AI tool pricing: recently, several platforms proved our point for us
Several major AI and no-code platforms, including Google's Gemini CLI, Zapier, Microsoft Copilot and Replit, changed their pricing within a short window, mostly toward usage-based models that can increase sharply and unpredictably. A typical small business AI toolkit that cost around £80 to £100 a month is now estimated at closer to £226 a month under the new pricing.
If you've been paying for any AI or no-code tool lately, brace yourself, a few of the big names just quietly changed the deal.
Google killed free access to its Gemini CLI tool outright. No warning tier, just gone, replaced with an enterprise-only option. Zapier switched to a system where a single "premium" automation step can burn through 15 of your allotted tasks in one run. Microsoft launched a version of Copilot with no subscription cap at all, just pay-as-you-go credits, which sounds fine until your usage goes up and so does the bill, automatically, forever.
The one that actually stings: users of Replit, a genuinely popular AI coding tool, have reported single sessions costing over £350. Not a subscription. A single afternoon.
Add it up and one estimate puts a realistic no-code AI toolkit at around £80 to £100 a month in early 2025. That same toolkit now runs about £226 a month. Same tools, same use case, nearly triple the bill.
No warning. No cap. No "we'll let you know before it changes." Just a bill that moved because the platform decided it should.
We're not writing this to dunk on any one company, prices change, that's business. We're writing it because this is exactly the risk we've been pointing at with AI tool pricing generally: the moment your business actually depends on a tool, you've handed someone else the pen that writes your costs.
Fixed price, agreed up front, doesn't wobble because a platform decided to reprice its API this quarter. That's not a nicer way of saying the same thing. It's the difference between a bill you can plan around and one that arrives as news.
If a tool you depend on has just quietly got more expensive, might be worth talking about what fixed and predictable would actually look like instead. Get in touch.
Sources
- Google Gemini CLI free tier removal, Zapier's task-multiplier pricing, Microsoft Copilot's pay-as-you-go credits, Replit's effort-based pricing and reported £350 sessions, and the roughly £80 to £226 a month toolkit cost estimate: NoCode.Tech, "The Great AI Pricing Repricing"
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