Is Socket worth the price?
Socket uses proactive malware and supply-chain detection that goes beyond traditional CVE scanning — it catches intentionally malicious packages, not just known vulnerabilities.
Free at $0/developer gets 3 members and 1,000 scans/month, which covers small open-source projects. Team at $25/developer/month adds reachability analysis that eliminates 60% of false-positive CVEs — a genuine differentiator.
Business at $50/developer/month unlocks unlimited everything plus compliance and SSO. The per-developer pricing scales linearly, so a 20-person team on Business pays $1,000/month ($12,000/year) — comparable to Snyk Team but with a fundamentally different detection approach focused on supply-chain attacks rather than just vulnerability databases.
Pricing Plans
Free TrialFree
Free
Open source
- Public repos
- Basic scanning
- Community support
- npm/PyPI
Team
$25/per user/month
Teams
- Private repos
- CI/CD integration
- Slack alerts
- Priority support
Enterprise
Large scale
- SSO/SAML
- Custom rules
- SLA
- Dedicated support
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Per-developer pricing with no volume discount on published tiers — 50 developers on Business = $2,500/month ($30,000/year) with no obvious way to negotiate down without Enterprise
Free tier limited to 3 members — adding a 4th developer forces an upgrade to Team at $25/dev/month minimum
1,000 scans/month on Free depletes fast in CI/CD — each pull request scan counts, so a busy repo with 20 PRs/week uses 80+ scans/month per repo
Team tier caps at 10 members and 5,000 scans — growing teams hit both limits and must jump to Business (2x the price)
Enterprise pricing is opaque — custom quotes mean unpredictable costs for budget planning
GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps support requires Enterprise — GitHub-only on Free, Team, and Business
AI model scanning (for ML supply chain risks) is Business-tier only — not available on cheaper plans
How Socket Compares
10-developer team securing 15 repositories with CI/CD scanning for 12 months
Which Plan Do You Need?
Socket offers free Team accounts to open-source projects — apply directly for full features at zero cost
1,000 scans/month and 70+ risk types detection is enough for small teams with a handful of repositories
Precomputed reachability analysis cuts 60% of CVE false positives — the biggest pain point with traditional SCA tools
Unlimited scans, SBOM import/export, SSO/SAML, and compliance integrations check enterprise procurement boxes
Our Recommendation
Worth it if...
You ship to production frequently and worry about malicious packages in your dependency tree — Socket catches threats that Snyk and Dependabot miss by design. The reachability analysis on Team tier alone saves security teams hours of triage per week on false-positive CVEs.
Skip if...
Your primary concern is known CVE tracking rather than supply-chain attacks — Snyk or Dependabot handles that better and cheaper. Also skip if your team uses GitLab or Bitbucket exclusively, since non-GitHub support requires Enterprise (custom pricing).
Negotiation tips
Annual billing saves 20% on Team and Business. Open-source projects get free Team accounts — apply if eligible. Start with Free to evaluate detection quality on your actual repos before committing. For 25+ developers, push for Enterprise with a per-seat discount below $50 — the published Business price is the ceiling, not the floor.
