How to Evaluate Pricing, Free Trials, and Upgrades for Claris Products

Claris provides three concrete entry points for evaluation: a Pricing page, a "Start free" option, and a "Why upgrade" resource. If you are assessing Claris for a team or organization, the practical path is to start with the free option to test the platform, use the Pricing page to understand commercial terms, and treat upgrades as an ongoing security and currency decision rather than a one-time purchase. The sections below cover what each path gives you and what to check before committing.

Start with the free entry point

The Claris site offers a Start free option alongside Login. This is the lowest-commitment way to evaluate the platform before any pricing conversation.

What to do with it:

1. Use Start free to get into the product environment.
2. Build or open a small custom app to test the core workflow — Claris positions its products around building custom apps, automating processes, and integrating systems.
3. Test the specific capability you care about. If AI is part of your evaluation, the site points to AI script steps, AI functions, and semantic image search as concrete features to try.
4. Only after you have a working test case should you move to the Pricing page — it is much easier to map a price tier to a real workload than to an abstract feature list.

Note that the free entry point and the paid tiers are separate things. The site does not state that paid features are included in the free option, so treat "Start free" as a trial/evaluation path and confirm what is included before you rely on it for production.

Read the Pricing page against your actual deployment shape

Claris splits its offering across several products, and pricing follows that split. The products referenced on the site are:

Because hosting is a separate decision from app building, your pricing evaluation has two layers: the app/platform layer (FileMaker, Connect) and the hosting layer (Cloud vs. Server). The site also links to a "Hosting options" page to help pick between them.

When you open the Pricing page, check these specific things rather than just the headline number:

• Per-user vs. per-server licensing — FileMaker Server is described in terms of managing licenses, add-ons, and team access, which implies seat/team-based terms. Confirm how your headcount maps to that.
• Which products are bundled vs. separate — Connect is presented as its own product for integrations, so do not assume it is included with a FileMaker tier.
• Add-ons — the Server description explicitly mentions add-ons, so ask what is base and what is extra.
• Hosting cost — if you choose FileMaker Cloud you are paying for managed hosting; if you choose FileMaker Server you pay for licenses but supply your own infrastructure. Compare total cost, not just license cost.

Treat upgrades as a security decision, not just a feature decision

The site frames upgrades under "Why upgrade" with the stated rationale of keeping solutions secure and current. That framing matters for budgeting: if you run Claris in production, upgrade cadence is a recurring line item, not a one-off.

Two upgrade-related resources are worth reading before you commit:

• What's new in FileMaker — highlights of the latest release.
• FileMaker 2026 — a dedicated page for version 26 and its new features and updates.

The site also lists Backup and recovery as a protection option. For a buying decision, this is the question to answer early: what happens to your data if something goes wrong, and is that protection part of your tier or an additional purchase? Get this answered before you sign, because it affects both cost and risk.

A practical upgrade checklist:

1. Confirm which version you would be starting on and how often releases ship.
2. Check whether your chosen hosting option (Cloud vs. Server) changes how upgrades are applied — managed cloud hosting and self-hosted server typically differ here.
3. Confirm backup and recovery coverage for your tier.
4. If AI features are on your roadmap, verify they are available in the version and tier you are buying, since AI script steps and AI functions are version-dependent.

Where to go for each question

• Pricing and tiers → the Pricing page.
• Free evaluation → Start free.
• Upgrade rationale and release highlights → Why upgrade, What's new in FileMaker, and the FileMaker 2026 page.
• Hosting choice → Hosting options.
• Pre-built starting points → the Marketplace for pre-built apps and templates, useful if you want to evaluate cost against build time.
• Help choosing or implementing → Claris Partners (find a partner / ask an expert).

If you need a human answer on licensing specifics, the site routes sign-in and account questions to a support team via "Get in touch" — that is the correct channel for terms the public pages do not spell out.