Everybody wants this technology,” said Sandeep Patil, Founder and Managing Director of systems integrator Securizen.
Cloud-based video surveillance, or VSaaS (Video Surveillance as a Service), is gradually reshaping how Indian organizations deploy and manage CCTV systems. Adoption is accelerating among retail chains, enterprises with distributed sites, and customers looking to reduce dependence on on-premise recording hardware.
Yet despite growing interest, pricing remains one of the biggest points of friction in sales conversations, and one of the hardest elements for system integrators to explain.
“Everybody wants this technology,” said Sandeep Patil, Founder and Managing Director of systems integrator Securizen. “But they want it in a very cost-effective manner, and that’s where the conflict on pricing usually starts.”
Interviews with Indian system integrators suggest the VSaaS market is beginning to settle into recognizable pricing tiers, driven by differences in recording models, analytics capabilities, infrastructure requirements, and the level of enterprise performance customers expect.
Pricing tiers emerging in the Indian VSaaS market
Based on deployments across retail, manufacturing, and multi-location enterprises, VSaaS pricing in India broadly falls into three categories - entry-level, mid-tier enterprise platforms, and analytics-driven solutions.
Each tier serves a different customer profile, but confusion often arises when customers compare prices across categories without understanding what is actually included.
Entry-level: telco and consumer-oriented VSaaS offerings
At the lowest end of the market are VSaaS solutions bundled by telecom operators and mass-market camera brands. These offerings are typically sold as annual packages and aggressively marketed to small businesses.
“These solutions look very attractive at first glance,” said Antony Kavin Bosco, Founder of the systems integration company Gabo Enterprises. “You’re looking at subscriptions that work out to a few hundred rupees per camera per month.”
In most cases, pricing in this segment works out to around ₹290–₹300 per camera per month, often packaged as annual plans costing roughly ₹3,500 per camera.
However, integrators caution that these low prices come with important trade-offs.
“If you look closely, most telco-led or consumer cloud offerings rely on very low bitrates,” Patil said. “Typically, you’re looking at something like 70 to 90 kbps.”
Such bitrates significantly limit video quality, particularly when footage is viewed on laptops, desktops, or large monitoring screens. “These solutions are optimized for mobile viewing,” Patil said. “Once you move to a bigger screen, the image often becomes pixelated.”
Recording models are another point of difference. According to Patil, many telco VSaaS offerings rely heavily on event-based recording rather than continuous recording.
“That’s where the real risk comes in,” he said. “In event-based recording, you often miss the few frames just before the incident actually happens. That pre-event context is critical, and customers start asking uncomfortable questions when it’s missing.”
For these reasons, integrators say telco-led VSaaS is generally positioned as a convenience-driven solution rather than a true enterprise surveillance platform.
Mid-tier: Indian enterprise-focused VSaaS platforms
The middle tier of the market is increasingly occupied by Indian VSaaS platforms designed specifically for enterprise and multi-site deployments.
According to integrators, pricing in this segment typically averages around ₹500 per camera per month, usually including:
- Cloud storage, commonly with seven days of retention
- Continuous recording
- Centralized monitoring and playback
- Encrypted data transmission
- Browser-based access without client software
“There’s a big misconception that VSaaS is just cloud storage,” Patil said. “CCTV is not dead storage. You’re recording continuously, retrieving footage instantly, and multiple users may be accessing it at the same time.”
Patil added that customers often compare VSaaS pricing with the cost of generic cloud storage services, which leads to unrealistic expectations.
“People say, ‘cloud storage is getting cheaper every year, so VSaaS should also be cheaper,’” he said. “But video surveillance is a live, transactional workload. The retrieval speed, uptime guarantees, and encryption requirements are completely different.”
Enterprise-grade VSaaS platforms also differ in how they handle connectivity and deployment. Many avoid static IP requirements and heavy on-premise infrastructure, relying instead on secure tunnels or lightweight gateways.
“That simplicity matters a lot in India,” Bosco said. “If the deployment is straightforward, integrators can roll it out faster across multiple locations.”
