Akeneo vs Salsify vs inriver Pricing 2026: Models, TCO and Cost Drivers

Last updated: 3 November 2026.

Akeneo, Salsify and inriver do not publish what their PIM costs. Akeneo is the most open of the three: its package page shows a Growth package "Starting at $0" with a 14-day trial, quote-only Advanced and Premium packages, and a free open-source Community Edition. Salsify and inriver publish no prices at all, although Salsify's entitlement guide shows what each edition includes and inriver's plans page shows which tier is meant for which company size. So the honest answer to "what does each cost" is a custom quote, and the useful answer is a budget band per company size plus the cost drivers that move a quote up or down. This page gives both, from the vendors' own pages and from the ranges in our PIM cost guide.

How do Akeneo, Salsify and inriver price their PIM?

All three sell a subscription, usually per year, and all three send you to sales for the number. What differs is what they publish about the basis of the price. The table compares what each vendor's own pages said when we checked them on 3 November 2026.

	Akeneo	Salsify	inriver
Editions or tiers	Growth, Advanced, Premium (Product Cloud packages)	Core, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus (PXM Advance editions)	Foundation, Core, Professional, Enterprise
Published price	Growth: "Starting at $0", billed annually. Advanced and Premium: "Call for a quote"	None: custom quote	None: "every Inriver PIM pricing plan is fully customizable"
Documented price basis	1 activation channel included per package; no user, SKU or locale limits published	Records, asset storage, asset bandwidth and locales per edition	Not documented; tiers matched to company profile
Free option or trial	Free open-source Community Edition (self-hosted); 14-day limited trial of Growth	Not documented	Not documented; each tier leads to a demo request
Sold as add-ons	Supplier Data Manager on every package; the package grid also marks PX Insights, Digital Showroom AI and commerce apps (SFCC, Adobe Commerce, Shopify) as add-ons	Enhanced Content, GDSN, Catalog Sites, Intelligence Suite, Digital Shelf Analytics reports, e-commerce integrations, extra instances	Products such as Inspire AI, Content Onboarding, Brand Store, Print & Publish, Syndicate Advance and Digital Shelf Analytics are listed; tier inclusion not documented
Support	Premium adds a Success Package with a strategic CSM and 24/7 support	Managed Services has its own entitlement guide	Expert support and HowNow learning included in every plan

Akeneo pricing model

Akeneo sells its SaaS PIM as the Akeneo Product Cloud in three packages, each building on the one before. Growth includes the Data Architect Agent, composable products and AI description generation and asset extraction. Advanced adds collaboration workflows, advanced rights management and channel-ready data governance. Premium adds PX Insights for one data source, enterprise governance and the Success Package. Every package includes one activation channel, so extra retailer or marketplace channels are part of the quote.

The "Starting at $0" on the Growth package sits next to the trial button. Akeneo does not publish what a paid Growth contract costs, so treat it as an entry point to talk to sales, not a list price. The Community Edition is a separate route: free, open source and self-hosted, with "all the standard PIM functions" according to Akeneo, but without Akeneo's cloud hosting, services and support, which come with the paid packages. If you are weighing that route, compare it with the other options in open-source PIM compared. The full vendor profile is at Akeneo.

Salsify pricing model

Salsify publishes no prices, and its site leads to a demo request. It does publish definitions and entitlement guides per edition, which tell you what the price is tied to. In version 2025 v1.6 (made available on 1 October 2025):

Salsify edition	Records	Asset storage	Locales
Core	Up to 50,000	Up to 500GB	Up to 3
Enterprise	Up to 100,000	Up to 500GB	Up to 7
Enterprise Plus	Up to 250,000	Up to 1,000GB	Up to 75

Two details matter for your quote. Records at each level of a hierarchy count separately, so a parent product and each of its variants all use the record allowance, and duplicates of the same item in one instance count separately too. And an additional production instance or a non-production (test) instance is a separate purchase, each adding the edition's record and storage allowance. Modules such as Enhanced Content (Starter for up to 5 destinations, or Unlimited), GDSN, Catalog Sites, the Intelligence Suite, Digital Shelf Analytics reports and e-commerce integrations for Shopify, Salesforce B2C Commerce and BigCommerce (one storefront each) are licensed separately. See the Salsify profile for the platform itself.

