Checkmk Pricing

Checkmk uses three pricing units, each tied to a specific capability:

• Services: the pricing unit for Infrastructure Monitoring. A service is any individual aspect of a host — for example, a file system, a hardware sensor, a switch port, or a specific metric like CPU usage. 
• Custom metrics: the pricing unit for Application Observability. A custom metric is a unique data series ingested via the OpenTelemetry collector — for example, a request latency metric tagged by endpoint and region.
• Synthetic tests: the pricing unit for Synthetic Monitoring. A synthetic test is a single, automated check that simulates a user action like a login, checkout, or API call. Each test includes up to 5 individual ‘KPI keywords’ to measure individual steps in a test.

Pricing scales with the count of these units, with no per-host fees or hidden costs. We use hosts as an approximate sizing reference. On average, there are 30 services per host.

Infrastructure Monitoring is priced by the number of services you monitor. A service is any individual aspect of a host — for example, a file system, a hardware sensor, a switch port, or a specific metric like CPU usage. Subscriptions are sized by service count, with no additional charges or restrictions beyond that number.

We believe services are the fairest pricing metric: a Wi-Fi access point has far fewer aspects worth monitoring than a database server, and should cost less to monitor accordingly.

Hosts have around 30 services each on average. A database server or core switch may have many more, while a simple network device may have far fewer. Use our service calculator to estimate the right size for your environment.

For Infrastructure Monitoring, Checkmk prices by service rather than by host because hosts vary enormously in monitoring complexity. A core switch or database server has dozens of meaningful aspects to monitor; a Wi-Fi access point has only a few. Per-host pricing charges the same for both, regardless of how much is actually being monitored. Service-based pricing aligns cost with monitoring depth and keeps bills predictable as your environment grows.

This same principle applies across Checkmk's other capabilities: Application Observability is priced by custom metrics, and Synthetic Monitoring by tests — in each case, the pricing unit reflects the actual workload being monitored, rather than a proxy like host count.

Application Observability is included with Checkmk Ultimate and Checkmk Cloud subscriptions and is not sold standalone. It is priced by the number of custom metrics, and each subscription includes a number of custom metrics matched to its service count.

A custom metric is a unique data series ingested via the OpenTelemetry collector — for example, a request latency metric tagged by endpoint and region. Each unique combination of metric name and tags counts as one custom metric.

Checkmk Ultimate and Checkmk Cloud subscriptions include the same number of custom metrics as services. For example, a 6,000-service subscription includes 6,000 custom metrics and covers approximately 200 hosts; a 30,000-service subscription includes 30,000 custom metrics and covers approximately 1,000 hosts.

Yes. Additional custom metrics can be added to any Checkmk Ultimate or Checkmk Cloud subscription. Contact our sales team for pricing.

For Checkmk Cloud, a fair use policy applies: incoming data is blocked once usage exceeds the subscription allotment by more than 100,000 custom metrics.

For Checkmk Ultimate, exceeding the allotment is treated as overuse of the subscription. Customers running consistently above their allotted custom metrics should contact the Checkmk sales team to adjust their subscription.

Checkmk Synthetic Monitoring is available as an add-on to Checkmk Pro and Checkmk Ultimate. It is priced per synthetic test — a single automated check that simulates a user action like a login, checkout, or API call. Pricing scales with the number of tests, not how often they run. Each test also includes 5 KPIs, which expose individual steps within a test (such as page load time or transaction duration) so you get more visibility from every test, without needing to configure additional ones.

Both editions include Infrastructure Monitoring and Application Observability, sized by an equal number of services and custom metrics. The difference is how they are operated and what they support:

• Checkmk Ultimate is self-managed. You deploy and operate it on your own infrastructure, including in your own AWS or Azure tenant via the cloud marketplaces. Ultimate supports distributed monitoring, scales to 100,000+ hosts, and can be combined with the Synthetic Monitoring add-on.
• Checkmk Cloud is the SaaS edition, fully hosted and managed by Checkmk on AWS, with hosting available in Frankfurt (EU) and Northern Virginia (US). Cloud is currently capped at 50,000 services, and does not include the Synthetic Monitoring add-on.

Choose Checkmk Ultimate if you need full control over your monitoring infrastructure, operate at very large scale, or work in environments where data must remain on-premises. Choose Checkmk Cloud if you want a fully managed solution without operational overhead.

Migration between self-hosted editions and Checkmk Cloud is not currently supported in either direction. If you're evaluating both options, we recommend trialing the edition that best matches your long-term operational model.

Checkmk Pro and Checkmk Ultimate scale to 100,000+ hosts in self-hosted deployments using distributed monitoring. Checkmk Cloud currently supports up to 50,000 services. For larger environments, Checkmk Ultimate is the recommended path.

Yes. Many of our customers start with Checkmk Community to evaluate Checkmk in their own environment, then upgrade to Checkmk Pro or Checkmk Ultimate when they're ready for enterprise features like distributed monitoring, advanced reporting, or professional support. The upgrade happens in place — your hosts, services, and configurations carry over. Contact our sales team to arrange the license change.

Yes, you can upgrade to Checkmk Ultimate at any time, without waiting for your current contract to expire. Contact our sales team for details.

The fastest way to see Checkmk in action is the Checkmk Cloud trial — a fully managed 30-day trial that requires no installation. You're up and monitoring within minutes.

For self-hosted evaluation, you can also install one of the following 30-day trials with full functionality:

• Checkmk Pro trial — for evaluating standard data-center monitoring.
• Checkmk Ultimate trial — for evaluating full-stack observability including Application Observability.
• Checkmk Ultimate with Multi-tenancy trial — this is a separate build from Checkmk Ultimate, designed for MSPs and large organizations with strict tenant separation requirements.

After a self-hosted trial expires, your installation continues in Free mode (750 services, one site) and can be upgraded to a paid subscription at any time. For longer evaluations or proof-of-concept projects exceeding the trial period, contact our sales team for an extended POC license.

Yes. Checkmk Ultimate is available on the AWS and Azure marketplaces and runs natively in your own cloud account. The marketplace listings use a Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model, so the same Checkmk subscription covers sites you launch from either marketplace.

Support is included in every paid Checkmk edition. See our support page for response times, channels, and details by edition.