Small teams pay the most per person, and the pricing page never says so
The gap between the advertised per-user price and what you actually pay per person is largest at the smallest team size, and it closes as you grow.
In the worst case in this dataset, the multiplier runs from 4.3 times at two users to 1.1 times at fifty. Nothing on the vendor's page is untrue; the curve is simply never drawn.
Every priced plan here has a shape: a per-user part that scales with the team, and a fixed part that does not. The fixed part is a minimum user count, a required gateway charge, or both. Divide the total by the people who actually use it and you get a curve that starts high and flattens.
The curve, on one plan
Two users pay four times the sticker. Fifty pay almost exactly it. Same plan, same page, same day.
Which plans have a curve and which do not
Seven of the 23 priced plans in this dataset bill a minimum, and four add a required fixed charge. The rest are flat: their advertised per-user price holds at any size.
| Plan | At 2 users | At 10 users | At 50 users |
|---|---|---|---|
| NordLayer Core | $47.50 | $15.00 | $11.80 |
| NordLayer Premium | $55.00 | $18.00 | $14.80 |
| GoodAccess Essential | $17.50 | $7.00 | $7.00 |
| uTunnel Basic | $15.00 | $6.00 | $6.00 |
| Twingate Teams | $4.25 | $4.25 | $4.25 |
| Tailscale Standard | $8.00 | $8.00 | $8.00 |
Read the bottom two rows. Twingate and Tailscale have no minimum and no required fixed charge, so their price is the same for a pair of founders as for a department. That is a real product decision, and it is invisible on any comparison table that carries one number per vendor.
Why vendors price this way
Not to punish small teams. A minimum is a floor on the value of an account: onboarding, support and infrastructure cost roughly the same for two users as for five, and a five-user floor makes the smallest accounts break even.
A dedicated gateway or dedicated IP is closer to a real cost — it is a machine, and machines do not get cheaper because fewer people use them.
Both are defensible. Both are also invisible to a buyer comparing $11 against $8 on a directory page.
What to do about it
If you are two to four people: rank on the two-user column, and look hard at vendors with no minimum. The difference between the best and worst choice at that size in this dataset is more than ten times per person, which is far larger than any difference in the advertised prices.
If you are five to nine people: the minimums stop biting, since five is exactly where most of them sit, so a plan that looked absurd at two may be the cheapest at five. Re-rank rather than carrying over a shortlist.
If you are twenty-five or more: the curve is nearly flat, the advertised price is close to true, and you are the customer it was written for. At that size the vendors that publish nothing are worth a call — they expect one.
And if you are about to grow, rank at the size you will be in a year, not the size you are today. The calculator takes any number.
The part that is not in the curve
Only the fixed and per-user parts are. Taxes, optional add-ons, device limits and the work of rolling out are not — what is not in the published price covers each. The curve is a floor at every size, and the same floor for every vendor, which is why the shape is trustworthy even where the absolute number is not.
Who this is not for
If your team is large and stable, the curve tells you almost nothing you did not know: your per-user price is your per-user price. This page is for the buyers at the left-hand end, who are the ones most likely to be comparing on a published figure and least likely to be told that the figure was not written for them.
It is also not a recommendation of the flat-priced vendors. Twingate and Tailscale price simply; that is a fact about their pricing, not about their products, and we have not used either.
Questions people ask
Does the minimum ever go away if you ask? No vendor here publishes a policy on that, so we cannot put a figure on it. On self-serve plans the minimum is enforced in the checkout rather than by a salesperson, which suggests the answer is usually no below the size where a salesperson gets involved.
Is a five-user minimum unreasonable? It is a business decision that makes small accounts viable. What is unreasonable is comparing a plan that has one against a plan that does not, on a table that shows neither.
Why does the multiplier not reach 1.0 at fifty? Because the fixed charge never disappears — at fifty users a $40 monthly charge is still 80 cents a head. It approaches 1.0 and never arrives.
Sources
- NordLayer pricing,
https://nordlayer.com/pricing/; GoodAccess,https://www.goodaccess.com/pricing; uTunnel,https://www.utunnel.io/pricing.html; Twingate,https://www.twingate.com/pricing; Tailscale,https://tailscale.com/pricing. All checked 2026-08-21. - Every figure in the tables above is computed from data.json using the formula on the method page, and every input carries its own source URL and check date.
Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.