Does Reolink work without a subscription?
Yes, and Reolink says so itself. The camera records to a card, the person and vehicle detection runs on the camera, and the cloud is opt-in.
Last updated · source-check dates are listed at the foot of this page
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Yes, and Reolink is the only company in this comparison that says so in its own words. There is a support article whose title is the question, and its answer is three words long: "The answer is NO. Reolink subscription is not mandatory but optional."
Worth pausing on after a week of reading the others. Ring's equivalent sentence is that events are only recorded after you subscribe; Wyze's is that without a plan you get a thumbnail instead of a video.
What Reolink says about going without a plan
- "You may want to know whether the Reolink cameras need a subscription. The answer is NO. Reolink subscription is not mandatory but optional."
- "Cloud storage and SD storage are independent. The recordings can be saved to your Reolink account and an SD card at the same time."
- "If you do not want to record to Reolink account, you can unbind the camera from the Cloud account."
Reolink's own support articles on whether a subscription is required and on cloud versus card storage, both read 20 August 2026.
Reolink is the closest thing here to a camera with no subscription at all — detection runs on the device and recording goes to a card you supply. The caveat is that eight add-on models take no card.
Check the price on AmazonReolink Argus 4 Pro(paid link)What do you actually get with no Reolink plan?
Live view, notifications, recording to a card in the camera, and playback of those recordings. In other words the whole camera. The subscription is not holding any of it back.
| Feature | No plan | With a plan |
|---|---|---|
| Live view in the app | Yes | Yes |
| Motion and PIR notifications | Yes | Yes |
| Recording to a card in the camera | Yes | Yes |
| Playback of those recordings | Yes | Yes |
| Person, vehicle, pet and package detection | Yes | Yes |
| Upload to an FTP server you own | Yes | Yes |
| Off-site copy if the camera is stolen | No | Yes |
| Cloud AI Video Search | No | Yes |
Built from Reolink's subscription, storage and Smart Detection articles, read 20 August 2026. The first six rows are what makes this brand different: on Wyze and Ring, row five is the plan.
Reolink's own framing is that the two storages are separate: "Cloud storage and SD storage are independent. The recordings can be saved to your Reolink account and an SD card at the same time." You can run both. You can run neither.
Is Reolink's person and vehicle detection free?
Yes, and this is the difference that matters most. Reolink documents Smart Detection — person, vehicle, pet, animal, package and visitor — as something the camera does, with no subscription mentioned anywhere in the article that describes it.
| Brand | Person and vehicle detection | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Reolink | Included with the camera | On the camera |
| Wyze | Requires a paid plan | In the cloud |
| Ring | Requires a paid plan | In the cloud |
| Blink | Requires a paid plan | In the cloud |
Each maker's own documentation, read between 19 and 20 August 2026 and set out in this site's page for that brand. Reolink is the outlier and it is the reason its cameras are cheap to keep.
Compare that with what the same feature costs elsewhere. On Wyze, person and package detection is the main thing the cheapest plan buys. On Ring it is a plan tier. A camera that tells the difference between a person and a branch without being billed for it is not a small feature — it is the difference between notifications you read and notifications you mute.
Which Reolink cameras cannot record to a card?
Eight of them, and they are all NVR kit cameras. Reolink names them: B400, D400, B500, D500, B800, D800, B1200 and D1200. Everything else in the range takes a card.
Those eight are not a subscription trap — they record to the NVR they ship with, which is a box you own. They are a buying trap. Find a B800 on its own at a good price, expect it to behave like an Argus, and it records nothing: it has nowhere to put a recording.
This is the third time this cluster has landed on the same shape. Ring's Video Doorbell Pro takes no card either, and Blink's cheapest bundles ship the one Sync Module that cannot save anything. In every case the deciding fact is the model, and in every case it is on a support page rather than the box.
How big a card does a Reolink camera take?
Between 64 GB and 512 GB, and the model decides. The current battery range takes 512 GB; an Argus 2 or a Reolink Go stops at 64. The card must be Class 10 or faster and formatted FAT32.
| Card limit | Cameras |
|---|---|
| 512 GB | Argus 4 and 4 Pro, Argus 3 Ultra, Argus Eco Ultra, Altas and Altas PT Ultra, Argus PT Ultra, TrackMix 4K, Battery Video Doorbell, Solar Floodlight Cam, Elite series, Lumus Pro, current PoE models |
| 256 GB | Argus 3E, Argus Eco 3MP, Argus MagiCam, wired doorbells, older Lumus |
| 128 GB | Argus 3 and 3 Pro 4MP, Argus Eco Pro, Argus PT 2MP and 4MP, TrackMix 4MP, Argus Track |
| 64 GB | Argus 2, Argus Pro, Reolink Go |
| No card slot | B400, D400, B500, D500, B800, D800, B1200, D1200 |
Reolink's own capacity tables, read 20 August 2026, condensed by limit. Cards must be Class 10 or faster and formatted FAT32. Several models split by hardware revision, so check yours if it is older.
