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Reference / Pricing comparison

SIEM pricing comparison: 15 vendors, every pricing model, side by side

The vendor-neutral SIEM pricing comparison. All fifteen major platforms in one table, with each vendor's pricing model, entry point, published rate and what actually drives the bill, grouped by how they meter so you can compare like for like. Every figure links to the deep-dive page that sources it. Updated July 2026.

Vendors compared
15
Every major enterprise shortlist
Pricing models
5 axes
Per-GB, per-EPS, per-seat, per-asset, credit
Lowest entry
Free tiers
QRadar CE, Elastic Basic, LogScale 10 GB/day
Most transparent
Sentinel
Full rate card published on Azure

SIEM pricing comparison, in one paragraph

The reason SIEM prices are so hard to compare is that no two vendors meter the same thing. Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Google SecOps and CrowdStrike LogScale bill on data volume. IBM QRadar and LogRhythm bill on event rate (per EPS or MPS). Blumira bills per employee, Rapid7 InsightIDR per asset, Sumo Logic on credits, and Datadog on analyzed events. The published anchors range from Sentinel at $4.30/GB PAYG (down to $2.05/GB committed) and CrowdStrike LogScale at $5.95/GB, to QRadar at $2.40-$4.60/EPS/month and Blumira from $12/employee/month, with Google SecOps and Securonix quote-only. The table below lines all fifteen up on the same columns; the grouped view underneath sorts them by pricing axis so you can compare like for like, and the calculator normalises the major vendors to your own GB/day.

Every SIEM vendor, side by side

Fifteen platforms, one table. Each row links to the deep-dive page that sources the figure and shows the full cost scenarios. Rates are published anchors or reseller list references, not negotiated deal prices; negotiated agreements typically deliver 20-40 percent off list.

VendorPricing modelEntry / floorPublished anchorWhat drives the bill
SplunkPer GB ingested~$8K-$15K entry$665-$1,620 /GB/day/yrIngest volume, plus Enterprise Security add-on
Microsoft SentinelPer GB, commitment tiersPAYG $4.30/GBBest commit $2.05/GB; Basic Logs $1.00/GBIngest volume; Microsoft 365 logs ingest free
IBM QRadarPer EPS (events/sec)$10K/yr entry; Community Edition free (100 EPS)$2.40-$4.60 /EPS/moEvents per second, plus 20-25% annual maintenance
Elastic SecurityResource-basedBasic tier free; Platinum from ~$131/moLicence low; engineer premium $120K-$180KCompute/storage resources and self-managed ops effort
Datadog Cloud SIEMPer analyzed event (+ logs)$5 / 1M analyzed eventsIndexed logs $1.70/Mevt; infra $15/hostAnalyzed event volume plus separate log indexing
Sumo LogicFlex credits$0 ingest and indexingCredit MSRP ~$1.50Credit consumption on scan and query, not raw ingest
LogRhythmSelf-hosted, per MPS (ULP)Analytics core ~$65 /MPS/yr~60-80 MPS per GB; 15-25% renewalMessages per second across the estate
Google SecOps (Chronicle)GB data cap~£2,000 /TB/yr (UK G-Cloud)US commercial quote-onlyCommitted GB data cap; overage billed in arrears
ExabeamPer GB/daySIEM ~$36K @ 50 GB/dayFusion ~$51K @ 50 GB/dayIngest volume, with UEBA bundled in Fusion
Securonix EONCapacity (GB/day) + BYO SnowflakeQuote-only; 4 packagesNative SOAR in the All-In tierIngest capacity plus a separate Snowflake bill
DevoDaily ingest tiers~$90K @ 100 GB/day (list)400-day hot retention includedDaily ingest tier; 20-25% EA discount typical
Rapid7 InsightIDRPer asset / monthFrom $3.58 /asset/moMDR est. $15-$22 /asset/moMonitored asset count, not raw log volume
CrowdStrike LogScaleIndexing-free per-GB10 GB/day free$5.95 /GB PAYG; ~$217K @ 100 GB/dayIngest volume, no indexing surcharge
PantherPer-TB volume meter~$75K-$90K @ 50 GB/day$50K /TB/mo (AWS list anchor)Ingest volume; detection-as-code workflow
BlumiraPer employee / monthDetect $12 /employee/moAutomate $21 /employee/moEmployee count, not log volume

Each figure is reproduced from this site's per-vendor pricing pages, which carry the primary-source citation (vendor pricing page, Azure retail price list, AWS Marketplace, or UK G-Cloud listing) and the check date. This comparison introduces no new figure; it aggregates the verified per-vendor data into one view. Always obtain a vendor quote.

