Statamic raises prices, but does it matter?
Statamic is raising its prices for the first time in six years. From May 1st, 2026, Statamic Pro increases from $275 to $349 per site, and the annual update fee rises from $65 to $99, putting Statamic between Craft CMS Team and Pro at the same annual renewal cost.
Jack McDade's reasoning is clear: costs have risen, and the platform has improved significantly over six years. That's a fair argument and the kind every software company makes when raising prices. It doesn't make it wrong, just familiar.
Statamic gave a month's notice and lets existing customers lock in the current price before the deadline. That's a decent approach. The timing is less ideal since the increase comes just weeks after Statamic 6. Still, the list of features added over six years without raising prices is long: 2FA built into core, passkeys, a fully redesigned Control Panel, a new UI component library, Live Preview that hot-reloads instantly, and more.
Where Statamic now sits
The increase itself is not the story. It's where Statamic lands after it.
Craft CMS, the closest competitor with the larger community, offers three tiers: a free Solo license, Team at $279, and Pro at $399. Both Team and Pro charge $99 per year for continued updates.
Statamic, at $349, now sits exactly between Craft Team and Craft Pro. At $99 per year, it matches Craft's renewal cost. The pricing story was never as simple as "Statamic is cheaper than Craft." Craft Team at $279 is close to the old Statamic price but limits user accounts. Projects with multiple editors and roles require Craft Pro at $399. Compared to that, Statamic at $275 was a considerable difference. At $349, only $50 separates them.
For most business clients, $50 doesn't change the decision but changes the conversation. Statamic's price used to be an easier argument to make. Now the choice depends on other factors: flat-file by default versus database-driven, ecosystem size, community, and addon availability. Valid reasons, but they take more explaining.
The license price alone doesn't tell the full story. Statamic includes forms, search, static caching, and image manipulation in core. A comparable Craft setup often relies on paid plugins like Formie for forms or Blitz for static caching. Depending on the project, total costs can vary significantly.
The Laravel angle
Craft CMS is moving to Laravel, with a GA release planned for Q4 2026, while Statamic has been running on Laravel since 2018. Once Craft completes the transition, both platforms will share the same foundation.
How that plays out in practice is still unclear. Craft has been explicit that this is a port, not a rewrite. They are happy with their current architecture and plan to keep breaking changes to a minimum, even building a compatibility layer for existing plugins. For developers already in the Laravel ecosystem, the gap between the two will narrow. Content modeling, workflow, and project fit will decide it.
The quiet winner
While Statamic and Craft inch closer in price, Kirby costs €99 per site with no annual fee and includes 3 years of updates. One payment, no subscription, no renewal reminders.
Kirby is a flat-file CMS built for developers who want control without overhead. The community is smaller than Statamic or Craft, with around 2,300 members on Discord compared to Statamic's 5,900 and Craft's 8,200, but for many projects that's not a problem. Kirby's panel is clean and intuitive, and the flat-file approach delivers fast performance and easy Git version control.
For a client with a €3,000–5,000 budget, Kirby's €99 license leaves more room for design and development. Statamic's $349 plus plugins and $99 per year are harder to justify when the site doesn't need all its features.
What this means in practice
The Statamic price increase is reasonable. Six years without raising prices is a long time; the platform has genuinely improved, and the team behind it is just six people. Nobody should be shocked by this.
The pricing gap was never the main reason to choose Statamic over Craft. But it helped. The decision between the two comes down to what it always did: flat-file by default versus database-driven, a native Laravel foundation versus one that's on its way, a smaller ecosystem.
Those are good reasons to choose one over the other. They just require more explanation than "it's slightly cheaper."