PRTG pricing: sensor tiers, free version, and total cost of ownership

PRTG publishes its pricing publicly by sensor count — a genuine rarity in network monitoring, where most tools at comparable capability require a direct sales conversation to get a number. The published tiers start at €1,799 per year for 500 sensors and scale to €15,899 per year for unlimited sensors (XL1). A permanent free tier covers 100 sensors indefinitely with full feature access.

The pricing is for PRTG Network Monitor, the on-premises version — PRTG Hosted Monitor (the cloud-managed SaaS version) uses a separate pricing structure. The 30-day free trial unlocks unlimited sensors, giving teams complete freedom to evaluate sensor counts and configuration depth before committing to a tier.

The critical PRTG pricing skill is sensor count estimation. PRTG's license cost is determined entirely by how many sensors the deployment uses — and the relationship between devices and sensors is not one-to-one. Every individual metric monitored consumes a sensor. A single router with 4 interfaces, CPU monitoring, memory monitoring, and uptime tracking might consume 9–12 sensors.

A Windows server with 4 interfaces, CPU, memory, three disk partitions, three service checks, and a ping check might consume 15–20 sensors. Underestimating sensors-per-device when selecting a tier is the most common PRTG pricing mistake, and it results in a mid-contract tier upgrade that disrupts both budget planning and renewal negotiations.

Written by RajatFact-checked by Chandrasmita

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Use this PRTG pricing page to understand commercial fit, rollout assumptions, and where pricing conversations need more detail.

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PRTG pricing model: published sensor-count tiers with a permanent free tier

PRTG's sensor count tiers create distinct commercial thresholds that require explicit planning. The 500-sensor tier at €1,799/year appears entry-level, but 500 sensors covers only 40–80 devices at meaningful monitoring depth. Most SMB networks of 50 or more devices — with routers, switches, firewalls, servers, and a handful of service checks — will exhaust the 500-sensor tier within the first configuration cycle. The 1,000-sensor tier at €3,899/year is a more realistic starting point for SMB environments.

Mid-size organizations with 100–250 devices monitored at standard depth typically land in the 1,000–2,500-sensor range. The step from 2,500 to 5,000 sensors (from €7,899 to €12,899) represents one of the better value jumps in the tier structure — doubling the sensor count for a 63% price increase.

The XL1 unlimited tier at €15,899/year is only €3,000 more than the 5,000-sensor tier, which means that any environment reasonably likely to exceed 5,000 sensors should start at XL1 to eliminate the risk of a costly mid-contract upgrade.

PRTG is available in two licensing models: annual subscription (maintenance and updates included) and perpetual license (one-time purchase with optional maintenance renewal). The perpetual license was the traditional PRTG procurement model and is still available, but the subscription model has become more common for new deployments.

For organizations that plan to run PRTG for five or more years, the total cost of a perpetual license plus maintenance may be competitive with or lower than equivalent years of subscription payments — but the perpetual model requires a larger upfront investment and commits the buyer to on-premises PRTG without a natural renewal decision point. Annual subscriptions provide more flexibility for organizations whose monitoring requirements may change.

The XL1 unlimited tier economics are worth modeling explicitly before selecting a lower tier. At €15,899/year, XL1 is only €3,000 above the 5,000-sensor tier. For an organization at 4,500 sensors today with moderate growth expectations, the premium over a 12-month period is less than €250 per month — purchased in exchange for complete removal of sensor-count anxiety, elimination of upgrade risk, and the operational freedom to add monitoring for any new requirement without checking available sensor capacity.

Many PRTG administrators running the 5,000-sensor tier operate with informal sensor rationing to stay under the limit; the XL1 tier eliminates that constraint entirely at a marginal incremental cost.

Freeware: Free (permanent) (100 sensors, full feature access including all sensor types, dashboards, alerts, and reports. No expiration.)

500 sensors: €1,799/year (500 sensors. Suitable for small networks monitoring up to roughly 40–80 devices depending on sensor depth.)

