One of the key differentiators between home security cameras and video doorbells has nothing to do with their specifications or even their performance. If you’re considering the long-term cost of ownership of a security camera, you’ll want to know three things: First, what functions are disabled if you don’t pay for a subscription? Second, what functions does a subscription add to the product? And third, how much will a subscription cost on a monthly or annual basis.
If you’re wondering why you’d need a subscription plan in the first place, it’s because many–maybe even most–of the manufacturers in this space limit the capabilities of their products unless you pay extra for services. These subscription plans are invariably advertised as “optional,” and many of them are sold in tiers, with varying levels of features. But the bottom line is that you won’t get the full benefit of many brands of camera and doorbell unless you sign up for a plan.
Arlo, Ring, and many others, for example, limit you to a real-time view of the scene in front of their cameras and doorbells unless you cough up for a subscription. If you want a recording of an event you weren’t around to watch in real time, you’ll need to pay for a subscription so you can store the recording on the vendor’s server in the cloud. Even cameras that feature local storage on a microSD card or a storage device on your home network might require a subscription to unlock features such as person, pet, and package detection; high-resolution video recording; AI image processing; and more.
Let’s compare the plans and services from each of the biggest manufacturers, whose product lines have generally earned positive reviews from us. Our list is sorted alphabetically, but if you’re looking for a particular brand, check the table of contents in the left-hand margin.
Arlo Secure
Arlo cameras come with three cloud storage options, any of which will unlock crucial camera functions.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry
When you buy an Arlo home security camera, video doorbell, or floodlight camera, you’ll get a 30-day free trial to Arlo Secure, which starts automatically after you set up the device. When the free trial ends, you’ll still be able to see a live view from the camera, the two-way talk feature will continue to operate, and you’ll receive notifications when the camera detects motion. The camera will also continue to work with smart speakers and displays, but you won’t be able to record videos and download those clips to share with other people unless you sign up for one of the following paid subscriptions:
Arlo Secure Plus
Cost: $9.99 per month for a single Arlo camera, doorbell, or floodlight camera (an annual $95.88 subscription effectively discounts that to $7.99/mo). If you have more than one camera, you’ll need to pick which one will be covered. Coverage for an unlimited number of Arlo cameras, doorbells, and floodlight cameras costs $19.99 per month (an annual $215.88 subscription effectively discounts that to $17.99/mo).
Features: This plan gives you a 60-day video history along with the ability to define “smart activity zones” that will trigger push notifications when motion is detected. It also adds Arlo Intelligence, a set of AI-powered security features including “smart detection” (the ability to differentiate between people, vehicles, packages, and pets), facial recognition, audio detection, and the ability to receive notifications for events and scenarios you create, such as when you leave your sprinklers on or your garage door open. Your Arlo cameras can also recognize flames and will send you an alert if a fire breaks out in their field of view.
Arlo Secure Premium
Cost: $29.99 per month for an unlimited number of Arlo cameras, doorbells, and floodlight cameras (an annual subscription of $299.88 effectively discounts that to $24.99/mo. There is no single-camera plan for this tier.
Features: Arlo’s top-tier plan includes everything in the Plus plan and adds “event captions” that describe what’s happened in a motion-triggered recording. You also gain access to Arlo Safe, a personal security smartphone app and service that can protect you and members of your family when you’re away from home.
If you also own an Arlo Home Security System, this service tier includes professional monitoring that can summon first responders in the event of a police, fire, or medical emergency. You’ll also get cellular backup for your security system in the event your primary broadband connection goes down.
sign up for an arlo secure plan
Blink
Amazon’s Blink cameras come with two cloud subscription options, one that’s priced per camera and one that’s a flat fee for unlimited cameras.Michael Brown/Foundry
Amazon’s Blink cameras, doorbells, and floodlight cameras come with your choice of two monthly cloud subscription plans. One is priced per camera and the other is a flat monthly or annual fee for an unlimited number of Blink cameras. Without a paid subscription you will only be able to view your camera’s live feed–and only for a maximum of 5 minutes after receiving a motion-detection alert.
