How much does Nessus cost?

Nessus publishes 8 tiers, from $3500/year for Tenable One Vulnerability Management up to $19304.19/3 years for Nessus Expert 3-Year. The cheapest paid tier is $3500/year.

Does Nessus have a free plan?

Not on the record we hold: Nessus is listed as subscription. Whether a free trial is offered is not something this record captures, so check the vendor's site.

What is the difference between Tenable One Vulnerability Management and Tenable One Web App Scanning on Nessus?

Tenable One Web App Scanning costs $3578/year against $3500/year, and adds 5 fqdns per year, web application security scanning.

Is the Nessus Expert 3-Year plan on Nessus worth it?

That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is not itemised separately from the tier below it. It costs $19304.19/3 years against $3500/year for Tenable One Vulnerability Management. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.

Which cybersecurity tools can I use without paying?

1 of the 8 cybersecurity tools listed alongside Nessus have a free tier: Google Authenticator.

What am I actually paying for with Nessus?

The record lists 28 features across 6 areas: other, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for vulnerability scanning for individual practitioners, enterprise vulnerability management, web application security assessments.

Does Nessus charge per user?

The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 8 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.

Are these Nessus prices current?

They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.

What should I compare Nessus against before paying?

The closest cybersecurity tools in this directory are Hanwha Vision, BeyondTrust, Feedzai, IDnow. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Nessus covering price, platforms and features.

Cybersecurity · pricing

Nessus pricing

Nessus publishes 8 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.

As of 30 August 2026, Nessus pricing is $4790/year across 8 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.

Entry price: $4790/year
Model: Subscription
Tiers: 8
Free tier: Not on record

Nessus plans, side by side

Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.

Nessus pricing tiers
Plan	Price	Features listed	Step up from the tier below
Tenable One Vulnerability Management	$3500/year	2	Entry tier
Tenable One Web App Scanning	$3578/year	2	+$78/year, 2 more features
Nessus Professional	$4790/year	2	+$1212/year, 2 more features
Nessus Expert	$6790/year	2	+$2000/year, 1 more feature
Nessus Professional 2-Year	$9330.95/2 years	1	+$2540.9500000000007/2 years, 1 more feature
Nessus Expert 2-Year	$13208.13/2 years	1	+$3877.1799999999985/2 years
Nessus Professional 3-Year	$13637.54/3 years	1	+$429.4100000000017/3 years, 1 more feature
Nessus Expert 3-Year	$19304.19/3 years	1	+$5666.649999999998/3 years

What each tier adds

The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.

Tenable One Vulnerability Management

$3500/year

The entry tier. It covers 100 assets per year, vulnerability management platform.

Tenable One Web App Scanning

$3578/year

Over Tenable One Vulnerability Management, this tier adds:

5 FQDNs per year
Web application security scanning

Nessus Professional

$4790/year

Over Tenable One Web App Scanning, this tier adds:

1 year license
Best for individual security professionals

Nessus Expert

$6790/year

Over Nessus Professional, this tier adds:

Enhanced capabilities vs. Professional

Nessus Professional 2-Year

$9330.95/2 years

Over Nessus Expert, this tier adds:

2 year license with discounted rate vs. annual

Nessus Expert 2-Year

$13208.13/2 years

Nothing on the record separates this tier from Nessus Professional 2-Year on features. Check the vendor's page for the limits it lifts.

Nessus Professional 3-Year

$13637.54/3 years

Over Nessus Expert 2-Year, this tier adds:

3 year license with discounted rate vs. annual

Nessus Expert 3-Year

$19304.19/3 years

Nothing on the record separates this tier from Nessus Professional 3-Year on features. Check the vendor's page for the limits it lifts.

What the product covers

The full Nessus feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.

Other

Vulnerability scanning
Configuration auditing
Malware detection
Web application scanning
Cloud scanning
Compliance checks
Patch auditing
Pre-built policies

Integrations

ServiceNow
Splunk
JIRA
AWS
Azure
Google Cloud
Cyber exposure platform

Security

CVE coverage
CVSS scoring
Compliance frameworks

Deployment

On-premise deployment
Cloud deployment

Platform

Desktop support
Api support

Localization

English language support
Japanese language support
German language support
French language support
Spanish language support
Chinese language support

People bring Nessus in for vulnerability scanning for individual practitioners, enterprise vulnerability management, web application security assessments. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Nessus are worth a look before you commit to a tier.

How that compares in Cybersecurity

Too few cybersecurity tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.

Nessus entry price against other Cybersecurity tools
Tool	Entry price	Model	Rated	Head to head
Nessus (this page)	$4790/year	subscription	-
Hanwha Vision	On request	One-time purchase	-	vs Nessus
BeyondTrust	On request	quote	-	vs Nessus
Feedzai	On request	quote	-	vs Nessus
IDnow	On request	quote	-	vs Nessus
Eagle Eye Networks	On request	Per camera per month	-	vs Nessus
iDenfy	On request	Per verification	-	vs Nessus

Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Nessus badges page.

Before you pay for Nessus

Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.

What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 8 tiers between $3500/year and $19304.19/3 years, with the jump itemised above. With no free tier on record, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to compare Nessus against the tools that do have one before committing.

Nessus runs on desktop, api, and is published by Tenable Inc of Columbia, Maryland, USA. The full record is on the Nessus review, and the rest of the category is under best cybersecurity tools.

Nessus pricing on the vendor's own site

Nessus pricing questions

How much does Nessus cost?: Nessus publishes 8 tiers, from $3500/year for Tenable One Vulnerability Management up to $19304.19/3 years for Nessus Expert 3-Year. The cheapest paid tier is $3500/year.
Does Nessus have a free plan?: Not on the record we hold: Nessus is listed as subscription. Whether a free trial is offered is not something this record captures, so check the vendor's site.
What is the difference between Tenable One Vulnerability Management and Tenable One Web App Scanning on Nessus?: Tenable One Web App Scanning costs $3578/year against $3500/year, and adds 5 fqdns per year, web application security scanning.
Is the Nessus Expert 3-Year plan on Nessus worth it?: That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is not itemised separately from the tier below it. It costs $19304.19/3 years against $3500/year for Tenable One Vulnerability Management. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.
Which cybersecurity tools can I use without paying?: 1 of the 8 cybersecurity tools listed alongside Nessus have a free tier: Google Authenticator.
What am I actually paying for with Nessus?: The record lists 28 features across 6 areas: other, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for vulnerability scanning for individual practitioners, enterprise vulnerability management, web application security assessments.
Does Nessus charge per user?: The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 8 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
Are these Nessus prices current?: They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
What should I compare Nessus against before paying?: The closest cybersecurity tools in this directory are Hanwha Vision, BeyondTrust, Feedzai, IDnow. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Nessus covering price, platforms and features.