Method & disclosure
How the figures on this site come about, what «not researched» means, and why some price fields stay empty. Anyone who wants to check the numbers finds here the rules by which they were gathered.
Where the figures come from
Only what the vendor publishes itself is used: product pages, price lists, documentation, trial accounts. Comparison portals serve to find vendors at all — never as the source of a value. The reason is simple: a figure under a company name that the vendor does not state itself is a false claim about a third party. Every price carries a check date, and for every category a protocol records source and date for each value.
What «not researched» means
Where a cell says «not researched», the vendor makes no statement — and we do not guess. That is expressly something other than a dash: a dash is a verified claim about the product, «not researched» one about the state of our knowledge. A guessed tick would be more convenient and worthless.
Why some price fields stay empty
If a vendor publishes no price, none is estimated. The field stays empty and the row says why. A budget filter does NOT remove such entries: «no published price» is not a statement about the amount, and making them invisible would be to claim something about them. The dataset distinguishes these cases:
- 77× The vendor gives prices on request only – quote directly from the vendor
- 11× The vendor publishes no prices – quoted only through a sales partner
- 6× The vendor states the price only in its own calculator or shop
- 5× The vendor publishes no prices in Swiss francs
- 5× The vendor publishes purchase prices only, no monthly rates
Prices are not overwritten
Every check is recorded with its date. If a vendor changes a price, the new reading is placed beside the old one rather than replacing it — and the product page shows a history as soon as there is more than one reading. At the first reading we show no history: «unchanged» is not a statement then, it is the start of the series. A buyer gets this nowhere else, because vendors do not display old prices and no portal keeps them. Nothing is estimated retroactively.
Where prices are published and where they are not
The share of vendors publishing a price varies widely between categories. That says something about the sector, not about the research effort: the checking was the same everywhere. Where the share is low, every comparison means requesting quotes - and that is worth knowing before you choose.
| Accounting subscription | 4/4 | |
| Online shop | 4/4 | |
| Association software | 4/5 | |
| Retail software | 4/5 | |
| Salon software | 3/4 | |
| CRM | 3/4 | |
| Expenses | 3/4 | |
| Marketing automation | 2/3 | |
| Legal practice software | 2/3 | |
| Time tracking | 4/6 | |
| Project management | 2/3 | |
| Physiotherapy software | 1/2 | |
| Home care software | 1/2 | |
| Daycare software | 1/2 | |
| Gym software | 1/2 | |
| Appointment booking | 2/4 | |
| Property management | 2/4 | |
| Agency software | 2/4 | |
| Invoicing | 10/21 | |
| Accounting | 12/28 | |
| Payroll | 6/15 | |
| Point of sale | 2/5 | |
| Trades software | 2/5 | |
| Hospitality software | 2/5 | |
| Complete system | 7/18 | |
| Dental software | 1/3 | |
| Archiving | 1/3 | |
| Fiduciary software | 3/10 | |
| Helpdesk and ticketing | 1/4 | |
| Architecture software | 1/4 | |
| HR / People | 1/4 | |
| Merchandise management | 3/14 | |
| Document management | 1/5 | |
| Garage software | 1/28 | |
| Analysis and key figures | 0/3 | |
| Production planning | 0/5 | |
| Practice software | 0/8 | |
| Hotel software | 0/3 | |
| Transport software | 0/3 | |
| Build your own software | 0/2 |
The comparison price: the same business at every vendor
Prices for business software are not comparable with one another, because they are calculated on different measures: per user, per add-on, by document volume, by turnover. Two entry prices side by side therefore say nothing about what a business will end up paying. The comparison price turns the question around: instead of comparing tariffs, we price the same business at every vendor — five sample businesses, fixed in legal form, turnover, number of payroll runs, documents per month, users and VAT method. Included are the base fee, the modules required for the stated scope, and that business’s users and volumes; the figure shown is the monthly price excluding VAT, with the date it was checked. The sample businesses’ values are fixed and do not change — that is the only way a price stays comparable across vendors and over time. Where a vendor publishes no tariff there is no comparison price; nothing is estimated. It is surveyed today in selected categories and is being extended to more.
No overall score
There is no score and no ranking. A single figure would blur exactly the differences that make the comparison useful — and whoever sets the weighting picks the winner. We show fit per profile, derived from functionality, target group and deployment. As soon as you state something, your input orders the columns — ahead of any rule of ours. Without input: first the vendors that publish a price, because a row without a price is useless for a price comparison; then the recognition we estimate in the Swiss market, so that you first see names you can place. That recognition is an estimate, not a measurement: no comparable public figure for customer numbers or market share exists. Both rules are editorial decisions and not a neutral order, and the first favours vendors that state their prices. That is why this is stated here: said out loud it is defensible, left unsaid it would be a thumb on the scale.
Who gets included
Included is what is actively sold in Switzerland and can address the requirements of the category at all. What does not fit stays visible: where a solution does not suit, its fit is 0 rather than an omission. What is missing says as much as what is there — and a comparison that hides weakness is advertising.
What a table cannot do
Support quality, partner competence, day-to-day speed and whether a team gets on with an interface — none of that goes into columns. The table brings you to a short list. Then test with your own documents before you sign.
Found an error?
Corrections are checked and dated — including those from vendors, with nothing in return. A report that proves an error is the most useful message we can get.
| Aug 22, 2026 | Two pages gave different figures for how many products publish a price: 44 in the market findings, 48 in the method. The cause was two definitions in the generator - the market findings did not count vendors with a public price calculator. The same rule now applies everywhere, and every page states 48. eigene Prüfung |
| Aug 22, 2026 | The subtitle of the imprint promised details "of the method". The method has had its own page for a long time; the imprint holds the operator, the conflict of interest and liability. Subtitle and section heading now name what is actually there. eigene Prüfung |
| Jul 28, 2026 | For WSCAR the figure "from CHF 940 per year" circulates. It comes from a comparison portal, not from Autocomp. It was not adopted; the price field stays empty until the vendor states a figure itself. eigene Prüfung |
| Jul 27, 2026 | The privacy policy claimed that data stayed in Switzerland. That was wrong: the resource sits in the Netherlands, and delivery runs over a global network in any case. Both are now stated there. eigene Prüfung |