Blink Basic Plan
Cost: $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year per camera.
Features: The Basic plan includes 60 days of rolling storage; Blink Moments, a feature that will stitch together multiple events captured by your Blink cameras into a single seamless video; “smart detection,” which sends a push notification when a person or vehicle is detected versus an object or animal (this feature is available only on certain Blink models); automatic local backups (if you also purchase a $50 Blink Sync Module 2 and a USB storage device to plug into it, or a $70 Blink Sync Module XR and a microSD card to plug into it); video sharing, and periodic photo capture. A paid subscription also extends continuous live viewing time from 5 minutes to 90 minutes.
Blink Plus Plan
Cost: $12 per month or $120 per year for an unlimited number of Blink cameras.
Features: This plan includes everything in the Basic plan and adds the ability to temporarily pause motion alerts for up to 24 hours, entitles you to a 10-percent discount on additional Blink devices and accessories purchased on Amazon, and it extends the warranties on all your Blink devices for as long as you continue your subscription–provided each of those Blink product are under warranty at the time you start your subscription.
Sign up for a Blink Subscription plan
Eufy Cloud Backup
Eufy cameras include local storage options, but they can also use Eufy a subscription plan to back up their video recordings to the cloud.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry
Eufy’s indoor and outdoor cameras, floodlight cameras, and video doorbells support local storage either through a small amount of onboard memory, a microSD card, or via Eufy’s HomeBase 3, a NAS-type device you connect to your home network that can host up to 16TB of user-provided storage (a hard disk or solid-state drive). Eufy also offers reasonably priced cloud subscriptions that add convenient access from anywhere you have internet access and are useful as a backup in case your local storage is stolen, damaged, or goes offline.
Unlike most of its competitors, you don’t need a subscription to unlock any features of Eufy’s features–those are all included in the price of the product. Not all of Eufy’s security products are subscription eligible, however, so it’s best to check your model before you purchase a plan (which is accomplished in the Eufy app, not on their website).
Eufy Basic Plan
Cost: $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year for one device; $7.99/mo or $79.99/year for two devices; $11.99 or $119.99/year for three devices.
Features: The Eufy Basic plan unlocks rolling 30 days of storage for up to three devices.
Eufy Plus Plan
Cost: $13.99 a month or $139.99 a year
Features: This plan covers all compatible Eufy devices (i.e., cameras, doorbells, and floodlight cameras), providing a rolling 30 days of storage for each camera.
Get more information about Eufy Cloud Backup
Eufy Professional Monitoring
Eufy also offers two professional monitoring plans for its home security systems, but only the more expensive Plus Plan includes the level of service we typically associate with professional monitoring. While both of these services can dispatch first responders in the event of a police, fire, or medical emergency, the cheaper Basic Plan requires you to initiate the dispatch by pressing a panic button in the Eufy home security app.
Confusingly, Eufy uses the same names for these service tiers, which are mutually exclusive to the camera services discussed above. In other words, if you want both cloud backup for your Eufy security cameras and professional monitoring for your Eufy home security system, you’ll need to sign up for two subscriptions.
Eufy Basic Plan (professional monitoring)
Cost: $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year
Features: With this plan, you can summon an emergency dispatch in the event of a police, fire, or medical emergency by tapping a button in the Eufy security app (you’ll need to have one of Eufy’s home security systems, not just a Eufy security camera).
Eufy Plus Plan (professional monitoring)
Cost: $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year
Features: This service tier is more in line with what we think of professional monitoring, because it doesn’t depend on the user to initiate an emergency dispatch. The monitoring service will contact you to verify an emergency if any of the sensors in a Eufy home security system detects an emergency, but if you don’t respond (because you missed the call, for example, or were out of range of cellphone service), the center will dispatch the appropriate response. Eufy’s service is one of the least expensive professional monitoring services we’re aware of, but remember that you’ll need a separate subscription for camera and doorbell coverage.
The Plus Plan can also earn you up to a 20-percent discount on your homeowner’s insurance, and you can choose which sensors and cameras you want to enroll in professional monitoring.