1,000 sensors: €3,899/year (1,000 sensors. Covers mid-size networks with detailed per-device monitoring.)

2,500 sensors: €7,899/year (2,500 sensors. Suitable for larger environments with distributed locations.)

5,000 sensors: €12,899/year (5,000 sensors. Large enterprise environments with complex multi-site requirements.)

XL1 Unlimited: €15,899/year (Unlimited sensors. No sensor count constraint. Most cost-effective at high sensor densities.)

Pricing source: official pricing page, verified 2026-03-17.

Read the pricing through the buying motion, not only the packaging language.

PRTG pricing should be evaluated in the context of rollout scale, admin ownership, and the commercial metric that drives expansion cost over time.

Pricing pages should help buyers understand not just what the vendor charges, but what implementation scope, support needs, and operational complexity mean for total ownership. Use this page to frame vendor conversations before final procurement.

Clarify whether cost scales by endpoint, technician, site, or another metric.
Confirm what onboarding, premium support, or implementation services add to total spend.
Model pricing against the actual environment size expected over the next 12 months.

How sensor count works and what drives the real bill

Choose the 500-sensor tier only if the monitoring scope is genuinely narrow: small networks of 30–50 devices monitored at minimal depth (ping, one or two SNMP OIDs per device), homelab environments, or secondary PRTG deployments monitoring a specific isolated segment.

For production business networks, start the tier evaluation at 1,000 sensors — it is the tier that most SMB deployments actually need. Use the 30-day unlimited trial to get a real sensor count from auto-discovery and initial configuration, then select the tier that is 20–30% above the initial configured count to allow for growth without a near-term upgrade.

For mid-market organizations managing 100–500 devices across multiple sites with remote probes, the 2,500-sensor tier is a reasonable production baseline. Organizations that operate the PRTG deployment actively — adding monitoring for new services, cloud resources, and custom application endpoints as the monitoring practice matures — tend to consume sensors faster than initially estimated.

Model the sensor count at both the current deployment and at 18 months of active deployment before committing to a tier. The incremental cost between tiers is low enough that starting one tier higher than the initial estimate is cheaper than a mid-contract upgrade, which typically involves renegotiating the remaining contract value.

Standard

Contact vendor for exact pricing and packaging details.

Plan type: Commercial. Billing period: Custom.

Questions to settle before choosing a PRTG license tier

Run auto-discovery on the production network during the trial to get a real device count

PRTG's auto-discovery identifies every reachable device in the specified IP ranges and creates initial sensors for each. The resulting device count is a real starting point for sensor estimation. Multiply the discovered device count by the expected sensors-per-device ratio for the monitoring depth planned — 5–10 sensors per device for minimal depth, 10–20 sensors for comprehensive coverage — to get a working sensor estimate. This exercise takes one to two hours in the trial and is more accurate than any theoretical estimate.

Count sensors-per-device for the most complex device types, not averages

The sensor-per-device ratio varies significantly by device type. A simple managed switch may consume 5–8 sensors; a core enterprise firewall with 10 interfaces, CPU, memory, and VPN tunnel monitoring may consume 20–30 sensors. Build a calibrated per-device-type count from the trial configuration on representative devices before extrapolating to the full inventory. Using a single average across device types produces estimates that are often 30–50% below the actual deployed sensor count.

Model the XL1 unlimited tier against the 5,000-sensor tier before choosing

If the sensor estimate places the deployment within 60–80% of the 5,000-sensor threshold, the marginal cost of upgrading to XL1 unlimited is €3,000 per year. Evaluate whether the operational freedom of unlimited sensors is worth €250 per month. For environments that actively expand monitoring scope — adding cloud sensors, custom application checks, IoT monitoring — the XL1 tier typically pays for itself by eliminating the administrative overhead of sensor rationing and upgrade planning.

