Financial and Market Data Survey 2026

Financial and market data: a material, growing, and structurally complex spend

Financial and market data is not a discretionary line item. Across 101 respondents spanning North America and EMEA, 74% spend more than €200K annually on financial and market data, 49% exceed €500K, and 19% top €1M. The weighted average spend across all respondents sits at approximately €612K, scaling sharply by firm size from approximately €446K for small firms to approximately €980K for large institutions.

Budget momentum is positive and concentrated. Integrated platform spend is expected to grow an average of 9.6% over the next three years, outpacing niche provider spend which is expected to grow 7.5%. Smaller firms are driving the steepest increases, with small firms projecting 10.5% integrated platform budget growth, as larger players already operate from elevated bases.

What the survey covers

Dedale Intelligence surveyed 101 financial institutions in April 2026, split almost evenly between North America (48%) and EMEA (52%), covering hedge funds (20%), private equity (26%), buy-side asset managers (28%), and sell-side broker-dealers (27%) across small, mid-sized, and large institutions by AUM. The survey covers:

Data adoption and vendor stack composition.

‍76% of respondents work with more than 5 data vendors, with the average buyer managing approximately 37 vendors at small firms and approximately 78 at large firms. Platform data is the only category where buyers run multiple vendors in parallel, averaging 2.06 vendors per respondent, with Bloomberg reaching 69% penetration and S&P Global 64%, functioning as complements rather than substitutes.

Procurement channels and decision makers.

‍Data purchases are decided by an average of 2.30 decision makers per buyer, committee-driven across Data, Investment, and IT teams which together account for 70% of all decisions. Procurement is multi-channel at 1.76 channels per buyer, with platform marketplaces leading, and cloud data infrastructure marketplaces now capturing roughly 30% of activity even among small firms.

Vendor consolidation and stack philosophy.

‍64% of buyers plan to rationalize or consolidate vendors in the next three years, yet only 7% rule it out entirely. The market is firmly in the "combiner middle": 60% prefer vendors who combine multiple datasets while retaining a multi-vendor stack, versus 26% who want strong consolidation onto a single provider. The bet is on combiner platforms, not pure-play single-feed specialists.‍

Replacement triggers and key purchasing criteria.‍

81% of replacement-trigger mentions tie to product fundamentals: data inaccuracy or inconsistency (56%), unfavorable pricing (55%), and platform usability or integration challenges (56%). Consolidation-only motives rank lowest at 21 to 27%. Accuracy and reliability is the universal number one purchasing criterion, cited by 87% of respondents and ranked first across all firm sizes.

AI capabilities and willingness to pay.‍

Automated summarization and insight extraction ranks first overall as the most expected AI capability across all firm sizes. Willingness to pay is positive across all six AI capabilities surveyed, ranging from 6.0% to 13.4% premium. The most striking finding: generative data enrichment ranks last in adoption priority yet commands the highest willingness-to-pay premium at 10.6% overall, peaking at 13.4% for large firms.

The combiner thesis and what it means for investors

The most significant structural finding from Dedale Intelligence's survey is that the market is not consolidating to one platform but to a few. Buyers who run more than 6 vendors show the highest preference for the "combined datasets but multi-vendor" approach, with that preference climbing to 63 to 80% for the most data-intensive firms. Pure consolidation onto a single provider is primarily a small-buyer behaviour, characterising 47% of firms running only 1 to 5 vendors.

For investors and data vendors evaluating positioning, pricing construct strategy, or acquisition targets in the financial and market data segment, the full survey contains vendor-level market share data by data category, a complete breakdown of adoption triggers and replacement risk by firm size, spending trajectories across integrated platforms and niche providers, and the full AI willingness-to-pay analysis across six capabilities and three firm size cohorts.

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