inriver pricing model

inriver publishes four plan tiers and no prices. Its plans page states that "all Inriver PIM pricing plans are fully customizable" and matches each tier to a business profile: Foundation for small and growing businesses and independent divisions of larger organizations, Core for the mid-market, Professional for larger businesses that want to diversify and expand, and Enterprise for large multinational organizations. The higher tiers add capabilities such as single-click syndication, a self-serve digital storefront for brand assets, product relations for upsell, cross-sell and bundling, and Digital Shelf Analytics. The page does not name a price metric such as users, SKUs or channels, so ask for it. Expert support and HowNow learning resources are included in every plan. See the inriver profile.

What does each cost by company size?

Because none of the three publishes a full price, the table below uses the market bands from our PIM cost guide. They cover the whole project (subscription, implementation and ongoing cost), not one vendor's licence, and they are indicative. The three-year total is year 1 plus two later years. The vendor columns show the tier each vendor's own documentation points to for that segment, and the price for each is a custom quote.

Segment	Year 1	Each later year	3-year total	Akeneo	Salsify	inriver
Entry level (small business, manageable catalog)	€20k to €70k	€10k to €40k	€40k to €150k	Community Edition (free, self-hosted) or Growth: custom quote	Core (up to 50,000 records, 3 locales): custom quote	Foundation: custom quote
Mid-market (larger company, or complex catalog)	€50k to €250k	€30k to €150k	€110k to €550k	Growth or Advanced: custom quote	Core or Enterprise (up to 100,000 records, 7 locales): custom quote	Core, or Professional for larger businesses: custom quote
Enterprise (many countries, brands and systems)	€200k to €1 million	€100k to €600k	€400k to €2.2 million	Premium: custom quote	Enterprise Plus (up to 250,000 records, 75 locales): custom quote	Enterprise: custom quote

Read the vendor columns as a starting point for the conversation. Akeneo does not tie its packages to company size, so its column is our reading of what each package adds. Salsify's fit follows from the record and locale caps, so count your records the way Salsify does (variants included) before you pick an edition. And company size alone does not set the segment: a small manufacturer with a deep technical range can land in the mid-market band. For a first estimate on your own numbers, use the cost calculator.

What drives the total cost beyond the subscription?

For all three vendors the subscription is the visible line, but most of the money in the first years goes elsewhere. Our cost guide puts implementation at up to half of total cost of ownership, ranging from a few thousand euros to well over €100,000 depending on product data and infrastructure. The drivers below decide where in the band your project lands.

Cost driver	What it covers	Where it shows up for these three	What to ask
Implementation partner	Design of the data model, workflows and configuration	Usually done by a partner, whose estimate is a separate quote next to the subscription	A fixed or capped estimate per phase, and who does the data model
Integrations	ERP, e-commerce platform, DAM, CRM	Akeneo and Salsify list commerce connectors as add-ons; inriver does not document connector pricing	Which connectors are included, who maintains them, and the cost per extra storefront
Data migration	Cleaning and restructuring legacy data for the new model	Same for all three; the vendor rarely quotes it	Who cleans the data, and how many test migrations are included
Enrichment	Writing descriptions, attributes, translations and assets	AI features differ per package (Akeneo Growth includes AI description generation; Salsify sells the Intelligence Suite; inriver lists Inspire AI)	Which AI features are in the base price, and any usage caps
Channels and syndication	Publishing to retailers, marketplaces and data pools	Akeneo: 1 activation channel per package. Salsify: Enhanced Content and GDSN sold separately. inriver: syndication in the higher tiers	The price per extra channel or destination
Volume and environments	Records, assets, locales, test instances	Salsify caps records, storage and locales per edition and sells extra instances separately; Akeneo and inriver publish no limits	Overage rules, and whether a test environment is included
Add-on modules	Supplier onboarding, digital shelf analytics, storefronts	Akeneo Supplier Data Manager, Salsify Digital Shelf Analytics reports, inriver Content Onboarding and Digital Shelf Analytics	Which of your requirements fall outside the base package
Internal team	Product owners, data stewards, IT time	Same for all three; never on the quote	Your own estimate of hours, added to the total
Support and success	Support level, customer success	Akeneo Premium includes 24/7 support; inriver includes support in every plan; Salsify sells Managed Services	Response times and what costs extra
Renewal	Price increases after the first term	Not published by any of the three	A cap or index on increases, and how many years the price is fixed

The pattern behind the table: the base subscriptions are hard to compare, and the add-ons and partner work are where the offers really differ. A quote with a low subscription but every channel, connector and test environment priced separately can end up as the most expensive one over three years.