Sign up for Eufy Professional Monitoring
Google Home Premium (formerly Nest Aware)
Michael Brown/Foundry
Google’s Nest cameras, doorbells, and floodlight cameras include more features than most of the competition before you need to sign up for a subscription. You’ll get the usual motion-detection alerts and on-demand live viewing, but those notifications will also inform you as to the source of the motion: a person, a vehicle, or an animal. You’ll also be notified if a package has been left in the cameras’ field of view. And unlike most vendors, Google also gives you up to six hours of 10-second event video previews for free. Most vendors, including Arlo and Ring, don’t give you any recordings at all unless you pay up.
The specific features you get from the two tiers of Google Home Premium vary depending on the device you buy, with the most advanced AI features being limited to Google’s newest hardware. As of October 2025, that would be the Nest Doorbell (wired, 3rd gen) the Nest Cam Outdoor (wired, 2nd gen), and the Nest Cam Indoor (wired, 3rd gen). You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of either tier when you purchase a device.
Google Home Premium (Standard)
Cost: $10 per month or $100 per year for every Google device in your home.
Features: A Google Home Premium (Standard) plan bumps event-based video history up to 30 full days, and it gives you a “whole-home history” detailing all the activity your Google devices have logged in the home. Your cameras can also learn familiar faces, so they can discern between family and friends versus strangers. And if you also have Nest smart speakers and displays, they’ll be able to listen for the sound of breaking glass and the sound of smoke or carbon monoxide detectors going off. You’ll also be able to make calls to emergency services local to your home (versus wherever you’re calling from at the time). Finally, you’ll get access to Gemini for Home, Google’s AI agent (and replacement for Google Assistant).
Google Home Premium (Advanced)
Cost: $20 per month or $200 per year for every Google device in your home.
Features: Everything that’s included in Google Home Premium (Standard), but your event-based history is doubled to 60 days; plus, 10 days of 24/7 continuous recording for each of your Nest cameras and wired doorbells. You’ll also be able to ask Gemini to search your camera and doorbell history for specific events, you’ll get AI-generated event descriptions for events detected by your cameras and doorbells, along with daily recaps of recorded events.
Sign up for a Google Home Premium account
Ring Home
If you want recordings from your Ring cameras and doorbells, you’ll need to sign up for one of the company’s Ring Home plans.Michael Brown/Foundry
Ring Home is a three-tiered subscription service for Ring doorbells and security cameras. Various add-on services–including professional monitoring of a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro home security system–are also available, although not every add-on is available for every service tier. A free 30-day trials is offered when you activate a new Ring product. After the trial period, you’ll need to subscribe to continue using all of the product’s features. Without a Ring Protect Plan, you can only use your Ring device’s free features such as live video (up to 10 minutes at a time), text-only motion-detection push notifications, and two-way audio over a live connection.
Ring Home Basic
Cost: $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year for one camera.
Features: The Basic plan allows you to store 180 days of recorded video events for a single Ring doorbell or camera. It’s also required to enable most of your Ring product’s advanced functions, including person, package, and vehicle alerts; video preview alerts; Home and Away modes; the ability to download up to 50 videos at once to your device; and Snapshot Capture, which allows your camera to capture still images of its view at predetermined intervals so you can a view slideshow of what your camera sees between motion events. Doorbells also get Video Preview Alerts that deliver a short video clip along with the push notification when someone rings.
Ring Home Standard
Cost: $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for an unlimited number of Ring cameras and doorbells; plus, one additional feature for Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro systems.
Features: The Ring Home Standard plan covers every Ring doorbell and camera at a single location. It offers the same features as the Basic plan, but extends your camera’s live viewing feature from a max of 10 minutes to 30 minutes and adds a new feature called Doorbell Calls. When someone rings your doorbell, it will call your smartphone and give you the option to speak to the person on your porch over a video call. With Live View Picture-in-Picture enabled, you can watch a live stream from any of your Ring cameras on your smartphone even while you’re using other apps.
Log into your account at Ring.com and you’ll be able to stream live views from up to four Ring cameras simultaneously (in four windows on your web browser of choice). You can view a daily event summary in the Ring app that catalogs everything that happened that current day (when motion was detected, when people were detected, and so on). You can then drill down to see the recordings linked to those events.
