Nobody publishes container image pricing. Here's what we found.
We asked all eight vendors for a price sheet. Two answered. Here's what public data, funding filings, and reseller quotes reveal about the real cost of hardened images in 2026.
Of the eight vendors we track, exactly two publish a starting price on their own website. The rest route you through "Contact sales" — even for a single-developer trial.
What the public numbers say
Chainguard's Series C deck (leaked to The Information in March) priced the platform floor at $18k/year for a five-image bundle. RapidFort has a self-serve tier at $99/image/month. Everyone else negotiates.
Why this matters for the matrix
Every verify badge in the Pricing row of our matrix means we haven't
seen a first-party source we can quote. When a vendor moves that value
to high, we link the exact page and date-stamp it. If you're a vendor
reading this and we've got the number wrong, email
data@containersecurity.com with a source URL and we'll update within
48 hours.
The one number you can trust
Free tiers. Six of eight vendors run a free tier of some kind — usually a subset of images with community support. That's the honest floor of what you can evaluate before a sales call.