SimpliSafe vs Ring Alarm: Monitoring Prices and Plans Compared

Monitoring prices, side by side

Both companies publish their monitoring prices, which makes this one of the easier comparisons in home security. All prices below are as of August 2026, from each company's official plans page.

SimpliSafe prices its plans per day; Ring prices per month. Converted at 30 days, SimpliSafe Core (~$33) costs roughly two thirds more than Ring Pro ($19.99) for the comparable tier: 24/7 professional monitoring with camera recording. On the annual option, Ring Pro works out to about $16.67 per month, widening the gap.

At the top end the positions flip in kind: SimpliSafe Pro Plus ($2.66/day, ~$80/month) buys 24/7 AI-plus-live-agent outdoor protection, while Ring's $99/month Virtual Security Guard buys live video monitoring by agents. Both are premium products; neither is required for basic monitored security.

On equipment, Ring showed its 5-piece Alarm Security Kit at a promotional $199.99 against a listed regular price of $244.95 on the same official page as of August 2026; the $244.95 is the number to plan around. SimpliSafe sells configurable systems through its site and was running an Anniversary Sale (60 percent off any new system with professional monitoring, marked "ends tomorrow") at the time we checked, so no stable package price was published; check the builder for a current figure and expect the sale price to be temporary. If monitored security is what you are actually shopping for, our quote funnel can pull real quotes from professional monitoring providers with a short questionnaire.

Contracts, warranties, and what the monitoring includes

Neither system locks you into a long-term contract. SimpliSafe states its monitoring plans are billed monthly with no contract and can be canceled any time. Ring plans auto-renew until canceled, with monthly or annual billing.

The monitoring itself differs in structure:

• SimpliSafe monitoring agents can request police, fire, or medical dispatch, and on plans with video verification enabled, agents can relay camera evidence to dispatchers, which SimpliSafe says results in faster police response compared with its own non-verified alarms. Core and up include unlimited camera recordings with 30-day cloud storage for up to 10 cameras, and a lifetime equipment warranty for as long as a monitoring subscription is active.
• Ring Pro includes 24/7 professional monitoring for Ring Alarm, cellular backup, SOS response from the app, and Ring's intelligent alert features (video descriptions, familiar faces, active warnings). Video playback runs up to 180 days, which is six times SimpliSafe's published 30-day window. Ring notes in its own plan disclosures that it does not own its monitoring center; SimpliSafe refers throughout to "our security agents" and does not publish a monitoring center count either way. Smoke and CO monitoring is included in Ring Pro, or a $5 per month add-on on lower Ring plans.

Ring's smart-alert and face-recognition features carry state restrictions (some are unavailable in Illinois, and Familiar Faces is also excluded in Texas and Portland, Oregon, per Ring's disclosures). SimpliSafe's outdoor agent features require its Outdoor Camera (Series 2) and the Pro or Pro Plus plan.

A caveat that applies to both: self-monitoring tiers (SimpliSafe's $0.33/day plan, Ring Solo and Multi) leave emergency dispatch entirely to you. If nobody sees the alert, nobody calls 911. For the tradeoffs, see is professional monitoring worth it.

Which one to pick

Of the two, by published pricing as of August 2026:

• Pick Ring Alarm if monthly cost is the deciding factor. $19.99 per month (less on annual billing) for 24/7 monitoring plus 180-day video history is the lower published price for the comparable tier, and the hardware ecosystem (doorbells, cameras, Alexa integration) is broad.
• Pick SimpliSafe if you want monitoring that goes beyond dispatch: video-verified alarms, live agents who can see and speak through an outdoor camera on the upper plans, a lifetime hardware warranty while subscribed, and a $500 insurance-deductible guarantee on plans with Active Guard Outdoor Protection.

Both are DIY-install systems with no long-term contract, so the switching cost is mostly hardware. Where the two are priced closest (SimpliSafe Standard at $0.76/day, about $23/month, versus Ring Pro at $19.99) note that SimpliSafe Standard excludes camera recording and video verification, so the feature sets are not equivalent at that price point.

For how these numbers fit into the broader market, see home security cost per month and cheapest professional monitoring. If you want to compare these against professionally installed options, our quote funnel fetches real quotes from monitoring providers based on your home.