it and the published online card rate of 2.7% + 30¢ takes $3,960 a year, which is 81% of the $4,908 total. The 30¢ is charged per transaction, so at 200 orders a month that component alone is $720 a year — most of the plan fee again. Which plan the rate picks is a separate calculation, and the thresholds are in the piece on Shopify processing rates: Basic gives way to Grow at $25,000 a month in sales, and Grow to Advanced at $110,000. Staff accounts are counted apart from the owner, and Basic includes none, so the moment bookkeeping and shipping need their own logins, Grow is the lowest plan that works.
There are buyers these 5 do not suit
HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional does not suit a company whose list stops at around 2,000 contacts. Of the $12,600 first year, $3,000 is onboarding. The higher Semrush plans do not suit a company where 1 person watches the rankings. If headcount is the reason for choosing Advanced at $549 a month, SEO at $139 a month plus 1 extra user at $45 a month — $184 a month — covers it.
monday.com does not suit headcounts that fall between the blocks, such as 4, 6 or 11: at 6 people, $576 a year disappears into seats nobody uses. Asana has the opposite problem, adding $659.40 a year above 5 people. Shopify Advanced does not suit a store until monthly sales reach $110,000.
4 questions settle which one to look at
Sources are each vendor's own pricing page (verified August 2026; US prices rechecked 6 September 2026). US dollars, excluding sales tax, annual billing (monthly billing for Semrush). Sales tax is added at checkout according to the billing address
If you are unsure, start at Q1 and put your own numbers through each question in turn.
Sources (verified August 2026; US prices rechecked 6 September 2026)
- Sales tax: monday.com pricing (prices exclude tax, determined by billing country, Standard $12/seat) / HubSpot terms of service, clause 3.6 (excluding tax)
- HubSpot: Marketing Hub pricing (Pro $800/mo, 3 seats included, 2,000 contacts included, onboarding $3,000; Starter $7/seat annually and $10/seat monthly “new customers only, limited time” against a $20 list price, 1,000 contacts included) / product and services catalog (overage: Starter $50 per 1,000 to 3,000 contacts, Pro $250 per 5,000 to 22,000)
- monday.com: plans and pricing (minimum 3 seats, multiples of 5)
- Asana: subscriptions and pricing (minimum 2 seats, 2 to 5 seats individually, blocks of 5 up to 30 people) / pricing (Starter $10.99/seat on annual billing, $13.49 monthly)
- Semrush: pricing (SEO $139/mo, $117.33 monthly equivalent on annual billing / Starter $199 / Pro+ $299 / Advanced $549; extra users from $45/mo) / user management (extra users $45 / $80 / $100) / SEO Toolkit pricing and limits (former plan names Pro $139.95 / Guru $249.95 / Business $499.95, which do not match the current plans on the pricing page)
- Shopify: US pricing (Basic $29 / Grow $79 / Advanced $299 on annual billing, $39 / $105 / $399 monthly; online card rates 2.9% / 2.7% / 2.5% + 30¢) / users by plan (0 / 5 / 15 / unlimited, owner not counted)
Amounts are in US dollars and exclude sales tax, which is added at checkout according to the billing address. The editor does not use these products. Terms change, so check each vendor's own pages before signing.
Buying from Japan? See the Japanese edition for yen pricing, consumption tax and the card issuer's overseas handling fee →
What changed on this page
- correction7 September 2026 HubSpot Starter Customer Platform — how the plan is described
#08: “promotional rates of $20 monthly and $7 annually, and we could not separate out the standard price”. #10: listed as “HubSpot Marketing Starter, $7/seat”. → The list price, the annual promotional rate and the monthly promotional rate are named separately, each quoting the vendor’s “new customers only, limited time” note. #08 now states why a limited-time price is kept off its annual-against-monthly axis.
The three figures now come from one ledger entry, so a change to the price moves every mention of it at once.
Where: Annual or monthly billing — which one to pick - scope change6 September 2026 The English edition — currency and tax assumptions
yen prices, Japanese consumption tax and a card issuer’s foreign transaction fee → US published prices in US dollars; sales tax is described as determined by the billing address and no rate is assumed
Buying from Japan is covered in the Japanese edition, which keeps the yen figures.
Where: Processing rates do not decide the Shopify plan until monthly volume passes $25,000, Is the free trial actually free, No two vendors mean the same thing by “seat”, On which plan does support stop being a help article?, Which country will your customer data sit in?, monday.com or Asana: which should you choose?, How many months until that SaaS pays for itself?
Every recorded change to this site is in the change log.
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