Analytics-driven VSaaS: where costs rise sharply
The most significant jump in pricing occurs when customers begin adding AI-based video analytics.
According to integrators, analytics-enabled VSaaS deployments typically cost ₹800–₹850 per camera per month, depending on the features selected.
“People counting is the most common requirement we see,” Bosco said. “Especially in retail and NBFC environments, the first question is always how many customers walked in today.”
Beyond people counting, demand is growing for:
- Object detection and classification
- Heatmaps and customer movement analysis
- Loitering detection
“For organized retail, analytics goes much deeper,” Bosco said. “Heatmaps, rack analysis, dwell time - that’s where cloud video starts delivering measurable business value.”
More specialized analytics, such as helmet and PPE detection, fire and smoke alerts, and license plate recognition, are typically sold as add-on modules, further increasing monthly costs.
As a result, integrators say customers are becoming more selective, enabling analytics only on cameras that directly support operational or business objectives.
How SMEs manage VSaaS costs in practice
For small and mid-sized enterprises, VSaaS adoption is rarely an all-or-nothing decision.
“In a 10-camera setup, not every camera is equally important,” Patil said. “Customers usually enable cloud backup or analytics only on cameras that really matter.”
In a typical SME scenario, a 10-camera deployment using cloud backup alone would cost around ₹5,000 per month. Analytics are then selectively added to entrances, cash counters, or high-risk areas.
“This pick-and-choose approach is how customers make VSaaS workable today,” Patil said. “It allows them to get the benefits of the cloud without blowing up their monthly costs.”
VSaaS versus traditional NVRs: the cost debate
Comparisons with traditional NVR-based systems remain a constant part of customer discussions. Bosco estimated that VSaaS deployments can be around 25–30 percent more expensive than conventional NVR setups in the initial years.
“In one comparison I shared with a customer, VSaaS came out about 27 percent higher upfront,” he said. “That usually becomes the sticking point.”
However, integrators argue that such comparisons often ignore longer-term costs associated with on-premise systems, including:
- Server and storage refresh cycles
- GPU upgrades for analytics
- Maintenance and downtime risks
- Scaling challenges as camera counts increase
“When you look three or four years down the line, the difference starts narrowing,” Bosco said. “Especially for customers planning to expand.”
Infrastructure choices shape pricing and confidence
Platform architecture plays a critical role in both pricing and customer confidence.
“HikCentral, for example, is powerful but very resource-intensive,” Patil said. “Once you cross a certain number of cameras, the infrastructure demand becomes a real challenge.”
Cloud-native platforms, by contrast, aim to minimize on-premise hardware and reduce dependency on static IPs.
“If a camera is not natively supported, we use a small cloud gateway to create a secure tunnel,” Patil said. “There’s no port forwarding and no static IP, which simplifies deployment significantly.”
For integrators, ease of deployment directly affects scalability. “If a solution is simple to implement, it scales much faster across sites,” Bosco said. “That’s critical in India.”
Where VSaaS adoption is strongest in India
Retail remains the fastest-adopting vertical, particularly jewelry and apparel chains.
“Retail is adopting VSaaS faster than any other segment,” Bosco said. “They need analytics, not just recording.”
Beyond retail, integrators report increasing interest from manufacturing companies, including automotive firms, and enterprises operating mixed camera environments.
“Many customers want to reuse what they already have,” Patil said. “If an analog camera is still working, there’s no reason to replace it just to move to the cloud.”
Some VSaaS platforms can ingest low-resolution or analog feeds, allowing customers to add cloud intelligence without a full hardware refresh.
A market still finding its balance
India’s VSaaS market is still evolving, shaped by enterprise expectations, analytics adoption, and competition from low-cost telco-led offerings.
What is becoming clear is that VSaaS pricing in India is no longer about a single number. Instead, it reflects a layered model that combines storage, analytics, infrastructure, and long-term scalability.
For system integrators, clearly articulating those trade-offs, and setting realistic expectations, may prove just as important as the technology itself.