CSPM pricing isn’t straightforward. What you pay depends on what you’re monitoring, how many people need access, and which features you actually use.
- Features you need: Basic compliance checking costs less than full DevOps security integration and real-time threat detection.
- What you’re monitoring: Each cloud instance, storage bucket, and workload you protect adds to the cost.
- Team size: More users accessing the platform means higher costs.
Vendor | Starting price (1-year plan) | Pricing details | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|
Wiz | $24,000 | For 100 cloud workloads | ✅ – 14 days |
Microsoft Defender for Cloud | $4,500 | For 500 cloud workloads | ✅ – 30 days |
CloudGuard CSPM | ~$100,000 | Custom pricing | ✅ |
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security | ~$120,000 | Custom pricing ($69.99 for 1 endpoint) | ✅ – 30 days |
Lacework | $23,200 – $43,000 | For companies with up to 200 employees | ✅ – 14 days |
Orca Security | $84,000 | For monthly concurrent workload usage | ✅ – 30 days |
Prisma Cloud | $9,000 | For 100 Prisma Cloud Credits* | ✅ – 30 days |
Aqua Security | $10,000 – $50,000 | N/A | ✅ |
The starting price represents monthly payments for annual plans. Data is obtained from vendor websites, AWS Marketplace1 , and vendr2 .
*Prisma Cloud is licensed using “Prisma Cloud Credits,” which can be purchased in increments of 100. The license model defines cloud resources and capacity costs in Prisma Cloud Credits.
Choosing the Right Plan
A plan that works for a 20-person startup won’t fit an enterprise managing thousands of cloud resources across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Simple scenario: You’re running 15 virtual machines and need basic visibility into security issues. Something like SentinelOne’s Core plan ($70/endpoint/year) gives you endpoint protection without overwhelming you with features you won’t use.
Complex scenario: You’re managing multi-cloud infrastructure, need real-time threat detection, and have compliance requirements. Microsoft Defender for Cloud with DevOps integration makes more sense – it costs more but handles the complexity you’re dealing with.
For more, see our data-driven research about CSPM:
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft gives you 30 days to test everything for free. After that, you choose between a free tier with limited features or paid plans with serious capabilities.
- Foundational CSPM (Free): Security recommendations, asset inventory, and basic workflow automation. This works if you just need visibility into what you’re running and obvious security problems.
- Defender for Cloud CSPM ($5.11/resource/month): Adds features that matter for real security work:
- Scans for vulnerabilities without installing agents
- Shows attack paths – how an attacker could move through your environment
- Prioritizes risks so you fix important things first
- Let’s you hunt for threats using Security Explorer
These features are available through two pricing options:
1. The Pay-as-You-Go plans:
- *Defender for Servers Plan 1 is the entry-level plan, focusing on endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities.
- Defender for Servers Plan 2 offers the features of Plan 1 and more, including:
- Agentless scanning
- Compliance assessment
- File integrity monitoring
- Assessing operating system updates
2. The 1-Year Pre-Purchase plan:
When you pre-purchase Microsoft Defender, you receive Cloud Commit Units, which can be used in various ways.
For example, if you purchase 5,000 Commit Units for a year you will pay $4,500. You can utilize these units with Defender for Servers Plan 2 to leverage agentless scanning and compliance assessment features.
Similarly, you can use it as a part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud CSPM’s one-year plan for 20 virtual machines (Azure VMs), which requires 4800 Commit Units.
The first 5 purchasing tiers for pre-purchase plan Commit Units are listed below:
Pricing varies according to cloud capacity based on server, storage account, and database counts.
Note that, the solution also includes DevOps security features (e.g. compliance enforcement), which allow security teams to embed security practices into CI/CD pipelines, identifying vulnerabilities early in development.
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security
SentinelOne prices by endpoint (each device you’re protecting). They have five tiers designed for 5-100 workstations, though they scale beyond that.