Owners of a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro home security system will get 24/7 backup over a cellular network for the security system only (the more expensive Ring Home Premium plan also includes 24/7 internet backup for the Wi-Fi router that’s integrated with a Ring Alarm Pro). Finally, the Ring Standard plan gives you a lifetime warranty on all of your Ring devices–provided the devices were still covered by Ring’s standard one-year warranty on the date your Ring Home subscription starts.
Ring Home Premium
Cost: $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year for an unlimited number of Ring cameras; plus, some additional features for Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro home security systems.
Features: The Ring Home Premium plan gets you the same features as the Standard plan, but it adds some entirely new features, including 24/7 video recording to the cloud for up to 10 compatible, hardwired or plugged-in Ring cameras and doorbells (Ring lists the 24/7-recording-capable cameras on its website; not every model is capable). The Premium plan also lengthens your live viewing time from the 10 minutes you get with Ring Home Basic and the 30 minutes you get with Ring Home Premium to continuous viewing for as long as you maintain the connection.
You’ll also get three AI-powered features, two of which were in beta as of this writing: Smart Video Search helps you find specific events in your cameras’ motion-triggered recordings. Video Descriptions (in beta) attaches text-based descriptions to your video recordings. And with AI Single Event Alerts (also in beta), your cameras will recognize similar motion events and send you a single alert summarizing all of them instead of bombarding you with multiple alerts.
The last feature not dependent on your having one of the Ring Alarm systems is SOS Emergency Response. If an emergency arises or you need help, you can push the SOS button in the Ring app to request emergency services.
If you own a Ring Alarm Pro home security system, which has an integrated Eero router, the Premium plan includes backup internet service over a cellular network, in case your primary broadband service should fail. Be aware, however, that this comes with a 3GB-per-month data cap and you’ll need to buy more data if you exceed that limit.
You’ll also get Ring Edge, which lets you store security camera and doorbell recordings on a local microSD card plugged into the Ring Alarm Pro, and Eero Secure, router-based software that protects your network clients from online threats (an ad-blocker is also included).
24/7 Smoke & CO Professional Monitoring
You can add 24/7 smoke and carbon monoxide professional monitoring that will dispatch an emergency response if any of your compatible Ring devices to any of the three Ring Home services for $5 per month.
Ring Home add-on services
Ring Home with 24/7 professional monitoring
Cost: $10 per month in addition to whichever Ring Home plan you subscribe to (Basic, Home, or Premium).
Features: This plan is relevant only to Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro home security system users; as such, it’s not directly related to Ring’s home security cameras. With professional monitoring, someone in a central office tracks the status of your home whenever it’s in an armed state. Should the system go into an alarm state, they can either call you to check if everything is OK and summon an emergency response if you suspect a break-in, or immediately call the police (an option you choose when you set up the service). Professional monitoring can also be used for fire and medical emergencies.
Ring Home with Virtual Security Guard
Cost: $99 per month in addition to whichever Ring Home plan you subscribe to (Basic, Home, or Premium) and Ring professional monitoring.
If you own at least one Ring camera, a Ring Alarm security system, subscribe to one of the Ring Home plans, and are enrolled in Ring’s professional monitoring plan, you can sign up for the Virtual Security Guard add-on service at an additional cost of $99 per month. With this plan, professional security guards will monitor the cameras you choose, during the hours you set, looking for suspicious activity. If they spot something, they can use the cameras’ siren and/or two-way audio to deter potential a intruder or vandal in real time. They will also contact you directly, via text message or phone call, and they can summon emergency services if warranted.
sign up for a ring home plan
Sign up for Ring Virtual Security Gurad
SimpliSafe
SimpliSafe offers two paid subscription plans; one allows you to monitor your own system, the other includes a professional monitoring service.Christopher Null/Foundry
SimpliSafe offers four paid monitoring plans for its home security cameras. You can forgo one to save some money, but you will be limited to viewing your camera’s live video feed and arming/disarming its security system from the SimpliSafe App. SimpliSafe’s least-expensive subscription unlocks critical features such as push notifications and video recording, while its two Pro plans offer professional monitoring of a SimpliSafe security system and live guard monitoring of your outdoor cameras.