This is the model those card sizes are for — detection on the camera, recording to storage you supply.
Check the price on AmazonReolink Argus 4 Pro(paid link)What does the Reolink cloud plan add, then?
One thing, and it is a real thing: an off-site copy. Reolink's argument is that a cloud recording survives the camera being stolen or the card failing, which a card in the camera by definition does not.
That is the honest case for paying, and here it is the only case, because nothing else is being withheld. Cloud AI Video Search is the one other plan-only feature.
No price is quoted. Reolink moved its pricing inside a signed-in application, so there is no public page on which a figure can be dated — one of four companies in the roundup that have stopped publishing.
Can you keep Reolink out of the cloud entirely?
Yes, by three routes, and one of them has a catch. Recordings can go to a card, to an FTP server on your own network, or over RTSP and ONVIF to a recorder of your choosing. Reolink also documents unbinding a camera from the cloud account altogether.
| Route | What it needs | Works on |
|---|---|---|
| microSD card in the camera | A card, Class 10, FAT32 | Everything except the eight add-on models |
| FTP to a server you own | An FTP server on your network | Documented for Reolink products generally |
| RTSP or ONVIF to your own recorder | Third-party NVR or software | PoE and plug-in cameras directly; battery cameras need a Home Hub |
Reolink's subscription article and its CGI/RTSP/ONVIF support table, read 20 August 2026. The last row is the one that catches people: a battery camera will not stream to Home Assistant on its own.
The catch is in the last row. Battery-powered cameras — the Argus and Altas families, which is most of what Reolink sells to home buyers — only speak RTSP and ONVIF through a Reolink Home Hub. PoE and plug-in cameras do it directly. If your plan is to pipe the feed into Home Assistant or a NAS, that distinction decides which camera to buy, and it is not on the product page.
So should you buy Reolink to avoid a subscription?
Yes, with one condition: buy a model with a card slot and buy the card at the same time. Reolink devices do not ship with one, and a camera with no card is a live view and nothing else — the same place Ring leaves you, for the opposite reason.
What you give up is the off-site copy. A card in the camera is stolen along with the camera. If the risk you are buying against is a break-in rather than a delivery driver, pay for the cloud or put a second camera where it watches the first.
Everything else — detection, playback, app, notifications — you own once the hardware is bought. Reolink is the one company here that says so in writing.
Cameras that record to storage you own
Specifications as published by each maker, read 20 August 2026. Nothing was tested and nothing is ranked — the Reolink is here because it is the camera this page is about, and it needs a card bought with it.
- Form
- Outdoor camera on a bracket
- Power
- 5000 mAh battery, optional 6W solar panel
- Video goes to
- microSD in the camera, up to 512 GB
- Subscription
- Not required for local recording
- Form
- Small cube on a magnetic base — stands on a shelf
- Power
- Mains, 5V adapter — needs a socket
- Video goes to
- microSD in the camera, up to 512 GB
- Resolution
- 2560 × 1440 (2K QHD, 4MP)
- Form
- Base station for eufy cameras and sensors
- Storage
- 16 GB built in, expandable to 16 TB
- Expansion
- 2.5" SATA drive, 5V — 12V drives unsupported
- Subscription
- No monthly fee for local storage
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How this was checked
Whether a subscription is required, and the FTP alternative, were read on 20 August 2026 from https://support.reolink.com/articles/900000643803-Does-Reolink-Require-Cloud-Subscription-for-Recording/. The independence of cloud and card storage and the unbinding instruction are from Reolink's cloud versus SD card article, read the same day.
The eight cameras with no card slot are named in this article, and the capacity table is condensed from Reolink's own per-model tables. Smart Detection is described in this article and the protocol support in this one, which is where the Home Hub requirement for battery cameras comes from.
No cameras were tested for this article, and no plan price is quoted. Reolink does not publish one on a page that can be read without signing in.
Corrections
If Reolink starts charging for Smart Detection, or publishes its plan prices on a page anyone can open, this page gets the new answer and a new date. If a capacity or a model number here is wrong, tell us and it is corrected the same way.
