The average list price of a mid-tier syndicated market research report is about $4,950 โ single-user licence, PDF, no raw data. For that, a founder receives a 200-to-350-page document, often six to twelve months old, covering a market broader than the pitch, and spends two to three hours extracting four or five figures.
Estimately.io is the direct alternative: $20 to $299, analyst-verified country-level sizing in Excel, under 60 minutes, with a free demo before you pay. The question is not only why it is cheaper. It is what the extra ~$4,700 was buying.
The $4,700 question
Only about 10โ20 percent of a legacy report price funds the sourcing that makes the document useful. The rest is PDF production, enterprise sales, multi-seat licensing, and brand premium. Those layers do not improve the CAGR you paste into slide 8.
Estimately keeps analyst validation, primary-source documentation, and country granularity. It removes the PDF factory, the sales rep, and the enterprise licence.
Removing the PDF production team does not make the data worse. It makes the invoice honest.
What founders actually need
A defensible TAM/SAM, a country split for the raise narrative, a 10-year view that matches the model, and a source they can name when a partner asks โwhere did this come from?โ A 300-page PDF is a poor vehicle for that job.
Configure Global plus the countries in the raise, add segmentation if the thesis is niche-specific, preview the demo Excel, then purchase. Analysts triangulate top-down and bottom-up against 70,000+ DataHorizzon reports before the file hits your inbox.
Use it in the room
Investors who know your category will recognize a hallucinated TAM. A sourced Excel with a Sources sheet is a different conversation from โindustry research, 2024.โ
Start at $20. Cap at $299 with full coverage and segments. That is the founder-priced version of work that used to require a procurement committee.