How do you negotiate a PIM quote with Akeneo, Salsify or inriver?

Start from your own requirements, not from the vendor's packages, and send all three the same scope. Our PIM RFP guide covers how to write it. Then use the list below in the commercial conversation.

1. Ask for the price metric in writing. Records, SKUs, users, channels, locales, instances or a mix. Salsify publishes its metrics; Akeneo and inriver do not, so ask.
2. Count your volume the vendor's way. Variants, bundles and non-product records can count as records. A catalog of 20,000 products can be far more records than 20,000.
3. Split base package and add-ons. List every requirement and ask which ones fall outside the base price: supplier onboarding, extra channels, commerce connectors, AI features, digital shelf analytics.
4. Ask for a test environment. A non-production instance can be a separate purchase. You will need one for the implementation and for every later change.
5. Get the implementation estimate next to the licence. Ask the vendor for two or three partners and ask each for an estimate on the same scope. Compare licence plus implementation, not licence alone.
6. Cap renewal increases. Ask for a fixed price for the first term and a cap or index on increases after it, and model three to five years instead of year 1.
7. Agree overage rules up front. What happens when you pass a record, storage or locale limit: an automatic upgrade, a per-unit fee, or a renegotiation.
8. Check data export and exit. How you get your data, assets and history out at the end of the contract, in which format and at what cost.
9. Test before you sign. Akeneo offers a 14-day trial of Growth. For Salsify and inriver, ask for a scripted demo with your own products, then a paid pilot if the stakes are high.
10. Bring a priced alternative. A shortlist you have already priced is the strongest position in any negotiation, including at renewal.

Which is cheapest: Akeneo, Salsify or inriver?

There is no answer on public information. Akeneo is the only one with a free route (the self-hosted Community Edition) and a published trial, but free software still needs hosting, an implementation and support. Salsify's record and locale caps make its editions easier to size, while inriver ties its tiers to company profile and customizes every plan. In practice, the cheapest offer is the one whose base package covers the most of your requirements, so that you pay for fewer add-ons and less custom work. You only find that out by sending all three the same scope. How the three differ beyond price is in our comparisons of Akeneo vs Salsify, Akeneo vs inriver and inriver vs Salsify. Whether the investment pays back is in PIM ROI and the business case.

How we evaluated

We opened each vendor's own pricing, package, plans and entitlement pages on 3 November 2026 and recorded only what they state: package names, published prices, what is included, what is an add-on and what the price is tied to. Where a vendor's page says nothing about a point, the table says "not documented". The budget bands come from our own PIM cost guide and are market-wide, not vendor quotes. We did not use price estimates from review sites, procurement platforms or competitors, because they cannot be checked against a contract. PIMvendors is an independent selection platform; this comparison is not sponsored by any of the three vendors.

Sources

• Akeneo, Compare packages (Growth, Advanced, Premium and Community Edition), checked 3 November 2026.
• Akeneo, Start free trial (14-day limited trial of the Growth package), checked 3 November 2026.
• Akeneo, Akeneo PIM Community Edition, checked 3 November 2026.
• Salsify, PXM Advance Definitions and Entitlement Guides, checked 3 November 2026.
• Salsify, Entitlement Guide: Core, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, version 2025 v1.6, made available 1 October 2025, checked 3 November 2026.
• Salsify, salsify.com/pricing (no price list, demo request), checked 3 November 2026.
• inriver, Choose a plan that's right for you, checked 3 November 2026.

Related guides

• PIM costs: entry level, mid-market and enterprise compared: the bands and cost drivers behind this page.
• Cost calculator: a first estimate for your own catalog.
• PIM ROI and the business case: the benefit side of the same calculation.
• How to select the right PIM: the full selection method.
• PIM implementation guide: where the implementation money goes.

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