SIEM pricing in 2026: what small IT teams actually pay

If you manage 20 to 200 Windows machines, you’ve probably hit the same wall we did: per-GB ingestion math that makes monitoring your own security logs cost more than the servers generating them. A 50-machine environment with a couple of DCs produces 5–15 GB per day. At per-GB rates, the rational move is to ingest less data — which means cutting the exact logs where attack evidence lives.

What the big SIEMs actually cost

A 50-endpoint Windows environment with 10 GB/day of ingestion:

The floor is clear: thousands per year minimum for any established platform, even at modest scale. Per-GB pricing creates a perverse incentive — the more thoroughly you monitor, the more you pay.

The flat-rate alternative

Arden charges a flat monthly rate regardless of data volume. It runs on your network, reads Windows event logs directly, and processes everything locally — storage on local disk, detection on hardware you already own. Enable every audit policy your compliance framework requires, collect every PowerShell script block, monitor every server, and your bill stays the same.

The detection engine catches the real-world attack patterns that lead to ransomware and data theft — from stolen credentials to lateral movement to persistence mechanisms that survive reboots. The Network edition lets you monitor every server from one dashboard and get notified the moment something needs attention. One binary — download and run.

Arden’s real-time dashboard with cross-endpoint alert grouping, MITRE ATT&CK mapping, and severity prioritization.

Start with your servers

Domain controllers, file servers, and systems handling regulated data are where attack evidence concentrates. Deploy Arden on 3–5 critical servers and you get immediate, high-signal detection coverage. Expand to workstations later if budget allows — starting with servers gives you the best return on effort.

Arden is purpose-built for Windows event logs. If you need Linux syslogs, cloud audit trails, or cross-platform correlation, an enterprise SIEM is the right investment. But if your current security monitoring is Event Viewer and you need real detection coverage at a price that fits your budget, that’s exactly the gap Arden fills. See our detection engine overview, read how Arden detects lateral movement, or learn what the hidden costs of a traditional SIEM actually look like.