Security Camera Subscription Costs: Ring, Arlo, Blink, Nest, Wyze and eufy Plans Compared

Short version: the security camera subscription cost that matters is not the sticker price of the camera but the plan you pay for on top of it. A single-camera plan is typically a few dollars a month, a whole-home plan is roughly $10 to $14 a month, and over five years the gap between a camera that needs a plan and one that records locally can reach several hundred dollars. This page puts the plans in one place, shows the five-year math from prices we could verify, and routes you to the plan-by-plan guides.

How we work: we do not buy, install or physically test these cameras or their plans. Everything here comes from the brands’ own published plan pages, support articles and aggregated owner reviews. Method on how we rank; funding on our affiliate disclosure. Prices are quoted “as of September 2026” and can change without notice.

In Plain English

What a Camera Plan Actually Buys

Nearly every plan sells the same three things in different packaging. The first is cloud video history: the camera uploads clips to the brand’s servers and keeps them for a fixed window, from 14 days on Wyze Cam Plus to 30 days on eufy and Google Home Premium Standard, 60 days on Blink and up to 180 days on Ring. The second is smarter alerts: person, vehicle and package detection, plus extras like familiar-face recognition. The third is convenience and perks, such as a device discount or an extended warranty.

What a plan generally does not buy is the camera’s basic ability to work. Ring’s support pages say plainly that without a plan you can still view live video and respond to alerts as they happen, but you cannot review recorded video. That single sentence is the core of the whole subscription question: you are paying for the past, not the present.

Every Brand’s Plans in One Table

The table lists what we could confirm on official pages this month. Where a current US price could not be confirmed, we say so rather than guess.

A few notes on the table. Blink’s prices reflect the October 8, 2025 increase. Google’s prices come from its announcement of the Google Home Premium subscription, which replaced Nest Aware on October 1, 2025. Ring’s plans were renamed in 2026 and its regional plan pages show different currencies, so confirm US pricing on Ring’s own plan page. Arlo’s support page lists the tier names and features but not a price, so we list none.

The Five-Year Cost, Worked Out

A plan feels cheap month to month, but the total over the life of a camera is what belongs in the buying decision. The math below uses the annual price from the table, multiplied by five, before tax, and assumes prices never rise, which recent history says is optimistic.

Read it as a range, not a ranking. A household with one doorbell can pay around $200 over five years for a mainstream one-device plan, while a five-camera home on a whole-home plan is closer to $500 to $700. A camera priced $50 lower at the shelf can easily cost more in total once a plan is attached. That is why eufy’s local-first model keeps appearing in owner comparisons, and why the Ring plan guide spells out the family-plan break-even.

What You Get Free, Brand by Brand

Ring. Live view and real-time alerts work without a plan. Recorded video does not: you can respond as events happen but cannot review recordings afterward. New compatible devices start a free 30-day trial of Ring Protect automatically, after which video history stops unless you subscribe.

Blink. Blink cameras can record locally when paired with the Sync Module 2 and a USB drive, which avoids a plan. The paid Basic and Plus tiers add cloud clips and features such as Blink Moments, which combines several motion events into one clip. Our Blink guide goes deeper.

Wyze. Wyze cameras accept a microSD card and record to it with no plan. Cam Plus and Cam Unlimited add cloud event history, person, vehicle, package and pet detection, and Wyze offers a 30-day free trial. See is Wyze worth it.

eufy. eufy states that recording footage does not require a subscription and that footage saves to built-in storage if you do not buy cloud backup. Its cloud tiers keep a rolling 30 days and are entirely optional.

Google Nest. Nest cameras still stream live video and send basic alerts on the free tier, and the paid Google Home Premium tiers extend stored event history to 30 or 60 days. The Nest Aware guide covers who needs the upgrade.

Arlo. Arlo’s paid Secure tiers carry 60-day history and advanced detection, and its own plan names have changed more than once, so check the current tier list before relying on any comparison. See is Arlo worth it.

How to Choose: Pay, Store Locally, or Mix

There are three sensible strategies, and the right one depends on how you use footage.

Pay for one or two cameras. If your priority is a video of a doorstep event you can share with a neighbor or an insurer, a single-device plan on the camera that faces the front door is often enough. The rest of the cameras can run on free live view.

Go local everywhere. If you dislike recurring bills, choose cameras that record to a card, a hub or a hard drive. Consumer Reports’ guide notes that quite a few manufacturers now offer free local video storage using internal memory or a microSD card, and it also flags the downside: an intruder could simply steal the camera to get rid of the evidence. Our no-subscription roundup lists the models owners rate best.

Mix. Many owners pair a local-storage camera with one cloud-backed camera at the front door. You get an off-site copy of the most important footage without paying a whole-home price. That is the setup Consumer Reports’ backup logic supports, since cloud storage keeps footage far from your home.

Costs Beyond the Plan

A few smaller costs catch buyers out. A microSD card is a one-time purchase, but check the card’s rated endurance, since cards in constantly recording cameras wear out. Hubs and sync modules add to the price of some battery systems. Some brands tie discounts to a plan, so the effective camera price drops while you stay subscribed. Finally, prices are moving: Blink raised its plans in October 2025, and Google renamed and repackaged Nest Aware, so a five-year total based on today’s price is a floor.

A Note on Monitored Plans

Some tiers named above, such as Ring’s Pro plan and Arlo’s Smart Secure, include professional monitoring that dispatches help on your behalf. This site sells no monitoring and did not test any monitoring service. If monitoring matters to you, read security camera vs monitored alarm system and check each provider’s own terms.

Going Deeper: Why Recurring Plans Are Built This Way, and How to Read the Fine Print

Camera makers sell the hardware close to cost and earn the difference from plans, because cloud video is a real ongoing expense: every stored clip sits on a server the brand pays for. That is the honest reason plans exist, and it explains the shape of the pricing. A single-device plan is cheap because it stores one camera’s clips. A whole-home plan is priced against the number of devices an average household adds, which is why the break-even sits at about the fourth device on both Blink and Wyze.

The details that change what you pay are in the retention window and the price-change clause. Retention differs sharply: Wyze Cam Plus keeps 14 days of event history, eufy and Google’s Standard tier keep 30, Blink and Arlo’s Secure tiers list 60, and Ring lists up to 180. If your footage habits are rare, such as checking an alert the same day, a short window costs you nothing. If you tend to notice a missing package three days later, you need the longer window. Consumer Reports’ subscription figures are a useful sanity check here: the plan is worth paying for only where you would actually use the extra days.

The second detail is stability. Blink’s support site states that its October 2025 change was its first price increase since plans launched in 2021, and it offered a price-lock option through multi-year Plus subscriptions to customers who bought before the deadline. Google relaunched Nest Aware as Google Home Premium on October 1, 2025 and tied part of it to its AI subscriptions. Ring restructured plan names in 2026. None of that is unusual for subscription products, but it means the five-year cost you calculate today is an estimate, and annual billing is the easiest way to lock a price for twelve months.

Finally, read the trial terms. Ring says a free 30-day trial of Ring Protect starts automatically on compatible new devices, and Wyze advertises a 30-day free trial with no contract. A trial is a good way to test whether the extra history changes how you use the camera, but set a reminder before it ends so that the choice to continue is yours and not a default.

How We Rank

Every plan comparison on this hub comes from the brand’s own published pages and aggregated owner reviews, not from testing. When we could not confirm a current US price, the table says so. Full method on how we rank. Start with the plan guide for the brand you already own, or the Ring camera roundup if you are still shopping.