Backup · pricing
Velero pricing
Velero publishes a single tier. Below is what it costs, what it covers, and how that compares with the backup tools listed alongside it.
As of 1 September 2026, Velero pricing is free. 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
- Free
- Model
- Open source, no licence fee
- Tiers
- 1
- Free tier
- Yes
Velero 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.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Velero | Free | 5 | Entry tier |
Where Velero stops being free
Velero, Free
- Apache 2.0 licensed
- No cluster or capacity limits
- Community support via Kubernetes Slack and GitHub
- No vendor support contract available from the project
- Object storage costs billed by your cloud provider
No paid tier on record
Velero lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.
What the product covers
The full Velero 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
- Cluster resource backup
- Volume snapshots
- File-level backup
- Cross-cluster restore
- Backup hooks
- Scheduled backups
- Object storage targets
People bring Velero in for a platform team needing namespace-level restore after an accidental deletion, with no budget for a backup product, migrating workloads between kubernetes clusters or between cloud providers using backup and restore, capturing cluster configuration before a risky upgrade so the previous state can be reinstated, an organisation proving a kubernetes recovery capability to an auditor before deciding whether to buy a commercial product. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Velero are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Backup
Too few backup 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.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velero (this page) | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | |
| Clumio | $0.01/month | Per GiB-month protected | - | vs Velero |
| Portworx Backup | Free, then $0.2/node hour | Per node hour | - | vs Velero |
| Trilio | Free | Per node per year | - | vs Velero |
| AvePoint Cloud Backup | On request | quote | - | vs Velero |
| HYCU | On request | quote | - | vs Velero |
| Redstor | On request | quote | - | vs Velero |
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 Velero badges page.
Before you pay for Velero
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: a single tier at Free. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
Velero runs on linux, and is published by Velero, a CNCF project of San Francisco, California, United States. The full record is on the Velero review, and the rest of the category is under best backup tools.
Velero pricing questions
- How much does Velero cost?
- Velero publishes a single tier, Velero, at Free.
- Does Velero have a free plan?
- Yes. The Velero tier costs nothing and covers apache 2.0 licensed, no cluster or capacity limits, community support via kubernetes slack and github.
- Which backup tools can I use without paying?
- 3 of the 8 backup tools listed alongside Velero have a free tier: Portworx Backup, Trilio, Veeam Kasten for Kubernetes.
- What am I actually paying for with Velero?
- The record lists 7 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for a platform team needing namespace-level restore after an accidental deletion, with no budget for a backup product, migrating workloads between kubernetes clusters or between cloud providers using backup and restore, capturing cluster configuration before a risky upgrade so the previous state can be reinstated.
- Does Velero charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 1 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 Velero 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 Velero against before paying?
- The closest backup tools in this directory are Clumio, Portworx Backup, Trilio, AvePoint Cloud Backup. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Velero covering price, platforms and features.