Is PRTG worth the price?
PRTG offers a genuinely useful free tier — 100 sensors covering roughly 10 devices is enough for a small office or homelab.
Paid plans start at $179/month (annual) for 500 sensors and scale to $1,492/month for 10,000 sensors. The per-sensor pricing model is both a strength and a trap: each device typically needs 5-10 sensors (CPU, memory, disk, network, services), so a 50-device network easily requires 250-500 sensors.
At $179/month for 500 sensors, PRTG is competitive with Datadog for small deployments, but Datadog per-host pricing becomes cheaper at scale. The 30-day trial with unlimited sensors lets you accurately size your needs before committing.
No perpetual licensing exists anymore — it is subscription-only.
Pricing Plans
30-day Free TrialFreeware
Free
- Up to 100 sensors
- Full features
- Email support
PRTG 500
$1,800/year
- 500 sensors
- All features
- Email support
PRTG 1000
$3,200/year
- 1000 sensors
- All features
- Email support
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Sensor count can balloon quickly — each device typically needs 5-10 sensors for meaningful monitoring. A 100-device network may need 500-1,000 sensors, pushing you into the $325-675/month range.
All prices are subscription-only (paid annually). There is no monthly billing option — you commit to a full year upfront. A PRTG 2500 license is $8,100/year paid at once.
PRTG Enterprise Monitor (for 1,000+ devices) is a separate product with custom pricing that is not listed on the standard pricing page — expect significantly higher costs.
Remote probes for monitoring distributed locations require additional sensor allocation from your license — there is no separate probe fee, but it eats into your sensor budget.
SNMP, WMI, and flow sensors each count separately against your limit. A single switch with SNMP traffic, bandwidth, and port sensors can consume 10-30 sensors alone.
Email/SMS notifications are included, but advanced alerting integrations (PagerDuty, Slack webhooks) require configuration effort that may need professional services.
Database monitoring, cloud monitoring (AWS/Azure), and advanced flow analysis sensors are included but consume sensors faster than basic ping/SNMP checks.
Which Plan Do You Need?
Small IT teams monitoring up to 100 devices who can use the free Freeware Edition (100 sensors, ~10 devices) at zero cost
Mid-size businesses monitoring 50-250 devices who need the PRTG 1000-2500 plans ($325-675/month paid annually)
MSPs and IT departments with 500+ devices who need the PRTG 5000-10000 plans ($1,183-1,492/month) for comprehensive network visibility
Enterprises with 1,000+ devices who need Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor with distributed monitoring (custom pricing)
Our Recommendation
startup
Start with the Freeware Edition and upgrade to PRTG 500 ($179/month annual) when you outgrow 100 sensors. For cloud-native infrastructure, consider Datadog or open-source alternatives like Uptime Kuma instead.
enterprise
PRTG Enterprise Monitor is a separate product for 1,000+ device environments with distributed monitoring needs. Get custom pricing and compare with Datadog Enterprise, SolarWinds, and Zabbix Enterprise support. Negotiate multi-year discounts.
freelancer
The Freeware Edition (100 sensors) is perfect for monitoring a small client network or homelab. No cost, no time limit — just limited to ~10 devices.
small Business
PRTG 1000-2500 ($325-675/month) covers most SMB networks. The all-inclusive sensor model is simpler to budget than Datadog per-host + per-feature pricing. Run the 30-day trial to count your actual sensor needs before buying.
How PRTG Compares to Competitors
Datadog is the main cloud-native alternative at $18/host/month for infrastructure monitoring — cheaper per-device than PRTG for large deployments but expensive when you add APM, logs, and synthetics. Zabbix is the strongest free alternative with enterprise-grade capabilities, but demands serious Linux and configuration expertise. Nagios XI offers perpetual licensing (one-time $3,495 for 500 nodes) that PRTG no longer provides — attractive if you want to avoid subscriptions. SolarWinds NPM competes directly with PRTG in the traditional network monitoring space with similar pricing. For pure uptime monitoring (not full network monitoring), Uptime Kuma (free, self-hosted) or Better Stack ($29/month) are dramatically cheaper.
