Zero-trust network access · US dollar pricing
NordLayer vs Tailscale: cost per user at two, ten and fifty
At ten users, NordLayer costs $8.00 per user per month against $8.00.
At two users the cheaper option is Tailscale, at $8.00 against $20.00. Minimum user counts and fixed charges decide small teams.
Side by side
| NordLayer | Tailscale | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest published plan | Lite | Standard |
| Published per user | $8.00 | $8.00 |
| Plans and pricing | See NordLayer business plans | See Tailscale plans |
| Cost breakdown | NordLayer cost breakdown | Tailscale cost breakdown |
| On | annual billing | monthly billing |
| Minimum users | 5 | none stated |
| Fixed charge | — | — |
| Effective / user at 2 | $20.00 | $8.00 |
| Effective / user at 5 | $8.00 | $8.00 |
| Effective / user at 10 | $8.00 | $8.00 |
| Effective / user at 25 | $8.00 | $8.00 |
| Effective / user at 50 | $8.00 | $8.00 |
| Effective / user at 100 | $8.00 | $8.00 |
| Three-year cost at 10 users | $2,880 | $2,880 |
| Owner | not confirmed | not confirmed |
How that is worked out
users billed = max(users you have, minimum users the plan bills)
user subtotal = published per-user price x users billed
fixed charges = the mandatory gateway, server or base fee, where the plan requires one
monthly total = user subtotal + fixed charges
effective per user = monthly total / users you have
uplift = effective per user / published per-user price
three-year cost = monthly total x 36 + setup fee
Nothing else is added. Optional add-ons are shown in the tables and left out of every computed figure, and so are taxes, which none of these vendors publishes. Every figure here is a floor. The full method is at Method.
Where the answer changes
- Team size does not change the ranking here. NordLayer is cheaper per user at every size we compute.
- The minimums differ: 5 against 1. Below the higher number you are buying seats you will not use.
- Neither figure is the invoice. Taxes are not included, and neither vendor publishes what it will add.
What changes the choice
The price rows above do not settle everything. These are the items that move the answer between these two, taken from what each vendor publishes.
| NordLayer | Tailscale | |
|---|---|---|
| Private app access or internet egress | Both, on different plans. Internet access security sits on the entry plan. Reaching private resources runs through a Virtual Private Gateway, which the pricing page marks as not included on the entry plan.NordLayer pricing, Virtual Private Gateway | Both, on every plan. Subnet routers reach private subnets and do not change internet routing; exit nodes route outbound internet traffic. An exit node is a device you run, unless you buy the Mullvad add-on at five dollars a month for every five devices.Subnet routers, Exit nodes, Tailscale pricing |
| SSO and identity management | The pricing page marks SSO with Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin, Google and JumpCloud as included on the entry plan. User provisioning, with Entra ID and Okta, is listed as an add-on and no price is published for it.NordLayer pricing | There is no Tailscale password. You sign in through Apple, Google, GitHub, Microsoft, Okta, OneLogin or a custom OIDC provider, and MFA is left to that provider. SCIM user and group provisioning is on the Standard plan and above.Identity providers, User and group provisioning |
| Device posture check | Device Posture Security. The feature page points to the Premium plan. The pricing page marks it as not included on the entry plan and as an add-on above it, without a published price.Device Posture Security, NordLayer pricing | Operating system and client attributes on every plan. MDM and EDR integrations and geolocation are on the Standard plan and above, custom attributes on Premium and above. Devices behind a subnet router are not restricted by posture.Device posture |
| Dedicated IP | The Core and Premium cards both carry a server with a dedicated IP at forty dollars a month, marked required. How many servers a plan includes, and what a second one costs, is not published.NordLayer pricing, Dedicated IP | Confirm availability on this plan |
| Minimum billable users | Five users minimum on the Lite, Core and Premium plans. The Enterprise offer states two hundred users minimum.NordLayer pricing | No minimum is published. The Standard plan is listed as unlimited users at eight dollars per user per month, and the free plan as up to six users.Tailscale pricing |
| Site connector, extra charge | The site-to-site connector is on the Premium plan. NordLayer states the cost as fourteen dollars per user plus forty dollars a month for a dedicated server, so the server charge is on top of the per user price.Site-to-site VPN | Subnet routers are on every plan at no separate charge, and devices behind one do not count toward the device limit. A subnet router is normally a tagged device, and tagged resources beyond the fifty included are one dollar a month each.Subnet routers, Tailscale pricing |
| Work to run it | The app goes on each device, and the gateway is created in the control panel on a server with a dedicated IP. NordLayer states there is no hardware to deploy, and that the browser extension does not carry cloud firewall coverage.Cloud Firewall, Dedicated IP | The client goes on each device. A subnet router also needs IP forwarding turned on, the routes advertised from that machine, the routes approved in the admin console, and an access rule written for them.Subnet routers |
Who this is not for
This compares published prices and nothing else. It is not a judgment about security, throughput or support, and we have not used either product.
Sources
- NordLayer pricing page. checked 2026-10-02
- Tailscale pricing page. checked 2026-10-02
Related
- NordLayer pricing in full
- Tailscale pricing in full
- Put your own team size in
- Every pairing we can price
- Every vendor we hold
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.