Camera subscription tracker
What every home security camera plan costs, what it holds, and whether the camera records anything without it. Dated, and re-checked every week.
Curated prices and automatic source checks are different. The figures below come from the cited manufacturer pages, with their reading dates. A failed automatic check is not evidence that a company publishes no price. Missing figures remain unconfirmed rather than being filled from review sites. Last opened automatically on 19 October 2026.
Which cameras work without a subscription?
The answer depends on the camera model and where it stores footage. Local recording, limited free cloud history and live-view-only access are different. The grouped readings below show those distinctions and their limits.
Works without a plan4
Works, with a catch4
- WyzemicroSD in the camera — the cloud gives a still image, not a clip
- BlinkUSB on Sync Module 2, microSD on XR — Core saves nothing
- Google NestModel-dependent: up to 6 hours of event video previews on newer wired models, 3 hours on supported earlier models; older models may offer photo snapshots only
- ArloNothing — cloud storage is a paid feature and Arlo publishes no local storage option
Needs the plan2
- RingNothing — and Ring Edge, its own local storage, requires a subscription too
- SimpliSafeNothing — camera recording needs a plan, and SimpliSafe lists no local storage
Will not say0
What each maker does when nobody is paying
The same ten, with what actually happens to a recording and whether the camera can tell a person from a branch on its own.
| Brand | Records without a plan | Where it goes | Person and vehicle alerts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reolink | Yes | microSD in the camera, FTP, or your own NVR over RTSP | Included with the camera |
| TP-Link Tapo | Yes | microSD in the camera | On the camera |
| eufy | Yes | HomeBase hub or the camera itself | On the camera |
| Lorex | Yes | microSD, or an NVR you own | On the camera |
| Wyze | Only to a card | microSD in the camera — the cloud gives a still image, not a clip | Requires a paid plan |
| Blink | Only with the right module | USB on Sync Module 2, microSD on XR — Core saves nothing | Requires a paid plan |
| Google Nest | Depends on the model | Model-dependent: up to 6 hours of event video previews on newer wired models, 3 hours on supported earlier models; older models may offer photo snapshots only | Depends on the model and alert type |
| Ring | No | Nothing — and Ring Edge, its own local storage, requires a subscription too | Requires a paid plan |
| Arlo | Live view and alerts only | Nothing — cloud storage is a paid feature and Arlo publishes no local storage option | Motion notifications, but object detection is a paid feature |
| SimpliSafe | Live view and arming only | Nothing — camera recording needs a plan, and SimpliSafe lists no local storage | Not stated |
The last column is the one that decides whether notifications are worth reading, and on four of these brands it is a plan feature rather than something the camera does.
What each plan costs
Prices are US dollars, as recorded in the cited sources. The automatic check below measures access to those pages; it does not re-verify every curated figure or establish that no other price exists.
| Brand | Plan | Per month | Per year | Cameras | Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wyze | Cam Plus | $2.99 | $29.99 | One | 14 days |
| Wyze | Cam Unlimited | $9.99 | $99.99 | All | 14 days |
| Wyze | Cam Unlimited Pro | $19.99 | $199.99 | All | Up to 60 days |
| Blink | Basic | $3.99 | $39.99 | One | Up to 60 days |
| Blink | Basic ai | $6.99 | $69.99 | One | Up to 60 days |
| Blink | Plus | $11.99 | $119.99 | All | Up to 60 days |
| Blink | Plus ai | $19.99 | $199.99 | All | Up to 60 days |
| TP-Link Tapo | Tapo Cloud | $3.49 | $34.99 | Up to two | 30 days |
| TP-Link Tapo | Tapo Cloud Advanced | $11.99 | $119.99 | All | 180 days |
| TP-Link Tapo | Tapo Cloud Advanced AI | $19.99 | $199.99 | All | 180 days |
| Lorex | Connect Cloud+ Single Camera | $5.99 | $59.99 | One | 60 days |
| Lorex | Connect Cloud+ Multi-Camera | $16.99 | $169.99 | All | 60 days |
| Google Nest | Home Premium Standard | $10 | $100 | Per home | 30 days |
| Google Nest | Home Premium Advanced | $20 | $200 | Per home | 60 days |
| SimpliSafe | Core | not published | $401.50 | Per home | Not stated |
| Ring | Ring Solo | not published | not published | One | Up to 180 days |
| Ring | Ring Multi | not published | not published | All | Up to 180 days |
| Ring | Ring Pro | not published | not published | All | Up to 180 days |
| Arlo | Arlo Smart Aware (one camera) | $9.99 | $95.88 | One | 60 days |
| Arlo | Arlo Smart Aware (unlimited cameras) | $19.99 | $215.88 | All | 60 days |
| Arlo | Arlo Smart Secure (unlimited cameras) | $29.99 | $299.98 | All | 60 days |
| Arlo | Arlo Ultra Secure (unlimited cameras) | $49.99 | $479.88 | All | 60 days |
| eufy | eufy Cloud Backup Basic | $3.99 | $39.99 | One | Stores videos for every 30 days |
| eufy | eufy Cloud Backup Plus | $13.99 | $139.99 | All | Stores videos for every 30 days |
| Reolink | Reolink Cloud | not published | not published | One | Not readable |
Read from each maker's own page on the date shown in the sources below. An unavailable figure means it was not confirmed in the cited sources, not that no public price exists.
