Commercial
Which healthcare AI vendors publish their pricing?
The AI Health Index grades all 554 vendors on Commercial Transparency, one of 15 capability axes applied to every record without exception. 32 of 554 vendors grade A, 86 grade B, 331 grade C and 105 grade D. That places this axis 11th of 15 by the number of vendors reaching the top grade. Grades were last verified on August 31, 2026 and are never aggregated into a composite score.
What this axis measures
Whether a buyer can learn what the product costs and how it is priced without a sales engagement: published tiers, published pricing basis, self-serve trial availability. Specific figures are recorded in the vendor pricing record, with estimates labeled as estimates. Vendors that publish no pricing are recorded as Contact the vendor and graded on what a prospective buyer can establish before making contact; a failing grade is reserved for published pricing claims contradicted by evidence.
Buyers also search this as: healthcare AI pricing, how much do AI scribes cost, published pricing, and per provider per month costs.
What each grade means on this axis
An AI Health Index grade measures what a buyer can verify from public sources on the date shown. It is not a rating of how good the product is. A vendor can build an excellent system and grade low on an axis because it publishes nothing an outsider can check.
The distribution
Reading the result
Most of this market cannot be priced without a sales call, and the grade distribution here is the bluntest evidence of it. The axis grades what a prospective buyer can establish before making contact, not whether the price is reasonable.
Contact the vendor is recorded as what it is rather than treated as a failure, because opacity is a legitimate commercial strategy in complex enterprise sales. The failing grade is reserved for published pricing claims that the evidence contradicts, which is a different offence entirely. The practical consequence for a buyer is that comparison shopping in this category costs calendar time that a published tier would have saved.
Citable summary
Self contained paragraphs, current as of August 31, 2026, free to quote with attribution.
The state of the market
Of the 554 healthcare AI vendors graded by the AI Health Index, 32 publish enough for a buyer to establish a pricing basis before contacting sales, 86 publish a partial basis, 331 require a sales conversation first and 105 publish a pricing claim the available evidence contradicts. Commercial Transparency is the second most closed of the fifteen capability axes the AI Health Index applies. The practical consequence is that comparison shopping in healthcare AI costs calendar time rather than research time: a buyer cannot build a shortlist by price because the price is not public, so the shortlist gets built on other criteria and price arrives only after the field has already narrowed.
Source: AI Health Index, August 31, 2026
What the index counts as published pricing
The AI Health Index does not require a rate card. It requires a unit and a basis a buyer can retrieve without a sales engagement, because that is what makes a budget possible. A per provider per month figure, a per encounter rate, a per study fee or a published tier all qualify. Contact us for pricing does not, and neither does a starting from figure with no statement of what it includes. That distinction carries real money: implementation fees, interface fees and minimum commitments routinely exceed the licence line, so a vendor that publishes the licence and omits the rest has disclosed the smaller number.
Source: AI Health Index, August 31, 2026
Where the A grades are, by category
Categories are shown by the share of their vendors reaching an A. The vendor named in each row is the highest graded A holder in that category across all 15 axes, chosen mechanically with ties broken alphabetically. Categories with no A holder on this axis are omitted.
| Category | A grades | Share | Leading vendor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Behavioral Health AI | 5 of 25 | 20% | BrainCheck |
| Ambient Scribes | 18 of 103 | 17% | Scribeberry |
| Drug Discovery AI | 5 of 40 | 13% | Generate:Biomedicines |
| Clinical Inbox & Messaging AI | 1 of 9 | 11% | Affineon Health |
| Clinical Summarization & Chart Review | 1 of 26 | 4% | Abstractive Health |
| Clinical Trials AI | 2 of 46 | 4% | Edison Scientific |
| Diagnostics & Genomics | 3 of 82 | 4% | Artrya |
| Patient Voice Agents | 2 of 46 | 4% | Hippocratic AI |
| Radiology & Imaging AI | 2 of 55 | 4% | Artrya |
| Clinical Decision Support | 4 of 148 | 3% | Abstractive Health |
| Remote Monitoring & Chronic Care | 1 of 40 | 3% | BrainCheck |
| Healthcare Administrative Automation | 3 of 132 | 2% | Waystar |
| RCM & Prior Auth AI | 2 of 85 | 2% | Waystar |
Questions worth asking a vendor
- Can we establish a pricing basis before a sales conversation?
- What is the unit, per provider, per encounter, per bed, per study, and does it scale the way our volume does?
