Cisco Duo pricing and cost per user, explained
Cisco Duo has four editions. Duo Free covers up to 10 users. Above that, Duo Essentials is $3, Duo Advantage $6 and Duo Premier $9 per user per month, and licences are bought in blocks: tens under 100 users, twenty-fives above.
If what you need is a second step in front of your Linux servers, Windows Server, WordPress and the software you build, U2 Secured Authenticator charges one flat monthly price however many people sign in. It adds MFA to those systems; it is not a single sign-on or directory product.
What each Duo edition costs and adds
From Duo’s own pricing page. Each edition includes everything in the one before it.
Duo Free: $0, up to 10 users
MFA, Duo’s integrations and its free authenticator app, for teams of 10 or fewer.
Duo Essentials: $3 per user per month
Adds Duo Directory, phishing-resistant MFA, passwordless sign-in, single sign-on, Trusted Endpoints and unlimited applications.
Duo Advantage: $6 per user per month
Adds Cisco Identity Intelligence, Duo Passport, session theft protection, Active Directory Defense and risk-based authentication.
Duo Premier: $9 per user per month
Adds remote access to private resources without a VPN, and device trust with an endpoint protection check.
What a team pays per month
Duo’s per-user price grows with every person. At list prices, the $99 Growth plan costs less than Duo Essentials from 31 people, and less than Advantage or Premier from 11, because a team of 11 buys 20 licences. Every Duo entry is read from Duo’s own pricing page, linked and dated on each row.
What changes at user 11
Duo Free covers up to 10 users, so the 11th person moves the team onto a paid edition. From then on, every user is paid for, at $3, $6 or $9 per user per month depending on the edition.
Licences are bought in tens under 100 users, so 11 people buy 20 licences. At list prices that is $60 a month on Essentials, $120 on Advantage and $180 on Premier, against $0 the month before. The next step comes at user 21, when the team needs 30 licences.
- 10 users: $0 on Duo Free.
- 11 to 20 users: 20 licences, so $60, $120 or $180 a month.
- 21 to 30 users: 30 licences, so $90, $180 or $270 a month.
On U2 Secured the 11th person does not change the price: Growth is $99 a month flat for up to 25,000 active users, and the free Developer plan, for trying it, counts up to 1,000.
What U2 Secured costs
One price per developer account, not per person. Growth is $99 a month for up to 25,000 active users, so the 200th person costs the same as the first. Codes from the app are never metered.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Free | 1,000 active users and 100 push approvals a month, 1 app. Codes are unlimited. |
| Growth | $99/month | 25,000 active users and 100,000 push approvals a month, 5 apps. Codes are unlimited. |
| Team | $149/month | 75,000 active users and 300,000 push approvals a month, 20 apps. Codes are unlimited. |
| Scale | $199/month | 250,000 active users and 1,000,000 push approvals a month, unlimited apps. Codes are unlimited. |
One flat monthly price per developer account, not a price per user or per machine. A fleet of servers is one app; each person who signs in counts once a month however many machines they use. Codes from the app (TOTP) and backup codes are never metered on any plan.
Questions about Duo’s pricing
- How much does Duo cost per user?
- Duo Essentials is $3, Duo Advantage $6 and Duo Premier $9 per user per month, at the list prices on Duo’s pricing page. Duo Free costs nothing for up to 10 users.
- Why does a team of 11 pay for 20 Duo licences?
- Under 100 users, Duo sells licences in increments of 10, so 11 people need 20. Above 100, the increment is 25.
- Does Duo publish prices for managed service providers?
- Not on its pricing page, which links a separate programme for managed service providers. U2 Secured has one price list for everyone: Growth includes 5 apps, Team 20 and Scale unlimited, so a firm can keep each client in its own app.
- What does U2 Secured cover for the price?
- Push approval with number matching, and codes from the same app, for SSH, sudo and the Ubuntu desktop, Windows Server sign-in and Remote Desktop, WordPress, and your own software through SDKs for Node, Python, Go and PHP. It does not sign people in to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and it has no single sign-on.
- Is there a free trial?
- The Developer plan is free with no time limit: one app, 1,000 active users a month, unlimited codes and 100 push approvals to try push with.
Source for Duo’s prices
Every Duo figure above was read from duo.com on the date shown. Duo changes its plans from time to time; its own page is the authority if anything here has changed.
- Duo — Editions and Pricing · read 2026-11-13