Below is a breakdown of the three examples of pricing tiers:
Singularity Core: The starting price is $69.99 per endpoint per year. This tier focuses on foundational security for small- to medium-sized businesses or for minimalistic security needs. Features include:
- The basics for small businesses or teams with straightforward security needs:
- Blocks malware (both file-based and fileless attacks)
- Uses behavioral detection and machine learning to stop ransomware and trojans
- One-click remediation when something gets through – removes threats and recovers systems automatically
Singularity Control: The starting price is $79.99 per endpoint per year. This tier is ideal for small to mid-size organizations needing extra control and visibility over their endpoint environment. Features include:
- All Core-tier capabilities.
- Customized firewall settings.
- Device control for USB and Bluetooth devices with granular policy settings.
Singularity Complete plan is ideal for enterprises that need automated detection, and response capabilities across their cloud environments. Pricing starts at $159.99 per endpoint annually. Features include:
- All Core and Control features
- Full EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) and XDR (Extended Detection and Response)
- Real-time threat hunting with full context
- Keeps 14 days of EDR data for forensic analysis
Singularity Commercial is ideal for commercial businesses needing complex identity security and IAM integrations. Its starting price is $209.99 per endpoint annually. Features include:
- All functionalities of the Complete tier.
- Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) for Active Directory (on-premises or Azure AD).
- Vulnerability detection with RangerADtool and credential theft prevention.
- Data retention of 30 days.
Additional costs: Note that SentinelOne offers additional managed services that can be purchased to complement the platform, such as:
- Custom monitoring services scan workstations, servers, and networks to optimize cloud security coverage.
- Expert support for deployment and ongoing management.
Prisma Cloud
Prisma Cloud offers a flexible pricing model based on Prisma Cloud Credits, which are allocated to the features you utilize (credit usage is measured hourly.).
The annual pricing for credits is as follows:
- Business Edition Credits: $9,000 for 100 credits per year.
- Enterprise Edition Credits: $18,000 for 100 credits per year.
Prisma Cloud is offered as a one-, two-, or three-year subscription in the following plans:
Prisma Cloud Compute Edition
- Protects workloads on hosts, containers, and serverless deployments. Uses 2 credits per feature.
- Good for teams focused specifically on workload protection without needing full cloud security posture management.
Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition
Full SaaS platform with two product plans. Uses 5 credits per feature.
1. Cloud Security Foundations provides agentless visibility and compliance for multi-cloud environments. It offers the following modules via an agentless architecture:
- Real-time threat and misconfiguration detection for IaaS and PaaS
- Compliance management
- Agentless workload scanning
- Infrastructure as code (IaC) misconfiguration detection
- Least-privileged access implementation.
2. Cloud Security Advanced
Everything in Foundations plus real-time prevention:
- Runtime security for hosts, containers, and serverless functions
- Web Application and API Security (WAAS)
- Active protection, not just monitoring
Lacework
Lacework prices based on organization size rather than specific resource counts. Here’s what companies typically pay annually:
Small to mid-sized organizations: $23,000 – $43,000
Mid-sized organizations: $46,000 – $79,000
Large enterprises: $68,000 – $142,000
These ranges shift based on:
Cloud infrastructure usage: How many workloads you’re running, which clouds you use (AWS, Azure, GCP), and how fast you’re scaling.
Features you activate: Agentless scanning and compliance tracking increase costs.
Custom requirements: Special integrations or add-ons push prices higher.
Note: These are estimates from recent implementations. Your actual quote will depend on your specific environment.
FAQ
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools explained
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) is a growing industry for security compliance and vulnerability management tools that are required to secure computing environments. CSPM solutions are also part of the secure access service edge (SASE) technology market, which also includes:
- software-defined perimeter (SDP)
- cloud access security brokers (CASB)
- zero trust networking software
These vendors monitor cloud services, apps, containers, and infrastructure to discover and address misconfigurations or policies. Furthermore, CSPM vendors can develop customized solutions that often resolve issues automatically based on administrator-defined rules.
Further reading
Reference Links
Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE and NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and resources that referenced AIMultiple.
Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised enterprises on their technology decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.
He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.
Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.
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