Guide

How the Small Contractor Software Pricing Index is built.

The Small Contractor Software Pricing Index is a monthly figure GovCon Software Index plans to publish from its pricing ledger. A ledger row exists only when a dollar amount is printed on the vendor's or the government's own page and carries a source link and a checked date, so listings priced by quote contribute no number. This page states those rules and does not publish an index value, an average, or a percent change. ^{1, 2}

What counts as a published price

The method page says a dollar figure is taken from the page that prints it. If that page does not print a dollar figure, the listing stays by quote. A government site is shown at $0 only when its own page says there is no charge. If a site does not mention a fee, the directory does not call it free. Review sites are not a source for a price. A checked date older than 45 days fails the build. ¹

The ledger file's own note says prices and claims come from the linked page on the checked date, and a missing dollar price stays quote only. ²

Each listing has a visibility of published, quote_only, or free. A tier may carry a monthly amount, an annual amount, a one-time amount, a unit, a note, a source URL, and a checked date. A tier may also name a price source. The default is the vendor's own page. A GSA Schedule ceiling carries the contract number and the price-list date, and the label is "GSA Schedule ceiling price, contract X. Federal buyers may pay less. Price list dated Y." An AWS Marketplace list price is labeled "AWS Marketplace list price". An Azure Marketplace list price is labeled "Azure Marketplace list price". Those sources are not the vendor's list price, they are not the starting price, and they are left out of the lowest and median lines. A quote_only record cannot carry a numeric price. A published record must have a numeric price. A free record must include a sourced zero. A priced tier needs an http or https source URL and a checked date, and that date fails when it is more than 45 days old. ¹

How a ledger row is made

The pricing ledger page says every public price is listed with its source and the date it was checked, and that tools priced by quote have no dollar row. ²

The row builder keeps a tier only when it can print a dollar string. If the tier has both a monthly number and an annual number, the row prints both. It does not turn the monthly price into an annual price, and it does not turn the annual price into a monthly price. If only a monthly number is present, the row is monthly. If only an annual number is present, the row is annual. If the only number is a one-time amount, the row is that one-time amount. A one-time amount is not divided into a monthly equivalent. When a monthly or annual number is present, an additional one-time number on the same tier is not added into the printed string. Zero is a number, so a sourced zero can be a row. A blank price is not stored as zero. ¹

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What is left out

Quote-only listings are left out, because they have no dollar row. A tier with no monthly, annual, or one-time number is left out. A price with no source URL, or with a checked date older than 45 days, fails the build and is not a usable ledger price. An unsourced "free" does not become a zero. Review sites, blogs, and summaries are not a price source. Sponsored flags and affiliate links leave both the row set and the name order unchanged. ^{1, 2}

Lists are in name order. The sort does not read sponsored flags, affiliate links, or publisher ownership. The pricing ledger page stops if a publisher-owned listing is in the set it is about to render, so a publisher-owned record is not a ledger row on that page. ¹

A vendor sentence about its own product stays in a block labeled "Vendor states," with the source link. The index does not treat that sentence as a price or as a finding that the company meets a rule. ¹

What this page will not do

The pricing index page lists, for each category, every tool that publishes a base plan. The row shows that tool's entry plan, the entry price with the unit printed on the vendor's page, a billing note, the checked date, and the source. An add-on, an extra seat, a service, or a bundle is not used as the entry price. The page states how many tools publish a base price and how many are by quote. It prints a lowest and a median only when at least three tools share the same unit, and it names that unit. Annual prices are not divided into months, and one-time prices are not spread out. This guide does not repeat dollar amounts from vendor records. ^{8, 1}

Sources checked October 16, 2026. Not legal advice.

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