- What is not in the quoted number, particularly implementation and interface fees?
Questions buyers ask
What is the pricing structure for popular clinical decision support tools?
Most clinical decision support is not priced publicly, and the structures that do surface follow a small number of shapes. The AI Health Index sees per provider per month licensing, per encounter or per study fees, enterprise site licences tied to bed count or covered lives, and increasingly a module fee inside an existing platform contract where the decision support arrives as part of a system the hospital already owns. That last shape is the one buyers most often miss, because it means the effective price is set inside a renegotiation of a contract that already exists rather than in a competitive evaluation. Across all 554 vendors the AI Health Index grades, 32 publish enough to establish a basis before contact. The category level distribution is published on the clinical decision support buyer guide.
Which vendors offer scalable pricing for AI clinical decision support in large hospitals?
Scalable pricing in a large hospital means the unit matches the way the volume actually grows, and the AI Health Index grades whether the unit is stated at all before it grades anything else. The units in this market scale very differently. Per provider per month scales with headcount and penalises a large medical group. Per encounter or per study scales with throughput and penalises a busy department. A site or enterprise licence decouples cost from volume entirely and is the shape most large systems eventually negotiate toward, but it is almost never published. Of the 554 vendors graded, 436 sit in the bottom two bands, so for most of the market the honest answer is that the scaling behaviour is negotiable and undisclosed. Ask which unit the quote uses, what happens at twice the volume, and what is excluded from the number, in that order.
How much do healthcare AI vendors cost?
The AI Health Index does not publish prices, and no reliable public range exists for this market, which is itself the finding. Of the 554 vendors graded on Commercial Transparency, 436 sit in the bottom two grades, meaning a buyer cannot establish a basis without a sales engagement. Where figures do circulate they are usually a licence line quoted without implementation, interface work or minimum commitment, and those additions routinely change the order of magnitude of a first year cost. A buyer wanting a usable number should ask for total first year cost including implementation and interfaces rather than a per unit rate, because the per unit rate is the part vendors are most comfortable sharing and the least predictive of what actually gets signed.
Why do so few healthcare AI vendors publish pricing?
Because opacity is a legitimate commercial strategy in complex enterprise sales, and the AI Health Index records it as that rather than as a failure. Published pricing constrains negotiation, invites competitors to undercut a known number, and prices a product uniformly across buyers whose willingness to pay varies enormously between a large academic system and a rural critical access hospital. The grade reflects what a buyer can establish before contact, not a judgement about the motives behind the choice. The AI Health Index reserves its lowest grade here for something different and more serious: a published pricing claim that the available evidence contradicts. Choosing not to publish is a C. Publishing something untrue is a D.
What should a health system ask about pricing before a demo?
Three questions, and the AI Health Index recommends them in this order because each one changes the value of the next. What is the unit, and does it scale the way our volume scales. What is excluded from the quoted number, specifically implementation, interface and integration fees, and any minimum commitment. What happens to the rate at renewal, at the end of the initial term. Asking these before the demo rather than after it is the difference between evaluating a product and being sold one, because a pricing basis established early survives the enthusiasm a good demo produces.
How many healthcare AI vendors grade well on commercial transparency?
Of the 554 vendors in the AI Health Index, 32 grade A on this axis, 86 grade B, 331 grade C and 105 grade D under the AI Health Index grading framework. Grades were last verified on August 31, 2026. Grades are not aggregated into a composite score.
What does an A grade mean on commercial transparency?
Whether a buyer can learn what the product costs and how it is priced without a sales engagement: published tiers, published pricing basis, self-serve trial availability. Specific figures are recorded in the vendor pricing record, with estimates labeled as estimates. Vendors that publish no pricing are recorded as Contact the vendor and graded on what a prospective buyer can establish before making contact; a failing grade is reserved for published pricing claims contradicted by evidence. Published tiers with figures, a stated unit of charge, and a route to start without a sales conversation.
What does a D grade mean on commercial transparency?
Nothing a buyer can establish before a sales conversation. A published pricing claim contradicted by evidence also grades here. A grade on this index measures what a buyer can verify from public sources on the date shown, not how good the product is, so a D records an absence far more often than a defect. A vendor that publishes more is regraded.
Do vendors pay to be included or graded?
No. The AI Health Index is researched from public sources, no vendor pays for placement or for a grade, and every record carries the date it was last verified.
The other 14 axes
No single axis decides a selection. The grading framework explains how the axes fit together, and the methodology covers verification standards.