What does an RMM cost? Pricing models compared
RMM pricing comes in four shapes, and the shape matters more than the headline number because it decides what happens to your bill as you grow. This article explains each model, the costs that rarely appear on a pricing page, and how to compare two offers that are quoted differently.
Published August 7, 2026
Why the model matters more than the number
A price of "€2 per device" and a price of "€150 per technician" cannot be compared until you know your device count and your team size. The same two offers can swap places depending on whether you are a three-person team managing 800 machines or an eight-person team managing 300.
Worse, the model determines what happens when your business changes. A per-device price rewards you for having few devices and punishes growth; a per-technician price does the opposite. If you are about to win a customer that doubles your endpoint count, that is not a detail.
So work out your own two numbers first — endpoints under management and technicians who need a login — and evaluate every offer against both.
The four models
Almost every offer in the market is one of these, sometimes with add-on modules layered on top.
Per device
You pay a monthly amount for each managed endpoint, often with volume discounts at thresholds. Predictable per customer and easy to pass through in an MSP's own pricing. The cost scales linearly with your fleet, so the saving from managing devices more efficiently never reaches your bill.
Per technician or per seat
You pay per person who needs access, usually with unlimited or generous device counts. Attractive when a small team manages a large fleet, expensive when you have many occasional users — service desk staff who log in twice a week still need a seat.
Flat rate or tiered by service level
A fixed monthly price per plan, where the plans differ by support level rather than by usage. Your bill is decoupled from growth entirely, which makes budgeting simple and makes the vendor's revenue independent of your device count. Check carefully what the tiers actually differ in.
Quote-based
No public price; the figure comes from a sales conversation or a partner. Common at the enterprise end. It can produce a good deal, but it makes comparison work expensive and it means your renewal price is a negotiation rather than a published number.
Costs that are not on the pricing page
The licence is rarely the whole bill. Budget for these explicitly, because they are the usual source of a first-year overrun.
- Onboarding and implementation fees, which some vendors charge separately and some include.
- Minimum commitments — a minimum endpoint count or a minimum annual spend that makes a small deployment cost more than the per-unit price suggests.
- Modules sold separately: patch management, endpoint protection, backup or mobile device management are add-ons in some products and included in others.
- Annual-only billing, or a substantial discount for annual that effectively makes monthly billing a premium.
- Your own infrastructure if you self-host: a server, its backups, and the hours to keep it patched and available.
- Migration effort when you leave, which is a real cost you pay later and should weigh now — check the export path before you sign.
- Training time for the team, which is proportional to how much the tool differs from what you use today.
A worked example
Take a team of four technicians managing 400 endpoints, and compare the models at that shape.
At €2 per device you pay €800 per month, and adding a 200-device customer takes you to €1,200. At €150 per technician you pay €600, and that same new customer costs you nothing until you hire. At a flat €55 per month with no device limit you pay €55 either way, and the number only changes if you want a faster support response.
Now change the shape: eight technicians managing 150 endpoints. Per device you pay €300; per technician €1,200; flat rate still €55. Neither model is inherently cheaper — they encode different assumptions about what a customer looks like, and you want the one whose assumption matches you.
How NetLock RMM prices it
For transparency, here is our own model as a concrete data point rather than a pitch. NetLock RMM uses the flat-rate shape: plans differ by SLA response time, not by device count or features.
- Community Edition: free permanently for up to 25 devices, with every feature and unlimited tenants, users and locations.
- Pro: €55 per month, self-hosted, with no device limit and a 72-hour SLA. Higher tiers cost more and respond faster; the feature set is identical.
- Cloud: €75 per month for a fully managed instance with up to 1,000 devices, hosted in Germany, Canada or Australia.
- Annual billing saves two months compared with monthly. There are no per-device fees, no per-sensor fees and no feature paywalls.
- The cloud can be tested for 90 days without providing payment details.
How to compare two offers properly
A method that takes an hour and prevents a bad three-year decision.
- 1
Write down your two numbers
Endpoints under management today, and technicians who need a login. Then write down what both look like in two years if the plan works.
- 2
Normalise every offer to a monthly total
Convert per-device and per-technician quotes into one monthly figure at today's numbers, then again at your two-year numbers. Compare those four totals, not the unit prices.
- 3
Add the modules you actually need
If patch management or endpoint protection is an add-on in one offer and included in another, the base prices are not comparable until you add it.
- 4
Add the first-year one-offs
Onboarding fees, migration effort and, for self-hosting, the server and the hours to run it.
- 5
Check the exit before you enter
Ask what an export contains and in what format. A tool you cannot leave has pricing power over you at every renewal.