| Brand | Last automatic check | What we do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Arlo | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
| Blink | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
| eufy | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
| Lorex | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
| Google Nest | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
| Reolink | 200, no figures | No price extracted from this response |
| Ring | HTTP 406 | Source could not be read; no conclusion about other pages |
| SimpliSafe | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
| TP-Link Tapo | 200, no figures | No price extracted from this response |
| Wyze | Readable | Price text detected; curated figures need separate verification |
A weekly script opens each plan page and records what it finds. This table is its output, not ours — it says whether a page could be read, not what it said.
What has changed
14 changes since January, and 5 of them were announced by the company rather than found by us. That distinction is the point of the badges: on an announced change the date is the company's, and on an observed one it is the day we looked, which is not the same as the day it happened.
- observedTP-Link Tapo
Tapo Care stopped being a plan and became the name of a service with three of them. One tier at $3.49/$34.99 became Tapo Cloud at the same prices, Tapo Cloud Advanced at $11.99/$119.99 and Tapo Cloud Advanced AI at $19.99/$199.99. Retention went from 30 days flat to 30 on the cheapest and 180 on the two above it. tools/price_watch.py reported all seven changes on the morning of 31 August 2026 and this site carried the old single-tier row for three weeks anyway.
- observedWyze
Cam Plus Lite confirmed closed to new users and unavailable on any camera released after April 2022, so no current Wyze camera has a free event-video tier.
- observedall
Every plan page re-read in one pass and compared against what this site publishes. Twenty-one of the twenty-three figures were unchanged since 20 August. The two that moved were not prices: Wyze's three annual figures were cited to /pages/service-plans, which carries no annual column at all, so a reader checking $99.99 landed on a page reading $99. They now cite the product pages the figures were actually read from.
- observedeufy
Correction to the row above, which was wrong. eufy does publish its plan prices, at www.eufy.com/cloud-storage — Basic at $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year for one device, Plus at $13.99 or $139.99 for all of them. The membership URL this site had on file 404s, and that was recorded as the company having stopped publishing. A URL we cannot find is not the same finding as a price that does not exist.
- announcedRing
Camera names change from generational labels to resolution: Outdoor Cam (2nd Gen) becomes Outdoor Cam 2K, Spotlight Cam Pro (2nd Gen) becomes Spotlight Cam 4K Pro.
- observedeufy
Every documented membership URL returns 404 and the storefront redirects to product listings, so eufy no longer publishes plan prices anywhere we can read.
- observedReolink
Plan pricing has moved inside a signed-in application. cloud.reolink.com renders, but no public page carries a figure.
- observedBlink
The plans page moved from /pages/subscription, which now 404s, to /plans — so links published before this go nowhere.
- observedRing
ring.com/pages/plans returns HTTP 406 to anything that is not an interactive browser, and has on every check since.
- observedGoogle Nest
Nest Aware is renamed Google Home Premium, with the tiers called Standard and Advanced rather than Aware and Aware Plus.
- announcedRing
Doorbell names change: Battery Doorbell (2nd Gen) becomes Battery Doorbell 2K, Wired Doorbell Pro (3rd Gen) becomes Wired Doorbell 4K Pro.
- announced
- announcedWyze
Cam Plus annual rises from $19.99 to $29.99, a 50% increase. The monthly price does not move, so the annual discount falls from 44% to 16%.
- announcedRing
Ring Home plans renamed Ring Protect. Home Basic becomes Ring Solo, Home Standard becomes Ring Multi, Home Standard with 24/7 monitoring becomes Ring Pro, Home Premium becomes Premium Legacy.
Where these figures come from
20 pages, all of them published by the company whose prices they carry. Every figure was read from one of these on the date recorded against it. Nothing here is quoted from a review site, and nothing is carried over from an older article without being re-read.
- blinkforhome.com1
- cloud.reolink.com1
- eufy.com1 2
- lorex.com1
- ring.com1 2 3 4
- simplisafe.com1
- store.google.com1
- support.blinkforhome.com1
- support.google.com1
- support.reolink.com1
- support.simplisafe.com1
- support.wyze.com1
- tapo.com1
- us.arlo.com1 2
- wyze.com1
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong, or a company has changed something this page has not caught, tell us and it is corrected with the new date noted. That is the entire point of dating them.