Contentful Pricing - The Only Guide You Need

Contentful is a cloud-based headless CMS, supporting nearly 30% of Fortune 500 companies, helps them create, manage, and distribute content across diverse channels to deliver stellar digital experiences.

There are 3 Contentful CMS plans:

• Free
• Lite
• Premium

There is a free trial available with the basic plan. There are other additional features that can be included with extra costs. Let’s get down to understanding what each Contentful plan brings to the table.

In case you're starting with exploring a Headless CMS, read: What is a Headless CMS and how does it work?

Contentful offers three distinct pricing tiers designed to accommodate different business needs and scales of operation. Let’s look at a detailed breakdown of each plan:

Free Plan ($0/month)

Contentful free tier is ideal for developers and marketers exploring Contentful or working on a single simple project. This free tier of Contentful is good for those who’re just starting out or planning to get their hands-on with this CMS.

It also makes sense for small businesses or startups, who are building their digital destination to start things out!

The key features of free tier include:

• Up to 10 users with 2 roles
• 2 locales for content management
• 100K API calls per month (no overages permitted)
• 50GB per month CDN bandwidth
• One Starter Space with basic limitations

You must be wondering, what is Contentful Space?

Keep reading, it’s right after this section!

Lite Plan ($300/month)

The Lite plan is designed for smaller businesses and teams managing single projects. This is good for businesses and teams that are past the initial stretch and gaining momentum on the digital front.

The key features of Lite plan includes:

• Up to 20 users with expanded role options
• 4 locales for multilingual content
• 1M API calls per month (with paid overages at $5 per 1M calls)
• 100GB per month CDN bandwidth
• One Starter Space + option to add 1 Lite Space

Premium Plan (Custom Pricing)

This right here is the top tier of Contentful CMS. Enterprise pricing is subjected to specific business needs like spaces, API calls/month, etc. The Premium plan offers enterprise-level features:

• Custom number of users, roles, and locales
• Unlimited API calls
• Custom CDN bandwidth allocation
• Dedicated infrastructure and advanced caching
• Enhanced governance, compliance and security features with up to 99.99% uptime SLA
• Compatibility with Contentful Studio and Ninetailed
• Unlimited Spaces allowance
• 1 Starter Space included + larger upgrades available to purchase

Apart from the features you get in the three Contentful tiers, there are additional costs and considerations that should be factored into your planning when going with Contentful CMS.

Space Licensing

Contentful Spaces are a place to keep all the content related to one team or project. Each space comes with its own content base, model, and user permissions.

So, the more the project(s), the more the spaces are preferred.

• Free and Basic plans include one Intro space license
• Additional Basic spaces available at $850/month
• Premium plan offers custom space configurations
• Spaces can be used for marketing campaigns, PIM systems, or developer testing

Contentful Studio

Contentful Studio is a visual website builder that lets your team build with speed owing to structured design and content capabilities. It is available as a paid add-on with custom pricing.

The key features are:

• Features drag-and-drop interface for visual content creation
• Enables content creation without developer dependency
• Includes patterns and design tokens for faster content assembly

Ninetailed

The pricing for Contentful Ninetailed is custom and based on specific requirements. It includes AI-driven audience targeting and content optimization.

Apps and Integrations

Contentful is a highly capable headless CMS that allows integrations and apps that are available in the marketplace. They consist of both, free and third party (may incur additional costs) integrations.

Note that additional customizations or app development may require additional investment. That may also incur framework cost (if applicable) available for creating custom connections.

Payment Gateway Considerations

This is an additional cost and is applicable to any CMS. It is only required if you have in-platform payment options and are solely dependent on the third-party payment gateway provider. The transaction fees vary by provider and are at their sole discretion.

Note: that although all major integrations are present, some payment systems might cost additional in terms of integration and API charges.

Development Costs

This is additional but a necessary cost that should be a top consideration. Today, everything starts at digital, even for brick and mortar stores. A captivating digital presence only adds on to your brand value.

Moreover, further marketing strategies and brand positioning requires a bold and inspiring digital presence.

Coming to the costs involved, it revolves around:

• Front-end development requirements for custom experiences
• Additional costs for hosting and maintenance
• Development costs for custom integrations
• Template building
• Design

To give you an idea, the avg. implementation cost is around $81,000. You should evaluate these costs when planning your overall Contentful implementation budget to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the total cost of ownership.

There are multiple headless CMS options that are competitive in pricing and features than Contentful CMS.

WordPress vs. Contentful Pricing

WordPress is an open-source software that provides almost every CMS capability your business will ever need. Yes, it doesn't come headless-ready out of the box, but we’ve implemented it for multiple brands, and can safely say it works perfectly and is more cost-efficient than Contentful.

