Toolradar Research
Which software categories are actually free
55% of the 10,656 published Toolradar tools offer a free path. That average hides a 75-point spread: Compliance is 17% free-path, Version Control is 92%. 21 dumped categories overlap, so this is a range, not one overlap-free mean.
Founder, Toolradar & Dupple
Key findings
What the data shows.
- 01
5,824 of 10,656 published tools (55%) offer a free path (free, freemium, or open-source). 4,832 (45%) are strictly paid. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 21, 2026.)
- 02
Across 21 dumped categories, free-path share runs from 17.1% (Compliance, 34 of 199) to 91.6% (Version Control, 76 of 83). (Source: Toolradar category dumps, September 21, 2026.)
- 03
Developer Tools is 81.0% free-path (1,418 of 1,751). CRM is 27.3% (135 of 495). Accounting is 26.7% (66 of 247). Analytics is 36.2% (456 of 1,260). (Source: Toolradar category dumps, September 21, 2026.)
- 04
Tools can sit in more than one category. These percentages are per-category, not a partition of the 10,656. Do not average the column and call it the catalog. The catalog number is 55%. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 21, 2026.)
About the research
How we built this report.
Toolradar tool database. Editorial review with weekly pricing verification.
2026. Snapshot taken September 21, 2026. Refresh due Dec 21, 2026.
Public scoring rubric. See how we rate for the full criteria.
Creative Commons BY 4.0. Quote, link, and reuse with attribution.
The catalog line
n = 10,656 published tools, September 21, 2026Catalog-wide free path vs paid only
5,824 tools let you start without a card, on the listing label. 4,832 do not. That is the only overlap-free split on this page, because each tool is counted once.
The label mix behind the 55% (same day, same file): Paid 4,785 · Freemium 4,300 · Free 1,520 · Enterprise 16 · Contact sales 9 · Custom 8 · Pay-per-use 7 · Usage-based 6 · Open-source 4 · Unlisted 1. Those ten labels sum to 10,656. Free path is Freemium + Free + Open-source, 5,824. Strictly paid is the other 4,832. The Paid label (4,785) is 47 short of that because Enterprise, contact sales, custom, pay-per-use, usage-based, and unlisted are paid-only without the Paid label. We roll the free-ish labels into "free path" the same way /statistics does.
The range, one row per dump
Free-path share = tools whose listing is free, freemium, or open-source, divided by published tools in that category. Paid is the complement. Median entry is the median of each tool's lowest numeric monthly tier, only where that number exists.
| Category | Tools | Free path | Paid only | Median entry (n priced) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version Control | 83 | 91.6% (76) | 8.4% (7) | $10 (13) |
| Developer Tools | 1,751 | 81.0% (1,418) | 19.0% (333) | $20 (355) |
| DevOps | 415 | 76.9% (319) | 23.1% (96) | $30 (82) |
| Productivity | 1,752 | 65.6% (1,150) | 34.4% (602) | $10 (484) |
| No-Code | 489 | 63.6% (311) | 36.4% (178) | $23.50 (162) |
| AI Assistants | 1,457 | 61.4% (894) | 38.6% (563) | $16 (427) |
| Email Marketing | 106 | 58.5% (62) | 41.5% (44) | $19 (26) |
| AI Agents | 913 | 57.0% (520) | 43.0% (393) | $29 (248) |
| Security | 691 | 49.1% (339) | 50.9% (352) | $11.94 (120) |
| Project Management | 217 | 47.9% (104) | 52.1% (113) | $11.95 (72) |
| E-Signature | 54 | 46.3% (25) | 53.7% (29) | $21.40 (19) |
| E-commerce | 340 | 40.3% (137) | 59.7% (203) | $33.33 (77) |
| Marketing | 736 | 39.0% (287) | 61.0% (449) | $39 (220) |
| Analytics | 1,260 | 36.2% (456) | 63.8% (804) | $49 (279) |
| Customer Support | 257 | 31.9% (82) | 68.1% (175) | $29 (75) |
| Finance | 596 | 29.7% (177) | 70.3% (419) | $28.50 (120) |
| CRM | 495 | 27.3% (135) | 72.7% (360) | $49 (162) |
| Accounting | 247 | 26.7% (66) | 73.3% (181) | $29.50 (88) |
| Payroll | 71 | 19.7% (14) | 80.3% (57) | $20 (21) |
| Legal & Compliance | 34 | 17.6% (6) | 82.4% (28) | $114.50 (8) |
| Compliance | 199 | 17.1% (34) | 82.9% (165) | $34.50 (18) |
Source: Toolradar research-category-dump for each slug, September 21, 2026. Catalog line from /statistics the same day. Median column is dollars per month, with the number of priced tools in parentheses. Legal & Compliance is a small n (34 tools, 8 priced). We keep it because it is the other legal-adjacent floor next to Compliance (199 tools, 17.1%).
Published tools, September 21, 2026Free-path share, selected categories vs the catalog
How to read the spread
Developer infrastructure is free-path by default. Version Control (92%), Developer Tools (81%), and DevOps (77%) are where open-source and freemium are the go-to-market, not a tease. That is the same neighborhood as name-matched MCP servers (82% free-path on a string cut, not a category).
Systems of record are paid-first. CRM (27%), Accounting (27%), Payroll (20%), Compliance (17%), and Legal & Compliance (18%) charge before you get a real workspace. Analytics (36%) and Marketing (39%) sit on that side of the catalog line. We already wrote the analytics version of this point in analytics software statistics.
AI is near the catalog mean. AI Agents 57%, AI Assistants 61%, catalog 55%. A free tier on an assistant is common. A free tier on payroll is not.
Productivity (66%) and No-Code (64%) look generous because the long tail is freemium. The median entry on Productivity is $10 (484 priced tools). The median on Analytics is $49 (279 priced). Same directory, different bill.
What this is not
This is not a single average of the category column. Tools overlap categories, so summing free-path counts across rows double-counts. The only catalog-wide figure is 5,824 of 10,656.
This is not "free software." Freemium is a free path with a paid ceiling. Many of the 55% will bill you the week you invite a teammate.
This is not launch-year economics. 9,546 of 10,656 tools (90%) were added to Toolradar in 2026. Category free-path shares describe the file we have, including that indexing wave.
Methodology and sources
Catalog totals: live /statistics computation, September 21, 2026, published tools only. Category rows: GET /api/admin/research-category-dump?slug= for each slug the same day. Free path = freeTier on that dump (free + freemium + open-source as the statistics library defines them). Median entry = minimum numeric priceMonthly per tool, then median, only where a number exists. Categories not in the table were not dumped for this article; we did not invent a legal-project-management row. Snapshot date is September 21, 2026.
Cite this report
Use the data, credit the source.
Released under Creative Commons BY 4.0. You may quote, link, and reuse the data with attribution.
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