Commissioned by
Research on the Stack Tax index was commissioned by Supernal. Red Tape Index owns the research and determines the data, weights and rankings independently. The findings are openly available.
Research on the Stack Tax index was commissioned by Supernal. Red Tape Index owns the research and determines the data, weights and rankings independently. The findings are openly available.
Detailed analysis
By company size
The whole market, split into bands by employee count.
Size-band report: Micro
Its review activity spans more distinct software categories than any larger band. And its plausible range reaches above the top-ranked small band.
Driving School shows up 1.72× as often in this group's reviews as across the full pool of reviews we studied.
same rate as the full pool (1×)
About 1 in 12 Configuration Tools reviewers reviewed two or more competing products (8.2%).
The bar is how many contracts sit behind that unit. The price beside it is the typical one we see for it. Prices are not comparable between rows.
51 pricing models.
Software variety narrowed about 6% over the period: from 616.9 distinct categories in 2023 to 577.1 in 2026 H1.
Each year's figure counts the distinct software categories in 1,000 review entries drawn at random, so years compare on equal footing.
Higher means more varied software across the group, not more tools per company.
“Our website has been "successful" enough that they just TRIPLED my expenses... A jump from $89 - to $249US/month which is VERY frustrating for a small business owner.”
“Too many different screens to go to, when adding a new employee to make sure they have the proper access.”
Evidence
Sources: Capterra review corpus; Capterra co-review identities; Capterra review corpus, rarefied per year; Vendr contract price points; TrustRadius review cons (independent panel)
Window: 2023-01-01 → 2026-07-01
Omitted: the vendor popularity ranking (withheld: the source's only size-specific vendor ranking is its enterprise one)
No sponsor data flows into this index — every input is independently sourced.