The average price of permission-based e-mail lists for medium and large businesses decreased from $288 per CPM to $273 per CPM this fall, according to Worldata’s Fall 2010 List Price Index. Despite the drop in price, permission-based e-mail for medium- and large-size companies remains the highest-priced domestic category for e-mail list rentals.

The Aggregated Email Database Business was the second highest-priced domestic category, with a Fall 2010 straight average price of $216 per CPM. The largest price decrease occurred with Permission-Based Medium-Large Business Email, which dropped $15 per CPM. The second largest price decrease was within Databases/Masterfiles, which dropped $11 per CPM.

For the first time Worldata is now tracking Aggregated Postal and Email Databases. The Aggregated Database category showed a straight average CPM of $98 while the Aggregated Email Database business showed a straight average CPM of $216, the second highest-price category for this quarter, Worldata said.

Worldata has also started to separate out Small Business pricing from Medium-Large Business. Small Business files show a straight average CPM of $106 while Medium-Large Business files show a straight average CPM of $145.

“The economy is creating an environment where many individuals are pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors and thus creating an even larger pool of newly established businesses and small businesses,” said Ray Tesi, senior VP of Worldata. “This is a highly desirable audience for markets and the pricing related to these contacts are vastly different than those at larger company sizes.”