SIEM Cost Calculator
Estimate total cost of ownership (TCO) for SIEM systems, including licensing, infrastructure, storage, and personnel costs.
Data Volume & Retention
Deployment Configuration
Additional Security Modules
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Calculate Your SIEM Total Cost of Ownership
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems are critical for threat detection and compliance, but costs can quickly escalate. Our SIEM Cost Calculator helps security teams estimate the true Total Cost of Ownership including licensing, infrastructure, storage, personnel, and hidden costs across different deployment models and vendor tiers.
Understanding SIEM Pricing Models
SIEM vendors use various pricing models: data ingestion ($/GB/day), events per second (EPS), or entity-based licensing. Beyond license fees, organizations must account for infrastructure costs (on-premise or cloud), storage for long-term retention, security analyst salaries, training, and support. Enterprise SIEM like Splunk or IBM QRadar can cost $150-500K+ annually, while mid-market and open-source options offer lower TCO with different trade-offs.
TCO Formula
TCO = License + Infrastructure + Storage + Personnel + Training + SupportHow to Use the SIEM Cost Calculator
Enter your daily data ingestion volume in GB/day. Typical ranges: small org 10-50 GB, mid-size 100-300 GB, enterprise 500+ GB.
Specify events per second (EPS) rate. Calculate from log sources: 1 GB/day ≈ 500-1,500 EPS depending on event size.
Set log retention period in days. Compliance requirements: SOC 2 (90+ days), HIPAA (6+ years), PCI-DSS (1+ year).
Enter number of security analysts who will use the SIEM. Include SOC analysts, incident responders, and threat hunters.
Select deployment type and vendor tier based on your requirements. Review the cost comparison across tiers.
Common SIEM Cost Scenarios
Startup SOC Launch
Early-stage security teams evaluating initial SIEM investment. Compare open-source options like Wazuh or Elastic against managed cloud solutions for 10-50 GB/day volumes.
Enterprise SIEM Migration
Organizations migrating from legacy SIEM to modern platforms. Calculate TCO for Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, or Elastic Cloud including migration costs.
Compliance-Driven Deployment
Healthcare, finance, or retail organizations requiring SIEM for HIPAA, SOX, or PCI-DSS compliance with extended retention periods (1-7 years).
MSSP Cost Modeling
Managed Security Service Providers calculating per-customer SIEM costs to set pricing and margins for security monitoring services.
Cloud vs On-Premise Analysis
Organizations deciding between cloud SIEM (lower ops, higher variable cost) and on-premise (higher capital, lower variable cost).
Contract Renewal Planning
Teams preparing for SIEM contract renewals, understanding current costs to negotiate better terms or evaluate alternatives.
Why Calculate SIEM Costs Upfront?
Avoid Budget Surprises
SIEM projects frequently exceed budgets due to unexpected data growth, longer retention requirements, or additional analyst needs. Accurate TCO modeling prevents costly surprises.
Compare Vendor Options
Enterprise, mid-market, and open-source SIEM solutions have vastly different cost structures. Understanding true costs helps select the right tier for your needs.
Justify Security Investment
Quantifying SIEM costs alongside breach prevention value (avg $4.45M per incident) helps build the business case for security investment.
Plan for Growth
Data volumes grow 25-40% annually. Understanding cost scaling helps plan for future requirements and negotiate better contracts.
Optimize Existing Deployment
Identify cost reduction opportunities through log filtering, tiered storage, or deployment model changes.
Make Build vs Buy Decisions
Compare commercial SIEM costs against open-source alternatives factoring in additional engineering and operational overhead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sum log sources: Windows event logs (~1-2 GB/server/day), firewall logs (~0.5-2 GB/1000 connections), cloud audit logs (~100-500 MB/service). Most organizations underestimate by 30-50% - add buffer for growth and new sources.
EPS (events per second) pricing charges by event volume regardless of size. GB/day (ingestion) pricing charges by data volume. EPS favors small, frequent events; GB/day favors larger, less frequent logs. Most modern SIEM use ingestion-based pricing.
Splunk Enterprise costs approximately $150-500K+ annually for mid-size deployments (100-300 GB/day). Pricing is typically $3-6/GB/day for ingestion-based or $1,800-4,000/GB/day for workload pricing. Contact Splunk for exact quotes.
Open-source SIEM (Elastic, Wazuh, OSSIM) have no license fees but require significant operational overhead. Factor in: infrastructure costs, engineering time (1-2 FTEs), training, and lack of vendor support. True TCO is often 40-60% of commercial alternatives.
Industry benchmarks: 1 analyst per 500-1000 endpoints for 24x7 coverage, or 1 analyst per 50-100 GB/day of log volume. Minimum viable SOC requires 5-7 analysts for 24x7 coverage with shifts and time off.
Compliance minimums: SOC 2 (90 days), PCI-DSS (1 year), HIPAA (6 years), SOX (7 years). Best practice is hot storage (30-90 days searchable), warm (90-365 days), cold archive (1-7 years). Longer retention dramatically increases storage costs.