This Zscaler pricing guide is an honest assessment of the company’s Zero Trust Exchange Platform compared with its competitors. We’ll outline the solution’s capabilities alongside Zscaler costs and subscription tiers. Afterwards, we’ll offer three alternative platforms that may better suit your organization. That’s the beauty of Vertice: we’ll save money on your SaaS spend management, regardless of the solutions you need. 

What Zscaler can do for you

Zscaler develops cybersecurity solutions fit for a mobile and cloud-based world. Securing access for users and workloads alike, Zscaler offers a number of different security products. For the purposes of this guide, we’ll focus primarily on the Zero Trust Exchange solution. 

First, a brief explainer. In cybersecurity, zero trust is the principle that no entity — whether it’s a user, a device, an application or a service — should be trusted by default. Zero trust demands that connectivity only be authorized once the entity has provided sufficient context and security posture. Authentication is then reassessed with every new connection, ensuring the continued protection of all digital assets. 

Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange Platform is a cloud-native solution that is faster, more agile and more secure than traditional network and firewall architectures. As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, these legacy architectures simply aren’t able to combat threats across the whole system. Hackers can find your vulnerabilities, move laterally across the network, and steal your data. 

Built on the principle of least privilege, the Zero Trust Exchange Platform brokers connections between users and applications based on identity, context and business policies. Since users only have authorized access to apps rather than entire networks, opportunities for hackers to move laterally are eliminated.

There are four stages to the security process when using the Zero Trust Exchange Platform:

1. Verify identity — Verify whoever or whatever is attempting to gain access. Identity is then confirmed through integrations with third-party providers.
2. Determine destination — Establish where the connection is intending to go to ensure it’s known and understood.
3. Assess risk — Use AI to determine the level of risk based on context such as user behavior, device posture, destination, content, third-party intelligence, and over 500 trillion daily signals. 
4. Enforce policy — Determine what action to take for each access request depending on the results.

Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange Platform reduces cyberattack risk, increases agility across digital architecture, and lowers the cost and complexity of protecting users and workloads in cloud-based environments. Used by over 40% of Fortune 500 companies, the platform detects and resolves more than nine billion security incidents and policy violations every day.

Zscaler pricing structures and tiers

Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange Platform is the complete bundle of four Zscaler products:

• Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) — A security stack delivered as a cloud service, reducing the cost and complexity of traditional network security.
• Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) — Enabling seamless, secure remote access to internal apps running on cloud networks or in data centers. 
• Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) — Proactively identifies and resolves issues before they affect users. 
• Data Protection (CASB/DLP) — Comprehensive, unified data protection across all channels. 

Each of these four products can be purchased in isolation, depending on the specific needs of your business. Each one also comes in four subscription tiers. 

There is one other Zscaler product available separately, called Posture Control.

The sections below provide information regarding each of the Zero Trust Exchange Platform’s three subscription tiers. Price points are hidden for all three tiers, but Vertice’s customer purchasing teams can leverage unique market intel to help uncover subscription costs. 

Zscaler pricing — Business

Zscaler’s Business plan includes basic features of ZIA, ZPA and ZDX and Data Protection, as follows: 

• ZIA:
  • Security web gateway replacement
  • Local internet outbreaks for Microsoft 365
  • DNS resolution and filtering

• ZPA:
  • Secure access to private apps
  • VPN replacement
  • Clientless access
  • Segmentation for remote access
  • Threat prevention with deception

• ZDX:
  • Unified monitoring of end user experience, application, device health and network performance
  • Email alerts

• Data Protection:
  • Inline web protection

Zscaler pricing — Transformation

As well as all the features included in the Business plan, Zscaler’s Transformation package includes:

• ZIA:
  • Advanced cyberthreat protection
  • Ransomware protection

• ZPA:
  • Segmentation for on-site and remote access
  • Advanced threat prevention with decoys
  • Data and threat protection for private application traffic

• ZDX:
  • Automated, AI-powered root cause analysis
  • Zoom call quality monitoring
  • Organization-wide device model and software deployment version review

• Data Protection:
  • Security for distributed and sensitive data
  • Improved control over cloud data
  • Regulatory compliance monitoring
  • Simplified and centralized data protection operations

Zscaler pricing — Unlimited

Zscaler’s premium subscription, Unlimited, comes with the following additions:

• ZIA:
  • Guest Wi-Fi security

• ZDX:
  • Device troubleshooting for issues caused by active processes

• Data Protection:
  • Advanced protection customization based on organizational requirements
  • Improved investigations and workflows around data loss events

The Unlimited subscription also comes with full-scale account support, called Premium Support Plus. 

Zscaler offers new customers a 30-day free trial.

Additional Zscaler costs to consider

Zscaler doesn’t mention any additional costs when detailing the contents of its subscriptions. Pricing is flexible and dependent on which products customers require, so contract negotiations will leave room for selecting specific features at an additional cost. Vertice can help here, negotiating optimized contracts that target precise business needs.

Other vendors offering cloud-native cybersecurity solutions

Vertice works independently of software vendors, which means we have no vested interest in promoting one provider over another. No matter which solution you need, we can help enhance IT procurement, vendor relationship management, and software renewal to control costs. With this in mind, here are three alternative solutions to Zscaler. 

Zscaler pricing vs Prisma Access

Developed by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access is another cloud-native cybersecurity solution built on the principles of zero trust. The Prisma platform uses cloud secure web gateways (SWGs), cloud access security broker (CASBs), autonomous digital experience management and more. Customers report a 45% reduction in data breach risks on average when using the platform. 

Prisma pricing is completely hidden online, including subscription tiers, but a 30-day free trial of the platform is available. 

Zscaler pricing vs Cisco Umbrella

Like Zscaler and Prisma, Cisco Umbrella’s cloud security solution offers data protection for devices and users wherever they may be. Native integration with all Cisco infrastructure is included, as well as over 400 integrations with third-party platforms.

Cisco pricing and tier structures are also hidden online, with prospective customers invited to fill in a web form to arrange a meeting with the sales team. A 14-day free trial is available.

Zscaler pricing vs Forcepoint

Trusted in particular by businesses in the manufacturing and healthcare industries, Forcepoint offers protection for over 800,000 cloud apps. Customers report average annual savings of $600,000, a 31% increase in productivity and 99.99% product uptime. 

Again, Forcepoint pricing and information on subscription tiers isn’t available, but there’s a 30-day free trial available.

Zscaler pricing — the Vertice verdict

The Zero Trust Exchange Platform combines the capabilities of several Zscaler products, offering a comprehensive cybersecurity and data protection solution for hybrid workforces. By implementing the principle of least privilege, the platform minimizes attack surface, prevents compromise, eliminates lateral movement and stops data loss.

Like all the solutions discussed in this guide, Zscaler’s pricing is hidden. However, visibility here is slightly more generous than the three other providers on this page. The Zscaler site reveals three subscription tiers, while Prisma, Cisco and Forcepoint require customers to get in touch to uncover their options. 

There are 30-day free trials available for new Zscaler, Prisma and Forcepoint customers. For Cisco, free trials last for 14 days. 

Pricing obfuscation makes it tricky to position Zscaler accurately among its competitors, but this is where Vertice can help. Our customer purchasing teams have access to transactional history of other vendor deals, knowing precisely what companies pay for the same subscriptions. 

This affords us greater leveraging power during procurement negotiations, which we approach with one intention: to secure you the right subscription at the right price. 

For more information on how we can help secure optimized SaaS contracts — and for insight into the benefits of our SaaS Purchasing Platform — click on the link and get in touch.