Clarify subscription versus perpetual license economics for multi-year deployments

PRTG's perpetual license model may offer a lower total cost over a five-year horizon compared to annual subscriptions at the same tier, depending on the maintenance rate and whether the organization plans to take major updates. Request the perpetual license cost and the standard maintenance renewal rate alongside the annual subscription quote, and model both over five years. For stable, long-running on-premises deployments where the monitoring requirements are unlikely to change dramatically, the perpetual model may be the more economical choice.

Evaluate PRTG Hosted Monitor separately if on-premises infrastructure is a constraint

PRTG Hosted Monitor uses a different pricing structure from PRTG Network Monitor on-premises. If maintaining a Windows Server for PRTG is an operational constraint, request pricing for the Hosted Monitor SaaS version separately — it uses remote probes on-premises to collect data but eliminates the need to host and maintain the PRTG server. Compare Hosted Monitor pricing against cloud-native alternatives like Auvik and ManageEngine OpManager to ensure the SaaS cost is competitive for the organization's device count.

Frequently asked questions

How much does PRTG cost?

PRTG Network Monitor (on-premises) has published annual pricing: 500 sensors at €1,799/year, 1,000 sensors at €3,899/year, 2,500 sensors at €7,899/year, 5,000 sensors at €12,899/year, and XL1 unlimited sensors at €15,899/year. A permanent free tier covers 100 sensors at no cost. PRTG is also available as a perpetual license with an annual maintenance fee. PRTG Hosted Monitor (the cloud SaaS version) is priced separately. A 30-day trial with unlimited sensors is available to evaluate any tier before purchase.

How many sensors do I need for PRTG?

Sensor count depends on the number of devices and the monitoring depth per device. A minimal monitoring setup uses 5–8 sensors per device (availability, CPU, memory, and a few interfaces). A comprehensive setup uses 10–20+ sensors per device. Run PRTG's auto-discovery on the production network during the 30-day trial to get a real device count, then multiply by the expected sensors-per-device ratio for the planned monitoring depth. Add a 20–30% buffer above the initial estimate to allow for monitoring scope growth without a tier upgrade.

Is PRTG really free for 100 sensors?

Yes — PRTG Freeware is a permanent, non-expiring version of PRTG that monitors up to 100 sensors indefinitely. It includes the full feature set: all 200+ sensor types, dashboards, maps, alerting (email, SMS, push), reports, and API access. The only constraint is the 100-sensor ceiling. For homelab environments, development infrastructure, or very small networks, the freeware version provides production-quality monitoring at zero software cost.

What is the difference between PRTG subscription and perpetual license?

The annual subscription includes software updates and new sensor types throughout the subscription period — it is a recurring fee that keeps the installation current. The perpetual license is a one-time purchase that provides a specific version of PRTG with the right to run it indefinitely; annual maintenance (typically 20–25% of the original license cost) is required to receive updates. For organizations planning to run PRTG for five or more years, the perpetual model may be more cost-efficient — the break-even point against subscription pricing varies by tier. For organizations that want flexibility to reassess annually, subscription is the cleaner model.

Is PRTG cheaper than SolarWinds NPM or LogicMonitor?

PRTG is typically significantly cheaper than both SolarWinds NPM and LogicMonitor at equivalent monitoring coverage. SolarWinds NPM charges per node (device) with a higher per-node base cost and additional module licensing. LogicMonitor is a cloud-delivered platform priced per device per month at rates that are generally higher than PRTG's per-sensor annualized cost. The tradeoffs are real: SolarWinds and LogicMonitor deliver more out-of-the-box coverage with less setup time. PRTG's lower cost comes with a higher configuration investment. For IT teams with engineering capacity to invest in setup, PRTG delivers comparable monitoring depth at a substantially lower licensing cost.

Sources

These are the public references, pricing pages, and editorial inputs used to support this page. Readers should still confirm final commercial or product details directly with the vendor when the decision becomes real.

pricing · verified Mar 17, 2026

Official pricing page

PRTG pricing reference

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