The short answer
Many paying tools look free in the store, because they charge on their own website. To tell paid from free, check the listing text, payment hosts in the manifest, the publisher's site, its pricing page and its terms. A blank listing means unknown. Only a pricing page settles whether profitable Chrome extensions charge.
- The store has no paid badge, so everything looks free at first glance.
- Our listing-only check flagged 3 of 1,818 extensions with 100,000+ users.
- Big paid tools rarely name a payment host in their manifest.
- The pricing page is the only reliable answer.
Even profitable Chrome extensions have a price tag. It's just hanging in a different shop, on a different street, usually behind a link in small grey type at the bottom of the publisher's homepage.
Why profitable Chrome extensions look free
The Chrome Web Store stopped handling payments, per news coverage at the time. Same button. The "Add to Chrome" button is identical for a free toy and a tool with a paid yearly plan.
Our first paid check read only the listing itself. Out of 65,655 extensions crawled by 3 Oct 2026, it flagged 641. Among the 1,818 with 100,000+ users, it flagged 3.
The big paid tools were invisible. See the top paid Chrome extensions for ten of them, and our checking routine for paying niches for the checking routine.
The five-step check
- Read the full descriptionWords like "Pro", "Premium", "credits" or "upgrade" are a start.
- Look at the permissionsA host like extensionpay.com, gumroad.com or lemonsqueezy.com points to a paid feature.
- Open the publisher's websitefrom the listing.
- Find the pricing page/pricing, /plans, /upgrade or /premium.
- Skim the terms and refund policyA refund policy is a strong sign of real sales.
You can check these figures on the password managers page, each with the day we saw it.
What each signal means
| What you see | What it suggests | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| "A $ price on a /pricing page" | Charges money | Strong |
| "Refund policy in the footer" | Takes payments | Strong |
| "extensionpay.com in permissions" | Sells a paid feature | Good |
| "The word Pro in the name" | Might charge | Weak |
| "Nothing found anywhere" | Unknown | None |
Strength is our judgement from building the check, not a measured rate. For the same check applied to big names, read the most profitable Chrome extensions.
Write "unknown" when the evidence is missing. "Free" is a claim, and it needs proof the same as "paid" does.
Real examples, by signal
Here's what each signal looks like on real listings in our 3 Oct 2026 crawl. These are payment paths we could see, not proof of sales.
| Extension | Users | Signal we saw |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome Capture | 300,000 | Paddle checkout link |
| Tally, a Claude token counter | 100,000 | Polar licence host |
| PrettyMerch for Merch by Amazon | 40,000 | Gumroad licence host |
| Search Result Previews | 30,000 | "Pro version" in the listing text |
Each one would pass step two or step one of the check. The final word still sits on each tool's own pricing page.
Pricing words in short summaries
Short summaries rarely mention money, which is why the full description and website matter. Here's how often some pricing words showed up in summaries across our crawl on 3 Oct 2026.
| Word or phrase | Summaries containing it |
|---|---|
| "pro" | 295 |
| "premium" | 172 |
| "free trial" | 34 |
| "one-time purchase" | 6 |
Out of 65,655 extensions, those are tiny numbers. Plenty of paid tools never mention price in the summary. So a quiet summary means "keep looking", never "free".
Checking a whole niche
If you're sizing up a niche, run the check on every listing above a user threshold, not just the leaders. A simple sheet keeps it consistent.
| Column | What to write |
|---|---|
| Extension | Name and link |
| Users | Store bucket, with the date |
| Listing signal | Any pricing word |
| Payment host | From the manifest or links |
| Pricing page | URL, or "none found" |
| Verdict | Paid, free or unknown |
Start with listings of 1,000 or more users on our niche pages. When you're done, count how many are paid, free and unknown. A niche where most tools charge is one where users already accept paying, which our guide to monetization models builds on.
Common mistakes when judging paid vs free
The five-step check is simple, but a few slips come up again and again.
| Mistake | Why it misleads | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Trusting "free" in the name | Names are marketing | Check the pricing page |
| Reading only the short summary | Pricing rarely appears there | Read the full description and site |
| Taking "no payment host" as free | Big tools charge on their own site | Mark it unknown |
| Assuming paid means profitable | A price doesn't mean sales | Look for steady updates and reviews |
| Checking once | Pricing changes | Recheck when a version changes |
The third row is the one that fooled our own first check. It's also the one an AI summary will repeat if you let it.
Signals in reviews
Reviews often say what the listing doesn't. Words in reviews can reveal a paid tier even when the listing is silent.
- "Paid", "subscription" or "charged" in complaints.
- "Worth the upgrade" or "pro is worth it" in praise.
- "Used to be free", which usually means a paywall arrived.
- Developer replies pointing users to a plan.
Read the newest 20 reviews and note any of these. They're not proof on their own, but they tell you where to look next.
Why this matters for builders
If you're sizing a niche, the share of tools that charge tells you whether users already accept paying. A niche where most big tools charge is easier to sell into than one where everything is free.
- Run the check on the top ten tools.
- Count paid, free and unknown.
- Note the price range of the paid ones.
- Look for a gap: a job the paid tools do badly, or a group they don't serve.
Our guide to monetization models helps you pick a shape once you know what the niche accepts. Our extension search shows the payment signals we found on each listing, with the date we checked.
A worked example
Say you're looking at Keywords Everywhere. It had 1M users in our 3 Oct 2026 crawl. The listing's short summary didn't trip our price words, and no payment host showed in the manifest.
Open its website and the story changes: it sells credits. Two minutes. That's all it took for a tool that looked free in every field we stored to turn out to be a credits business with its own price list.
Next time something looks free, go find the shop where its tag hangs.
Questions people ask
Is there a list of paid Chrome extensions?
Not an official one. The store doesn't mark paid tools, so any list is built from outside checks.
Can you trust 'free' in an extension's name?
Treat it as marketing. Check the pricing page anyway.
Does a manifest payment host prove someone pays?
It shows the tool can take payments. It doesn't show how many people do.
What words in a listing suggest a paid plan?
\"Pro\", \"premium\", \"upgrade\", \"credits\", \"licence key\" and \"free trial\" are common. In our 3 Oct 2026 crawl, \"premium\" appeared in 172 summaries and \"free trial\" in 34.
How long does the five-step check take?
About two to five minutes per extension once you're used to it. Most of that is finding the pricing page.
What changed
- Refreshed counts to our 3 Oct 2026 crawl and added real listing examples by signal, pricing words in summaries, and a sheet for checking a whole niche.
Where these numbers come from
- techradar.comTechRadar: Google ends paid Chrome extensionsAccessed 3 Oct 2026
Part of our guide: How to Make Money with Chrome Extensions: Proof First. More in Make money with extensions.
145 extensions tracked in Password managers. See them all.
Open niches with paying users and weak competition, checked against the store. Updated 3 Oct 2026 from our Chrome Web Store crawl
