Notion folded AI into its Business plan and raised the price to $20. Who paid more?
On May 13, 2025, Notion stopped selling AI as an add-on and built it into Business. For some teams that was a 33% price rise. For others it was a cut. This teardown looks at the decision behind it, and how you'd test it.
- Business went from $15 to $20 per member (billed yearly) with Notion AI included. The $8 AI add-on was no longer sold to new customers.34
- For a team without AI, that was a 33% rise. For a team already paying for the add-on, it fell from $23 to $20.
- Notion's COO said the change came once over half of customers were paying for AI.7 The test: will teams that never chose AI accept paying for it?
Keep AI as an add-on, or put it in the plan price?
Notion's COO, Akshay Kothari, described to CNBC how the decision came about: adoption of the AI add-on had risen from 10–20% of customers to 30–40%, and then:
"recently crossed 50%"Akshay Kothari, Notion COO, to CNBC, September 18, 20257
According to the same report, that is the point at which Notion began including AI in Business and Enterprise. Notion's help centre gives the stated reason for the price change: Business and Enterprise prices rise as a result of additional features being offered
, including Notion AI.4
So the pricing decision was this: once most customers already pay for AI, should every Business customer pay for it, and at what price?
Four questions a pricing study can answer
- Which features make Business worth paying for: the AI or the admin features?MaxDiff →
- How should AI be packaged in Business: included, included with a usage allowance, or sold as an add-on?Conjoint →
- What is the acceptable price range for Business with AI included?Van Westendorp →
- At what price does Business with AI bring in the most revenue?Gabor-Granger →
The order runs from the offer to the price: what buyers value, how to package it, the range they accept, then the exact price. Each question is asked separately of the two groups the change affects differently: teams already paying for an AI add-on, and teams that aren't. The study, run in Albi, is at the end.
Business went to $20, with AI included
On May 13, 2025, Notion announced Notion AI for Work
. Its pricing took effect the same day for new subscriptions.5 The changes:
| Plan | Before | From May 13, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 · AI add-on available | $0 · AI trial only |
| Plus | $10 / $12 · AI add-on available | $10 / $12 · AI trial only |
| Business | $15 / $18 · AI extra | $20 / $24 · AI included |
| Enterprise | Contact sales · AI extra | Contact sales · AI included |
| AI add-on | $8 / $10 | Not sold to new customers |
Billed yearly / billed monthly. Archived pricing pages, May 16 and June 3, 2025.23 Release notes: Business and Enterprise now include unlimited usage of Notion AI
.8
Existing customers kept their old prices until their first plan renewal on or after August 13, 2025
.4
Whether it was a rise depends on whether you already paid for AI
What is public about how it went
Notion has not published churn or downgrade figures for the change. What is on the record:
- In September 2025, CNBC reported Notion at about $500 million in annualized revenue. Kothari said annual revenue growth had
accelerated every month
since the May launches.7 That is the company's own statement, and it covers several launches, not only the price change. - In 2026, Notion started charging for some AI use separately again. Custom Agents moved to Notion credits from May 4, 2026.9 From August 3, 2026, Notion AI on Business came with a usage allowance, where the May 2025 release had promised
unlimited usage
.810 That is a separate pricing decision, outside this study.
What isn't public: how many teams without AI moved down to Plus, and what Enterprise customers pay. This teardown makes no claim about either.
From the four questions to the decision
Illustrative study with synthetic respondents — not the company's data.We ran the four questions above as one Albi survey. The respondents choose or pay for their team's workspace tool at US companies of 10 to 250 people: 150 whose team already pays for an AI add-on, and 150 whose team doesn't.
These results come from synthetic respondents: AI-modelled buyer profiles, not people. Use them to shape the question, then confirm with real respondents. Run in Albi on October 2, 2026, with 300 synthetic respondents generated by Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. Every chart below meets the minimum sample Albi sets for its method.
Which features make the Business plan worth paying for?
MaxDiff · all 300Result. The top five are all AI features, led by AI search across connected apps (24.3, more than twice the average). The top three hold 54% of all preference. SAML single sign-on was the only admin feature near the average; page history, analytics and PDF export were at the bottom.
For the decision: AI carries more of Business's value than the admin features do. That supports putting AI in the Business price, rather than keeping Business as the admin plan with AI sold beside it.
How should AI be packaged in the Business plan?