I’ll recommend it if you’ve got an existing WordPress setup and are looking forward to expanding your digital tools and capabilities. Getting the modern tech edge to your traditional CMS.

Why pick WordPress over Contentful?

• WordPress.org is available as free, open-source software
• WordPress.com offers seven tiers, from Free with Ads to VIP Enterprise (starts $25,000/year)
• WordPress VIP has three levels: Standard, Enhanced, and Signature
• More cost-effective than Contentful's Basic plan ($300/month)

Strapi vs. Contentful Pricing

Strapi is an open-source Node.js based headless CMS that comes in two options - Self-hosted and Cloud.  We’ve implemented this as well (and WPSteroids.com uses it as well).

You get plenty of options, and the level of customization is what makes it a developer’s dream. Also, it is more cost-efficient than Contentful.

Why pick Strapi over Contentful?

• Offers free Community edition (self-hosted)
• Cloud offerings start at $29/month for 1 developer seat
• Pro plan at $99/month (5 seats)
• Team plan at $499/month (10 seats)
• All seat limits lower than Contentful's Basic plan ($300/month)

Prismic vs. Contentful Pricing

Prismic headless CMS is the headless page builder for Next.js, Nuxt, and SvelteKit sites. It has 4-tier pricing plans — Free ($0), Medium ($180/Mo), Platinum($750/Mo), and Enterprise (Custom). It’s a good option for businesses whose websites already use the above frameworks.

It is suited for businesses whose marketing teams need to build and deliver pages at more volume than avg.

Why pick Prismic over Contentful?

• Free plan available
• Medium plan starts at $180/month ($150/month when paid annually)
• Slightly higher API calls but lower CDN usage
• Repository (space) pricing differs from Contentful's model

Sanity vs. Contentful Pricing

Sanity headless CMS is more inclined for e-commerce, marketing sites, products/services, and mobile apps. This puts it in a specific position for businesses looking for specific needs.

It has 3 pricing plans - Free ($0), Growth ($15/Mo), and Enterprise (Custom). Other additional things like extra datasets, SSO, Dedicated support, etc. incur additional costs on top of plan pricing.

It is best suited for businesses in the e-com space, who build content for e-com and mobile apps, etc.

Why pick Sanity over Contentful?

• Free tier includes 20 seats
• Growth tier priced at $15 per seat/month
• Similar per-user cost to Contentful Basic ($15 per user)
• Includes add-on service and security features at Basic level

Storyblok vs. Contentful Pricing

Storyblok headless CMS is built for developers and marketers. This puts it in a specific position for businesses looking to build stellar digital experiences while powering developers and marketing teams the power to create, build, and scale at will.

It has 4 pricing plans - Free (€0), Entry (€99/Mo), Business (€849/Mo) and Enterprise (Custom).
Note: The pricing is in Euros.

It is best suited for businesses who want to build extensive digital experience without compromising on developer & marketer’s ease of use and flexibility.

Why pick Storyblok over Contentful?

• Offers free plan and trial options
• Entry tier: €99/month (€90.75/month annually)
• Calculates pricing based on users, spaces, and traffic

Now, you must be confused with all this information. But before investing into a CMS, you need to know as your entire digital operation(s) will be dependent on it. And that’s exactly why you need:

Assessment Criteria

• Estimate your API usage using an API traffic tool
• Monitor potential monthly API usage spikes that could trigger overage fees
• Evaluate the number of locales needed for your content
• Assess team size and required number of users

Usage Considerations

• Review API call limits across different plans
• Consider CDN bandwidth requirements
• Evaluate space requirements for your projects
• Account for potential overage charges

Security Requirements

• Assess your organization's information security needs
• Consider whether you need features like SSO or custom roles
• Evaluate compliance requirements (such as PCI DSS)

Expert Consultation

• Get professional advice on plans and add-ons
• Consider future scalability needs

So, how do you pick the right CMS?

Hop on a call with our headless tech experts and find the answers and implementation plan to meet your precise business goals while staying within budget constraints.

Contentful offers varying levels of support across its pricing tiers:

Technical Support Options

• Community support for Free plan users
• Standard technical support for Basic plan subscribers
• Premium plan users receive 24/7 customer support with guaranteed response time SLAs
• Dedicated Customer Success Manager for Premium accounts

Contentful CMS has pricing plans to meet diverse business needs:

• Free plan for exploration and learning,
• Basic plan at $300/month for growing businesses
• Premium plan with custom pricing for Contentful enterprise CMS needs

For tailored guidance or implementation support, WPSteroids can help audit your requirements, develop a customized strategy, and optimize your Contentful performance for better conversions and sales.

Contact us to learn more about Contentful implementation, receive a tailored strategy, or get assistance with auditing your Contentful performance against industry benchmarks.