Price checkPer per instance per year
NGINX Plus Basic SupportCustomNGINX Plus Standard SupportCustomNGINX Plus Premium SupportCustom
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Quick Answer
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Estimate

NGINX Plus costs $849 to $2.1K per per instance per year as of March 2026, with 4 plans available. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: No free tier available

NGINX Plus offers 4 pricing tiers: NGINX Plus Basic Support, NGINX Plus Standard Support, NGINX Plus Premium Support, NGINX Plus with WAF. The NGINX Plus Standard Support plan is general users and teams.

Compared to other load balancers software, NGINX Plus is positioned at the premium price point.

  • 8 documented hidden costs beyond list price
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How much does NGINX Plus cost?

NGINX Plus pricing starts at $849/per instance per year across 4 plans, with enterprise pricing available on request. Plans include NGINX Plus Basic Support (custom pricing), NGINX Plus Standard Support (custom pricing), NGINX Plus Premium Support (custom pricing), NGINX Plus with WAF (custom pricing).

NGINX Plus Pricing Overview

NGINX Plus has 4 pricing plans ranging from $849 to $2,099/per instance per year. The NGINX Plus Basic Support plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for general users and teams. The NGINX Plus Standard Support plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for general users and teams. The NGINX Plus Premium Support plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for general users and teams. The NGINX Plus with WAF plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for general users and teams.

There are at least 8 documented hidden costs beyond NGINX Plus's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in February 4, 2026.

Visit NGINX Plus Pricing

NGINX Plus pricing starts at $849 per month billed annually. All NGINX Plus tiers (Basic Support, Standard Support, Premium Support, and NGINX Plus with WAF) use custom pricing. NGINX Plus is a commercial version of the open-source NGINX reverse proxy and load balancer, offering professional support and advanced features.

How NGINX Plus Pricing Compares

Compare NGINX Plus pricing against top alternatives in Load Balancers.

AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ALB/NLB) $0.0225-$0.0225/user/mo View pricing → F5 BIG-IP $0-$0/user/mo View pricing → HAProxy Enterprise $995-$4995/user/mo View pricing →

All NGINX Plus Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
NGINX Plus Basic Support Contact Sales Contact Sales General users and teams
NGINX Plus Standard Support Contact Sales Contact Sales General users and teams
NGINX Plus Premium Support Contact Sales Contact Sales General users and teams
NGINX Plus with WAF Contact Sales Contact Sales General users and teams
View all features by plan

NGINX Plus Basic Support

  • Single instance license
  • Advanced load balancing (IP hash, least connections, least time)
  • Session persistence
  • Active health checks
  • Dynamic configuration API
  • Real-time monitoring dashboard
  • Basic support (business hours)

NGINX Plus Standard Support

  • All Basic features
  • 24/7 email and phone support
  • JWT authentication
  • OpenID Connect integration
  • Advanced API gateway features
  • Content caching and optimization
  • gRPC load balancing

NGINX Plus Premium Support

  • All Standard features
  • 24/7 premium support with faster SLA
  • Technical account manager (TAM)
  • Architecture review sessions
  • Priority bug fixes and feature requests
  • Custom SLA options
  • Multi-year discounts available

NGINX Plus with WAF

  • Add to any support tier
  • Application-layer security
  • OWASP ModSecurity integration
  • Custom security rules
  • Attack signature updates
  • Security event logging
  • DDoS mitigation capabilities
See NGINX Plus Plans & Sign Up

Compare NGINX Plus vs Alternatives

Before committing to NGINX Plus, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSAWS Elastic Load Balancing (ALB/NLB)
From $0.0225/user/mo

HTTP/HTTPS applications with advanced routing

Compare pricing
VSF5 BIG-IP
Free

Basic load balancing needs

Compare pricing
VSHAProxy Enterprise
From $995/user/mo

General users and teams

Compare pricing

All NGINX Plus alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for NGINX Plus

Review scores
TrustRadius 9/10 (5)
Top pricing complaints
No user interface or GUI availableInstance Manager setup is complexLimited centralized monitoring platform
Visit NGINX Plus Pricing

How NGINX Plus Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
NGINX Plus $849/per instance per year $2099/per instance per year
AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ALB/NLB) $0.0225/per month (varies by usage) $0.0225/per month (varies by usage)
F5 BIG-IP Custom Custom
HAProxy Enterprise $995/per instance per year $4995/per instance per year
Kemp LoadMaster Custom Custom

Browse all Load Balancers pricing →

8 NGINX Plus Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, NGINX Plus has at least 8 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 8 hidden costs
  • WAF add-on costs $2,000 per instance per year
  • Multi-instance deployments require per-socket licensing
  • Professional services for migration and setup ($5,000-20,000 typical)
  • Training costs for administrators
  • Three-year licenses offer savings but require upfront commitment
  • Infrastructure costs for hosting instances
  • High availability requires multiple licensed instances
  • Premium features like JWT/OIDC only in higher tiers
Tip

Ask your NGINX Plus sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Intelligence sourced from 1 independent sources
TrustRadius Enterprise reviews
Key claims include inline source attribution. Data verified against multiple independent sources. 0 source citations total.

NGINX Plus Pricing FAQ

01 What's the difference between NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus?

NGINX Open Source is free with community support. NGINX Plus adds advanced load balancing algorithms, active health checks, dynamic configuration via API, session persistence, JWT authentication, real-time monitoring, and 24/7 enterprise support. Plus is commercially supported by F5.

02 How does NGINX Plus licensing work?

NGINX Plus is licensed per instance with annual or three-year subscription terms. Licensing is socket-based—you pay per server socket. Each instance includes the software, updates, and support. Multi-year subscriptions typically offer 10-15% discounts.

03 Can I use NGINX Plus as an API gateway?

Yes, NGINX Plus includes robust API gateway features including rate limiting, JWT authentication, OpenID Connect integration, request/response transformation, API key validation, and comprehensive logging. These features are included in Standard and Premium support tiers.

04 How much does NGINX WAF cost?

NGINX Web Application Firewall is available for $2,000 per instance per year, in addition to your NGINX Plus subscription. It provides application-layer security with OWASP ModSecurity integration and regular security signature updates.

05 Is NGINX Plus suitable for microservices?

Yes, NGINX Plus is well-suited for microservices architectures with features like service discovery, dynamic reconfiguration without restarts, gRPC load balancing, JWT authentication for service-to-service communication, and comprehensive health checking.

06 What is NGINX Plus used for?

NGINX Plus is used as a load balancing solution, reverse proxy, and API gateway. Organizations use it for application load balancing (both HTTP/HTTPS and TCP), securing applications with allow lists, improving application performance through caching, and as a livestreaming distribution model with publisher, worker and load balancer nodes.

07 How does NGINX Plus differ from open-source NGINX?

NGINX Plus includes professional support, built-in modules, and advanced load balancing features that are not available in the open-source version. Organizations upgrade to NGINX Plus specifically to get Support as well as these additional capabilities.

08 Does NGINX Plus have a graphical user interface?

NGINX Plus does not have a built-in GUI. Users manage it through configuration files, though many users have requested a GUI tool to help build config files and simplify management. Some organizations use automation through GitHub to manage NGINX Plus platforms.

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