Self Monitoring with Camera Recordings
Cost: Around $10 per month.
Features: As the name of this plan indicates, you are still monitoring your system via the SimpliSafe mobile app with this entry-level subscription, but you unlock additional camera features, including unlimited video recording, 30-day cloud storage, and instant alarm alerts pushed to your mobile device. In the event of an emergency, it’s up to you to call first responders.
Core
Cost: Around $30 per month.
Features: This base plan comes with SimpliSafe’s whole-home professional monitoring service, so you probably want to be using your camera with one of the company’s DIY home security systems before you consider it. The crux of the service is 24/7 live guard protection; during an active alarm, professional agents can access your camera’s video feed and microphone and attempt to divert the threat. If they’re unsuccessful, they can dispatch police, and their verified report will likely result in a faster response. Similarly, agents can dispatch fire, or medical help after verifying an emergency. Meanwhile, you can still track camera activity on your own via the features unlocked in the self-monitoring plan; plus, you get a lifetime subscriber warranty on SimpliSafe hardware.
Pro
Cost: $49.99 a month
Features: This plan includes all the features of the Core subscription and adds Overnight SimpliSafe Active Guard Outdoor Protection. This uses a combination of AI and live agents to monitor your outdoor camera(s) between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. local time to detect and deter threats observed outside your home.
Pro Plus
Cost: $79.99 a month
Features: SimpliSafe’s top-tier plan includes everything in the Pro plan but extends Active Guard Outdoor Protection for your outdoor cameras to a 24/7 basis for users who want round-the-clock protection.
Sign up for Simplisafe Self Monitoring with Camera Recordings
Sign up for SimpliSafe professionnal monitoring
TP-Link and Tapo
Neither TP-Link nor its Tapo brand offer a complete home-security system, but its security camera monitoring subscriptions are very inexpensive.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry
TP-Link and its Tapo brand of home security cameras are typical in that buyers can choose between a free self-monitoring plan that doesn’t include push notifications or cloud storage, or a paid plan that includes both. Many of its cameras, however, are equipped with microSD card slots that provide local storage for video clips–provided you supply the microSD card. Unlike Arlo, Ring, SimpliSafe, and Wyze Labs, TP-Link does not also offer a complete home security system, so it doesn’t offer a professional monitoring subscription either.
Tapocare
Cost: $3.49 per month or $34.99 per year for up to 10 cameras.
Features: In the U.S., a Tapocare plan provides 30 days of video clip storage in the cloud, push notifications when the cameras detect motion and record video (including a snapshot from the video). Users can tag and sort their cameras’ recordings.
Sign up for Tapocare
Wyze Labs
Wyze Labs is one of the few security camera manufacturers to off a free plan for storing video recordings in the cloud. It also offers two paid tiers that include additional features.Christopher Null/Foundry
Wyze Labs offers some of the most inexpensive home security cameras on the market, and the same goes for its subscription plans. It even offers a free plan—the only major security camera brand to do so—that enables more than just your camera’s most basic features. Wyze offers five subscription plans in all:
Wyze Cam Plus Lite
Cost: Pay-what-you-want (including free).
Features: You 12-second, event-based video clips, and 14 days of rolling cloud storage (meaning your oldest recordings get overwritten after two weeks). It also includes general motion and sound detection, AI-powered person detection, and cameras will listen for smoke and CO alarms sounding off and will send you an alert. On the downside, there’s a 5-minute cool-down between recordings, meaning the camera will ignore events in between recordings. The service is also limited to the Wyze Cam v1/v2/v3; Wyze Cam Pan v1/v2; and Wyze Cam Outdoor v1/v2 only.
Sign up for Wyze Cam Plus Lite
Wyze Cam Plus
Cost: $2.99 per month per camera, $19.99 per year per camera.
