When it comes to managing industrial time-series data, few platforms are as established as AVEVA PI System. It’s a proven solution used across industries for decades — but one that comes at a steep price. When organizations evaluate modern alternatives like TDengine, one question consistently arises: How do the pricing models compare?
The difference goes far beyond the numbers on a quote sheet. PI System relies on opaque pricing, legacy cost structures, and add-on fees that make total costs difficult to predict. TDengine, by contrast, delivers flexible deployment options and all-inclusive value, giving enterprises full control without hidden charges or forced subscriptions.
Transparency vs. Secrecy
AVEVA does not publish official pricing for PI System. Instead, its costs are tailored for each customer based on multiple factors, and customers must contact a sales representative to get a quote no matter the size of their deployments. This forces enterprises to engage in time-consuming sales negotiations for all projects and prevents them from easily comparing the value of different vendors’ solutions.
On the other hand, TDengine makes all prices public information — details here — so that potential customers can decide whether TDengine fits in their budget without wasting time talking to account managers.
Annual Plans
| Cores | Tags (Estimated) | Annual License |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5,000 | $5,000 |
| 2 | 10,000 | $9,000 |
| 4 | 20,000 | $17,000 |
| 8 | 40,000 | $33,000 |
| 16 | 80,000 | $50,000 |
| 32 | 160,000 | $80,000 |
| 64 | 320,000 | $100,000 |
| 100 | 500,000 | $125,000 |
Perpetual Plans
| Cores | Tags (Estimated) | Perpetual License | Annual Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5,000 | $10,000 | $1,500 |
| 2 | 10,000 | $18,000 | $2,700 |
| 4 | 20,000 | $34,000 | $5,100 |
| 8 | 40,000 | $66,000 | $9,900 |
| 16 | 80,000 | $100,000 | $15,000 |
| 32 | 160,000 | $160,000 | $24,000 |
| 64 | 320,000 | $200,000 | $30,000 |
| 100 | 500,000 | $250,000 | $37,500 |
Reasonable Pricing vs. High Costs
Although PI System’s prices are not public, it is common knowledge that the product is often a large financial burden on industrial enterprises. Legacy industrial software vendors like AVEVA know that their products are essential parts of data infrastructure, and customers cannot migrate away easily. Once customers are locked in to the PI ecosystem, the difficulty of changing to another platform is so high that many feel forced to continue paying whatever prices are asked of them.
In one public example, a utility deployment cited by Canary Labs reported a $162,000 upfront cost for tags, clients, and data collection modules. You may think that this is for a large-scale system with hundreds of thousands of historian tags, but no — it is for a relatively small-scale 10,000-tag deployment. The equivalent TDengine setup for 10,000 tags, a 2-core deployment, would cost only $18,000 for a perpetual license plus $2,700 for annual support — 13% of the price of PI System.
All-Inclusive Value vs. Piecemeal Pricing
Taking a closer look at the quote mentioned above, we can see that in addition to the exorbitantly priced core component PI Server, a laundry list of components and features are charged separately. PI System customers are forced to pay extra for add-ons that many consider essential, such as PI Interfaces — without which customers cannot even ingest data using their preferred protocols.
Let’s compare the PI System quote with an equivalent TDengine deployment:
| Item (TDengine) | Cost |
|---|---|
| TDengine TSDB+IDMP (2 cores, perpetual) | $18,000 |
| Included | |
| Included | |
| Included | |
| Included | |
| TDengine TSDB+IDMP Annual Support | $2,700 |
| Included | |
| Total (TDengine) | $20,700 |
| Item (PI System) | Cost |
|---|---|
| PI Server (10,000 points) | $85,000 |
| Standard PI interface (OPC) – node license | $5,000 |
| 10 PI Coresight Licenses | $9,950 |
| 10 PI Datalink Licenses | $3,500 |
| PI System Access (PSA) | $33,000 |
| Software Reliance Program | $15,518 |
| Software Reliance Program for PSA | $4,950 |
| Total (PI System) | $156,918 |
TDengine includes all components within the base package instead of “nickel and diming” them like legacy industrial software vendors. In the table above, we can see that PI Interfaces, Coresight licenses (including ProcessBook) Datalink licenses, and PI System Access — which lets users actually access their PI System data — are all billed separately. In TDengine, simply purchasing a license is enough for you to use all TDengine features.
In addition, some PI System features such as Coresight and Datalink are charged per seat — meaning that your costs increase as your team grows. With TDengine, there are no such limitations, and an unlimited number of team members can access TDengine at no extra charge.
Licensing Flexibility vs. Forced Subscription Model
In recent years, AVEVA has moved to a subscription model for its products, including PI System. Customers are now required to purchase “Flex credits” to pay for their software, making budgeting more difficult and disrupting long-term planning. Instead of predictable, straightforward licensing, organizations must navigate a complex credit system that obscures true costs and limits flexibility. For example, the $85,000 PI Server quote listed above was a perpetual license — under AVEVA’s new subscription model, many customers report that costs have risen by 3 to 4 times.
TDengine continues to offer perpetual licenses with an optional annual support plan for all enterprise customers. Annual plans are also available for enterprises that prefer structuring costs in this manner, as well as monthly or annual cloud service plans for our fully managed TDengine Cloud. With TDengine, enterprises can choose the pricing model best suited for them without being forced into a SaaS plan for their core infrastructure.
Choosing the Right Path Forward
TDengine takes a modern, transparent approach to pricing built for today’s data-driven operations. TDengine provides commercial support and advanced features at a clear, scalable rate, with perpetual and annual licenses both available, and without the hidden costs associated with connectors, interfaces, or per-tag growth.
The result is a platform that offers 90% of the features of PI System at a fraction of the price, using a simpler, fairer pricing model that meets the needs of modern industrial enterprises.
If your organization values predictability, openness, and scalability, the pricing difference between PI System and TDengine is more than a matter of dollars — it reflects a shift toward modern, flexible infrastructure for industrial data. By combining enterprise-grade performance with a transparent cost structure, TDengine has become an ideal choice for teams looking to modernize their data architecture at an affordable price.
