Deploying a Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) solution can be a substantial investment. But when you consider an ever-evolving threat landscape and combine it with a shift in how and where employees work, investing in security is a crucial part of doing  business.    

Today’s next-gen SIEMs and threat detection platforms should be symbolic of a wise investment, well worth their cost. Choosing a cloud-native solution with a focus on scalability can go a long way towards future-proofing your investment. With a robust solution, your security team gains the benefits of detecting, responding to and mitigating threats, minimizing potential data loss and operational delays. Sure, it’s a cliche, but those benefits are priceless. 

So what does it cost to purchase a SIEM? And how should organizations approach budgeting? 

The answers may surprise you.

How much does a SIEM cost? 

The truth is, in many cases, getting pricing from vendors is complicated. You may get some hard costs about the purchase, but there could be unexpected hidden prices and fees that arise as you reach the deployment stage. 

But you’re here to get some kind of idea about pricing. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to glean an exact cost without the provider understanding your infrastructure and business needs. While it’s only a range, you can expect to pay anywhere from $50,000 to several million per year, depending on requirements. 

Why such a wide range?

As mentioned above, no two organizations have the exact needs. Still, it's more than that: each solution provider approaches SIEM differently and may also offer other security services that, in some cases, are not optional purchases. Depending on how the solution is deployed, some of the services may come as add-ons while other vendors incorporate them into the subscription. 

Is there a typical SIEM pricing model? 

SIEM vendors offer various pricing models, including one of or a combination of flat fees, a monthly subscription, and cost for additional modules. Pricing from some vendors will be confusing; for others, more straightforward. 

Some vendors’ pricing may be based upon several factors all at once, including:

• Monitored entities

• Processing workload

• Data volume passing through the system

Other vendors keep things simpler by basing their pricing on a single metric, typically an amount of data ingested on a daily or monthly basis..

In the former case, cost can vary wildly due to factors/add-ons such as:

• The number of log sources

• Log data retention periods

• Threat intelligence add-ons/integrations

• Real-time alert allowance

• Customer support packages

Depending on your tolerance for unexpected variance in costs, you might be well advised to seek out a SIEM that offers a pricing model that optimizes for predictability and simplicity.  

Are there hidden costs to SIEM? 

Absolutely, there are hidden costs when deploying a SIEM. Not only that, there are hidden benefits. 

First, it’s critical to watch for those hidden costs. Typically, hidden costs are those that come to light after the SIEM has been installed. When evaluating a SIEM, you’ll want to ensure you ask these questions: 

• What is the vendor going to do at renewal? 

• What are they going to do when they install a significant upgrade? 

• What will happen when they release a new feature? 

Next, there’s operational overhead. Companies must take into account all the time, energy and effort its security team has to spend on managing servers, storage and upgrades.

Another overlooked hidden cost is the additional expense of hiring security team members with specific expertise, as some SIEM solutions are easier to work with than others. While there are SIEM solutions that leverage universal programming languages like Python and SQL, others require knowledge of proprietary detection and query languages. Hiring security team employees with expertise in proprietary languages or having to train them is infinitely more difficult, and ultimately more expensive. 

What about hidden benefits?

When a SIEM solution is the right fit, you even gain hidden benefits: your engineers are more efficient, it’s easier to hire for your security team, and your security risk is diminished. 

That’s why the best way to approach SIEM pricing is to evaluate using total cost of ownership (TCO). 

Simplify SIEM costs with Panther 

With Panther, you can be confident that your costs will be predictable. After all, nobody wants the headaches of having to ask for more money in the middle of a budget cycle. 

But again, it's not only about pricing. Panther customers are not just buying the product they see in the demo, because it is the result of our past innovation. Panther customers sign up for our journey to become the best threat detection platform. 

Panther’s serverless, security data lake architecture separates storage from compute, which gives customers significant cost-efficiency advantages over traditional SIEM. Panther customers typically save approximately 50% vs. server-based platforms, and gain one-year standard retention with far better query speed performance.

As Panther becomes more efficient at ingesting your data, you gain a hidden benefit instead of a hidden cost. 

Ultimately, Panther checks all the boxes for approaching SIEM with a TCO framework:

• No hidden costs

• Makes your engineers more efficient

• Improves your security posture 

• Facilitates security team hiring 

• Gets better with every release

Contact us today to learn more about pricing and how our threat detection platform provides the best TCO for your security team.