Features: This plan offers unlimited full-length video recordings with no cool-down period. You’ll also get 14 days of cloud storage for event recordings. Additional features include AI-powered detection for people, pets, packages, and vehicles, ensuring you’ll receive more accurate alerts.
Sign up for Wyze Cam Plus
Cam Plus Unlimited
Cost: $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for all your Wyze Labs cameras.
Features: This is the same plan as Cam Plus, but it covers all your Wyze cameras; so, if you have more than three or four, this plan is more economical than paying for each camera separately.
Sign up for Wyze Cam Unlimited
Our take
Arlo’s $7.99-per-month single-camera subscription price is one of most expensive on the market, following a 60-percent price increase in January, 2024, but it doesn’t charge a lot more to cover an unlimited number of cameras–$12.99 per month–at least with its basic plan. Arlo’s unlimited camera plan costs $17.99 per month, but it also adds several features you won’t get with the cheaper plan. Arlo’s $24.99-per-month plan that covers an unlimited number of cameras and includes professional monitoring of the company’s home security system is much more reasonable, given that Ring will soon split its own professional monitoring service as a $10-per-month add-on to its other subscriptions. That said, Arlo’s home security system is much more basic than Ring’s and doesn’t incorporate other smart home elements, such as lighting.
Blink has the least expensive per-camera plan, at $3 per month, and you get local video backups if you purchase the Blink Sync Module 2. The unlimited camera plan costs the same as Ring’s service at $10 per month. Unlike Arlo or Ring, Blink does not offer a complete home security system, although it does have a video doorbell and a couple of floodlight cameras. We’ve found that Blink’s product line delivers a lot of value for the money.
Eufy has recently introduced several new advanced security cameras–indoor and outdoor models outfitted with both wide-angle and telephoto lenses–and everything in its lineup is affordably priced. The price for its subscription service is comparable to that of the competition, but its 10-camera limit could be an issue if you have a lot of cameras deployed around your home. That said, 10 cameras seems like a lot. It’s also worth noting that Eufy does not currently offer a professional monitoring service, since it doesn’t currently offer a complete home alarm system.
A Google Nest Aware subscription for a single camera costs the same as Arlo’s, but since few households end up deploying just one camera or video doorbell, Google’s plan ends up being more affordable than most because it covers all the Google cameras, doorbells, speakers, and displays in your home. But Google no longer builds a home security system, so it doesn’t offer a professional monitoring service either.
Ring has retooled its entire subscription plan, which will soon be called Ring Home (the old name was Ring Protect). Ring’s claim of “new features, new name, same price” claim is disingenuous at best. Its basic, single-camera plan retains the same price and does gain a new feature, and its mid-tier unlimited-camera plan gains two new features for the same price, but Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro users will now need to pay $10 per month for professional monitoring on top of whichever other service they choose. That means the price for Ring’s highest service tier will go from $19.99 per month to $29.99 per month.
All that said, the Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro home security ecosystems are are more comprehensive than anything else and include indoor and outdoor smart lighting, smart entry locks, smoke detectors, and more, including certified third-party devices. Ring’s new $99-per-month Virtual Security Guard service will probably be of interest only to small business owners, but it’s available to homeowners who want that additional layer of real-time protection.
SimpliSafe dispenses with the nonsense of a subscription for a single security camera, charging about $10 per month for full service of any number of its cameras. The company is also innovating with artificial intelligence and combining that with human monitoring of its cameras, although you’ll pay more for that feature (between $50 and $80 per month). If you invest in SimpliSafe’s full security system and want professional monitoring, that will cost between $32 and $80 per month.
TP-Link/Tapo has one of the least-expensive subscriptions, but it doesn’t offer a professional monitoring option because the company doesn’t have a complete home security system on the market today; it only offers security cameras and video doorbells.
Wyze Labs is another budget brand (Blink being the other), and we’ve had no complaints about the quality of its very well-priced hardware. Its $10-per-month plan for an unlimited number of Wyze cameras is on par with Blink; but unlike that budget manufacturer, Wyze also offers an affordable and complete home security systems with professional monitoring options starting at $10 per month.
This story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best home security cameras and the best video doorbells.
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