Why you cannot compare SIEM prices with a single number

A SIEM shortlist almost always mixes pricing models, and that is what makes a straight price comparison misleading. A $5.95/GB rate and a $12/employee/month rate are not two points on the same line; they meter different things. The only honest way to compare is to pick the metric your environment is bound by, usually sustained GB per day of ingest, and convert every vendor onto it. The three groups below sort the fifteen vendors by how they meter, so you compare within a group first and normalise across groups second.

Per-GB / per-volume

Splunk, Sentinel, Chronicle, Exabeam, Securonix, Devo, CrowdStrike LogScale, Panther

The dominant model. You pay for data ingested (or a committed GB data cap). Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Google SecOps, Exabeam, Securonix, Devo, CrowdStrike LogScale and Panther all meter on volume. Directly comparable once you normalise to the same GB/day, and the model where a noisy log source hurts most.

Per-EPS / per-MPS

IBM QRadar, LogRhythm

Priced on event or message rate rather than bytes. QRadar meters events per second; LogRhythm meters messages per second (ULP). To line these up against per-GB vendors you convert EPS to GB using average event size, which is exactly what the EPS-to-GB tool does.

Per-seat / per-asset / credit

Blumira, Rapid7 InsightIDR, Sumo Logic, Datadog Cloud SIEM, Elastic

Priced on something other than raw volume, so a high-log, low-headcount environment can win big here. Blumira meters employees, Rapid7 InsightIDR meters assets, Sumo Logic meters credits consumed on scan and query, and Datadog Cloud SIEM meters analyzed events. Elastic is resource-based and its real cost is the engineer who runs it.

To normalise across groups: use the EPS-to-GB conversion tool to put QRadar and LogRhythm on the same GB/day axis as the per-GB vendors, then run the multi-vendor calculator for a licence estimate at your volume. Remember that licence is rarely more than 40 percent of total spend, so finish with the hidden-cost breakdown.

FAQ

Common questions

How do I compare SIEM pricing when every vendor uses a different model?

You normalise to a common unit, usually GB per day of ingest. Per-GB vendors (Splunk, Sentinel, Chronicle, CrowdStrike LogScale) are already there. Per-EPS vendors (QRadar, LogRhythm) convert using average event size: at roughly 500 bytes per event, 1,000 EPS is about 43 GB per day. Per-seat and per-asset vendors (Blumira, Rapid7) do not convert cleanly, because their bill tracks headcount or device count rather than log volume, so a high-log, low-headcount environment can pay far less on those models. The calculator on the homepage does this normalisation across the major vendors for your own volume; the EPS-to-GB tool handles the event-rate conversion.

Which SIEM is cheapest?

There is no single cheapest SIEM, because the answer depends on your log volume and your environment. For Microsoft-heavy shops, Sentinel is usually lowest total cost because Microsoft 365 logs ingest free and commitment tiers drop the rate to $2.05/GB. For low-headcount teams with high log volume, a per-employee model like Blumira (from $12/employee/month) can undercut per-GB vendors. For engineering-strong teams, Elastic and open-source Wazuh have a near-free licence but a real cost in the engineer who operates them. QRadar's Community Edition is free up to 100 EPS, and CrowdStrike LogScale includes 10 GB/day free. The cheapest option is whichever pricing axis your environment scores lowest on.

Which SIEM has the most transparent pricing?

Microsoft Sentinel is the most transparent: every PAYG and commitment-tier rate is published on the Azure retail price list, from $4.30/GB PAYG down to $2.05/GB at the top commitment tier. Datadog and Rapid7 publish list rates too. At the other end, Google SecOps, Securonix and Splunk Cloud are quote-only in the US market; the only openly published Chronicle unit price is the UK G-Cloud listing at about £2,000 per terabyte per year. Quote-only does not mean expensive, but it does mean you cannot benchmark without a rep in the room, which is the gap this comparison is built to close.

Is per-GB or per-EPS pricing better?

Neither is universally better; they suit different log profiles. Per-GB pricing (Splunk, Sentinel, Chronicle) rewards you for filtering verbose, low-value logs before ingest, and punishes chatty debug sources. Per-EPS pricing (QRadar, LogRhythm) tracks event rate rather than byte size, so it favours environments with many small events and penalises environments with a few very large ones. The practical move is to model both against your real log mix: a high-cardinality, small-event estate often lands cheaper on per-EPS, while a low-event, large-payload estate lands cheaper on per-GB.

How much does a SIEM cost per year across these vendors?

Licence-only figures at a mid-market 100 GB/day profile span roughly £73K for Google SecOps at the UK G-Cloud rate, about $90K for Devo, and about $217K for CrowdStrike LogScale PAYG, with Splunk landing highest on a pure per-GB basis before an enterprise agreement discount. But licence is rarely more than 40 percent of total SIEM spend once staffing, storage, integration and tuning are added, so a $150K licence commonly means a $300K to $450K all-in year one. Use the size guide and hidden-cost breakdown to model the full total cost of ownership rather than the licence line alone.

Updated 13 July 2026