You've finally outgrown the free tier and are staring at two very different zero‑trust offerings. Twingate starts its paid ladder at $15/month for a modest home‑lab setup, while ZeroTier’s first paid slot is a surprisingly steep $18/month for a "Free" tier that still carries a price tag. The contrast is stark enough to force a decision about how you value per‑seat simplicity versus network‑wide licensing.
How the plans break down
| Vendor | Plan | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Twingate | Starter | $0/month |
| Twingate | Home | $15/month |
| Twingate | Teams (Annual) | $5/month |
| Twingate | Teams (Monthly) | $6/month |
| Twingate | Business (Annual) | $10/month |
| Twingate | Business (Monthly) | $12/month |
| ZeroTier | Free | $18/month |
| ZeroTier | Scale | $179/month |
| ZeroTier | Additional Devices | $2/month |
Twingate’s tiered approach is built around user counts, from a free starter that supports up to five users to a business plan that scales to five hundred. Each step adds more enterprise‑grade features like SSO integration and IdP provisioning. ZeroTier, by contrast, sells a network‑centric license. Its "Free" plan, despite the label, costs $18/month and comes with custom‑level support. The next rung, Scale, jumps to $179/month and promises unlimited networks and ten network admins. Anything beyond that is billed per additional device at $2/month.
Who should pick which model
If your organization is user‑focused and you need granular control over who accesses what, Twingate’s per‑seat pricing feels natural. Small teams can stay on the Starter or Home plans without paying a cent beyond the free tier, and growing groups have clear upgrade paths that keep costs predictable month‑to‑month. ZeroTier makes more sense for environments where the number of devices, not the number of users, drives cost. Companies that run dozens of IoT endpoints or need multiple isolated networks may find the flat‑fee Scale plan cheaper than counting seats, especially when the per‑device add‑on is only $2/month.
In practice, the choice boils down to whether you count users or devices. Twingate lets you pay for people, ZeroTier lets you pay for the network fabric itself. For a startup with a handful of developers, Twingate’s Home plan at $15/month offers the most bang for the buck. For a midsize firm managing a fleet of kiosks or remote sensors, ZeroTier’s Scale plan at $179/month plus a few $2 device add‑ons could be the cleaner line‑item.
Pricing verified on 2026-09-20.