Headline finding: only 27% of headless CMS vendors are open source (3 of 11), while 73% publish their prices and 73% offer a free plan.
We checked the homepage and pricing page of 11 headless CMS vendors in October 2026 for seven attributes. This is a snapshot of what vendors say publicly on their own sites, not a measure of product quality. Below are the results, what they suggest for buyers, and exactly how we collected them.
What are the top headless CMS companies doing?
| Attribute (homepage or pricing page) | Share of 11 vendors | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Publish prices on the site | 73% | 8 of 11 |
| Offer a free plan | 73% | 8 of 11 |
| Offer a visual page editor | 73% | 8 of 11 |
| Show named customer testimonials | 73% | 8 of 11 |
| Mention MCP or AI agents | 64% | 7 of 11 |
| Are open source | 27% | 3 of 11 |
| Mention SOC 2 or ISO 27001 | 27% | 3 of 11 |
Publish prices ███████████████████████░░░░░ 73%
Offer a free plan ███████████████████████░░░░░ 73%
Visual page editor ███████████████████████░░░░░ 73%
Named testimonials ███████████████████████░░░░░ 73%
Mention MCP / AI agents ████████████████████░░░░░░░░ 64%
Open source ████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 27%
Mention SOC 2 / ISO 27001 ████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 27%
What is the standard now?
Four practices sit at 73%, just under the 75% line we'd call universal, so treat them as the baseline buyers should expect:
- Published prices. Most vendors let you see a price without a sales call. If a vendor you are evaluating hides pricing, ask why and what drives the quote.
- A free plan. Eight of 11 let you try before you talk to anyone.
- A visual page editor. Editing pages visually is now mainstream in headless, not a niche add-on.
- Named customer testimonials. Most vendors show who uses them by name.
Where can a vendor stand out?
Three attributes sit below 75%, which is where a vendor's site can differentiate:
- Open source (27%). Three of 11 are open source. If code access, self-hosting and low lock-in matter to you, this is a short list.
- Compliance mentions (27%). Only three of 11 mention SOC 2 or ISO 27001 on the homepage or pricing page. That does not mean the others lack certification; it means buyers have to dig for it. Ask for it explicitly during procurement.
- AI-agent support (64%). Nearly two thirds mention MCP or AI agents, so this is fast becoming table stakes. The useful question is what the integration actually does: read-only content access, or the ability to create content types and publish.
What does this mean for United States buyers choosing a headless CMS?
- Shortlist from public prices first. With most vendors publishing prices, a hidden price is a data point.
- Decide on open source early. It eliminates most of the field, so decide whether it is a requirement or a preference.
- Request compliance documents by name. Do not assume absence from the website means absence of certification, and do not assume the reverse.
- Test the AI claims. "Mentions MCP" is a marketing check, not a capability test. Run your own task through it.
How we collected the data
- Sample: 11 headless CMS vendors: sanity.io, storyblok.com, prismic.io, builder.io, pantheon.io, strapi.io, hygraph.com, directus.io, payloadcms.com, dotcms.com and buttercms.com. This is a convenience sample of well-known vendors, not a random sample of the market.
- Date: October 2026.
- Pages checked: the homepage and pricing page of each vendor.
- Method: each page was checked for the seven attributes in the table above. An attribute counts as present only if it is stated or shown on those two pages. Pages we did not check (docs, blog, trust centers) may contain more.
- Limits: with 11 vendors, each vendor is worth about 9 percentage points, so small differences are not meaningful. We have no prior-year data, so this report makes no claims about change over time; we plan to repeat it each year.
- Publisher disclosure: Decoupled.io, the publisher of this report, is a headless CMS vendor. It was not part of the sample and is excluded from every figure.
Want to cite this? Please link to this page and credit "Decoupled.io, The 2026 Headless CMS Website Report, October 2026." If you spot a factual error about a vendor, contact us and we will correct it.