The subscription is the number on the pricing page and rarely the number you pay. A reception's real annual cost is the plan for the tier that includes the features you need, multiplied by locations, plus a tablet and a stand, plus badge stock if you print, plus whatever the printer costs to replace when it dies. Working that out takes ten minutes and changes shortlists.
Start with the tier, not the vendor
Entry tiers usually cover sign-in and notification; badge printing, longer retention and multiple locations typically sit above them. Published prices read on 2026-09-06 run from $99 a month for Greetly's Essential plan to $362 per location a month for Envoy's Visitors Premium, with Sign In App's Core at 415 pounds per site a year, so the tier decision moves the number far more than the vendor decision does.
The hardware nobody budgets
A tablet, a stand or wall mount, power that is not a trailing cable, and a badge printer if you print. That is a few hundred dollars per reception once, plus replacement when a tablet is dropped. It is the same whichever software you buy, which is why it belongs in the comparison as a constant rather than being forgotten.
Badge stock is the recurring surprise
Labels are cheap each and not cheap in aggregate: a desk signing in eighteen people a day gets through several thousand a year. Price per label against your arrivals, not per roll, and remember that a reception that prints for every visitor in a building where nobody reads badges is paying for a habit.
What a year actually looks like
Take your tier, times your locations, times twelve. Add the hardware in year one. Add badge stock at your arrival rate. Then compare that against what the desk is spending its time on today, which is the only comparison that matters. The free worksheet on this site gives you the arrival numbers to put into it.
Questions people ask about visitor management system cost
Why is the price range so wide?
Because the tiers differ, not because the sign-in does. Entry plans cover one desk; enterprise tiers cover estates, integrations and reporting.
Is per-location pricing normal?
Yes, most of the category prices per reception or per site. Check whether a second entrance at the same building counts as a second location.
What should we budget beyond the subscription?
A tablet, a stand, power, a badge printer if you print, and label stock at your arrival rate. Roughly a few hundred once, plus stock.