Conjoint · all 300 · 4 prices × 4 AI packagings × 2 admin levelsOld packaging vs new: who buys what, and what it earns
AI sold as an add-on
| Users | Revenue | |
|---|---|---|
| No plan bought (vs. these options) | 0% | — |
| Plus | 70% | 43% |
| Business | 30% | 28% |
| AI add-on | 58% take it | 29% |
AI included in Business
| Users | Revenue | |
|---|---|---|
| No plan bought (vs. these options) | 1% | — |
| Plus | 40% | 25% |
| Business | 59% | 75% |
Result. Price drove 58% of the choices, how AI was packaged 32%, admin features 10%. Before the change, most AI buyers took the add-on on Plus, the cheapest route to AI at $18, and the $8 add-on carried 29% of revenue. After it, AI came only with Business. In the simulation, almost all teams already paying for AI end up on Business at $20 (99%). Most teams without AI stay on Plus (79%); the share of them on Business stays about where it was (20%), now paying $5 more. Business goes from 30% to 59% of members, and almost no one buys nothing. Revenue per 100 members is about flat: $1,604 to $1,589 a month, −1%.
For the decision: the repackaging moves AI buyers onto Business. It doesn't, on its own, grow revenue. AI buyers on Plus pay $2 more and those on Business $3 less; the extra $5 from teams without AI on Business is offset by the few who took AI on Plus and now drop it. The fewer teams already pay for AI, the worse it looks: −3% if a quarter do, −5% if a tenth do. Notion's COO said the change came once over half of customers paid for AI, the mix at which this model comes closest to neutral.
What is the acceptable price range for the Business plan with AI included?
Van Westendorp · all 300, then each groupResult. Across all 300, the acceptable range was $15 to $22, with the optimal price at about $18. So $20 sits inside it, in the upper half. The groups differ: for teams already paying for AI the range is $18 to $25, with $20 near its centre. For teams without AI it is $15 to $20: $20 is the very top of their range, and 45% of them already called a price of $20 or less "getting expensive".
For the decision: $20 is acceptable to both groups, but it is the ceiling for the teams that never bought AI. The average hides that.
At what price does Business with AI bring in the most revenue?
Gabor-Granger · each group · prices $15, $18, $20, $24, $28Result. Across all 300, revenue per 100 members peaks at $20 ($1,627 a month, with 81% buying), ahead of $15 ($1,475) and well ahead of $24 ($1,120). The peak comes from teams already paying for AI: 99% of them still buy at $20, and their revenue peaks there. Teams without AI are different: their revenue peaks at $15, and at $20 it is 13% lower, with 63% buying against 97% at $15.
For the decision: $20 maximises revenue overall, and costs nothing among AI payers, who were paying $23 before. Priced for teams without AI alone, $15 would earn more.
Bundling at $20 moves AI buyers onto Business at about the same revenue. On its own, it doesn't add any.
- Value: AI is what makes Business worth paying for (question 1). Putting it in Business at $20 takes Business from about 30% to 59% of members, at about the same revenue (−1% in the simulation, with half of teams already paying for AI), and almost no one buys nothing (question 2).
- Price: $20 is inside the acceptable range, and it is where revenue per member peaks overall (questions 3 and 4).
- Risk: the rise falls on teams without AI. Asked about price alone, $20 is the top of their acceptable range and only 63% would buy, against 97% at $15 (questions 3 and 4). In the simulation most of them stay on Plus rather than pay for AI (question 2). So the case for bundling rests on how many teams already pay for AI, not on converting the rest.
What this study can't tell you: what teams without AI would really do. Plus at $10 sits below the prices the survey tested, so its pull is extrapolated, and "no plan bought" is not a measured move to Free or to a rival. That is the next thing to test, with real respondents. Notion hasn't published what happened (see Result).
How each method works, and how many respondents you need: Van Westendorp · Gabor-Granger · MaxDiff · Conjoint · Sample size
Find out what your buyers will pay, before you change the price
Notion is a trademark of its owner. Albi has no affiliation with Notion, and this teardown is not endorsed by it.
Sources
- Notion pricing page, archived Nov 16, 2024: Business $15; Notion AI
$8 per member/month, billed annually
. web.archive.org - Notion pricing page, archived May 12 and May 16, 2025: Business
$20 per seat/month
on May 16. May 12 · May 16 - Notion pricing page, archived June 3, 2025: Business $24 billed monthly, Notion AI included. web.archive.org
- Notion Help Center, "Understanding Notion's pricing changes", archived May 13, 2025: the add-on is
no longer available as an add-on to any new users
on Free or Plus. web.archive.org - Notion blog, "Introducing Notion AI for Work", May 13, 2025. notion.com
- Notion AI FAQ, archived May 5, 2025: add-on available on all plans, Free included. web.archive.org
- CNBC, "Notion launches AI agent as it crosses $500 million in annual revenue", Sept 18, 2025. cnbc.com
- Notion release 2.51, May 13, 2025. notion.com/releases
- Notion releases, Feb 24 and Apr 14, 2026. Feb 24 · Apr 14
- Notion Help Center, "Manage your usage allowance for Notion AI". notion.com/help
We'd rather do this on your pricing than Notion's.
Same method, your own data behind it, and a proposal you approve or don't.