The pricing is not cheap. When we provide quotations to clients, they often comment on the expense. However, we recommend the solution, and after procurement, all clients are satisfied with Cisco Enterprise Routers.
Senior Technical Consultant at International Turnkey Systems - ITS
Real User
Top 10
Feb 13, 2023
The solution is a bit expensive. They should consider better pricing. They have turned to subscription-based licensing. However, it may not be as cost-effective. Prices vary. There are different license models to choose from.
System & Network Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Sep 13, 2022
We pay for our license annually. If it could be cheaper that would be good, but I would rate it as a four out of five for price, with one being very expensive and five being very affordable.
Head Of Information Technology at Zambia National Building Society
Real User
Jul 5, 2022
Cisco is good in terms of pricing. You get good value for money. They've got different models which come at different prices. If you have a Cisco 3800 router, you may find you are buying it at maybe $4,000 or maybe $3,000. It depends on who's selling. Obviously, the markup is a low code. Sometimes a company exaggerates import duties. If I had to buy directly, it looks cheaper than if I tried to go through a reseller that messes with the costs.
The license of Cisco Enterprise Routers is too expensive compared to other solutions. As we try to increase the bandwidth, it gets even more expensive. There is an annual license needed to use the solution.
We don't need a license if we use IOS for basic, IT-related tasks. However, if we want to use a security feature, advanced IT features, video conferencing, voice conferencing, or UT, we must purchase a license for each of these features. Cisco Enterprise Routers are not the cheapest routers on the market, they are expensive.
Information Technology Network Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Sep 7, 2021
We do not have an issue with the price. The license is perpetual and is in-built to the router upon purchase of the device. However, they recently changed the licensing model to one which is subscription-based for periods of three, five or seven years. The licensing fee is okay and matches industry standards, which is the benchmark.
Principal Engineer IoT Network Architecture at Vodafone Idea Limited
Real User
Jul 31, 2021
The prices of Cisco are mostly fair. Cisco is similar to BMW for the networking industry. If you compare it with other vendors, such as Huawei, they cannot match the service. Cisco solution serves as the BMW of the networking industry in the way that the others are trying to live up to those expectations. Cisco is justified in some of the pricing, not all the pricing, if you go to the Cisco website, you can see the detailed documentation. I am currently working with Nokia and it is very difficult to find where the documentation is on the web. They do not even provide the datasheets, and they are only provided them on request for the equipment. How will a person really appreciate a company when it comes to that kind of solution? I can go to the Cisco website and look at the SD-WAN to see the validated designs, all the information, and understand them just by creating myself an account but not with Nokia. I am even trying to figure out what are the protocols that Nokia will use in their SD-WAN solution. It would be much easier to have documentation to compare the advantage and disadvantages. Cisco's openness in their documentation is one of the most appealing strengths of the company, it really gives you an indication of how open they are. The documents detail how much money they spend on it, and how they are helping the industry from an infrastructure perspective. Additionally, Cisco gives you talented individuals. There are people who are self-learners who will go to the website and look at the documentation, learn, and understand the software to find which functionality has a bug. When it comes to a Nokia, they will only help you if you are a managed service with a contract. Otherwise, you cannot even deploy their equipment, this is not a good practice. I justify part of the pricing that Cisco has but not the full model. There is a 25 percent price increase over the Nokia and it is justified for what Cisco delivers to its customers. I am calculating not just the pricing for just the routers, but the overall price, including openness and how much support they can handle. They are excellent. If you run a network without software support from Cisco and call technical support they will help. For example, they will indicate the problem exists because you upgraded the software and if you have a contract, you can automatically download the software to fix the problem. This would not be the case with Nokia, you will need them to be involved, they select the managed services, and that makes it extremely difficult for people to afford. Cisco is way too expensive for small and medium businesses. They must lower their prices in the lower range equipment. They need to make sure that they do not ignore that market segment because they will lose it for good. They will be gone from the Asian market and they will survive with only those companies which are extending their arms into India and South Asia because of the large companies that are there. They will not be able to penetrate the markets in all small and medium businesses and will not thrive.
I have found the price to be expensive for the solution. Other products are coming to the market that are not as expensive, Cisco should reduce their price to be more comparable.
The initial costs of using a full Cisco scenario like purchasing gears and licenses may be a little bit high. However, with accurate design and implementation, you should make sure you are good to go for years.
IT Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Oct 27, 2019
We don't have any licenses at this time. There were some compensating licenses that needed to be renewed every year, but then Cisco ended that practice. It was also sort of the local price break for the solution. Currently, we just pay for the hardware once and extra for the warranty extension. Besides those costs, there were no additional expenses. We did pay additional for a specific module. It was from another company embedded inside the Cisco product and we had to renew every year on that license. But then Cisco stopped promoting the use of that feature. When they did the product performed better because the module was taking up too much of the CPU usage. On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Cisco Enterprise Routers poorly from the experience that I have had. I would say a three or possibly four. I wish we had gotten the correct information from Cisco when we talked to them back when we were considering the solution. We told them what we wanted them to do and they recommended this solution. I think there may have been a miscalculation of the sizing of the equipment. So, I give it three out of ten because I could do the same or have the same or better result with a different solution that was not as expensive as this equipment. The company and products are good overall, but they still overprice the equipment compared to the competition.
Our issues are basically currency related. The licensing is in dollars and the dollar is steadily rising. We've had an increase in the licensing fee due to the simple reason that the exchange rate is almost over 40%. That creates a major issue. If the currency devaluation doesn't stabilize, we may have to look at another solution.
The high-performance Cisco Enterprise Routers are the market leader due to their breadth of advanced support for LAN/WAN services, redundancy, reliability, and performance.
It is expensive, but I am not the person purchasing the products; I just handle the configuration.
The pricing is not cheap. When we provide quotations to clients, they often comment on the expense. However, we recommend the solution, and after procurement, all clients are satisfied with Cisco Enterprise Routers.
The pricing and licensing of Cisco Enterprise Routers is high, but the quality justifies the cost.
I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
It is quite costly for the same feature as compared to Huawei and Juniper. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten.
I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten and it is yearly.
The solution is costly for small businesses. I rate its pricing a five out of ten.
The solution is expensive.
Licensing costs are expensive for us.
The solution is a bit expensive. They should consider better pricing. They have turned to subscription-based licensing. However, it may not be as cost-effective. Prices vary. There are different license models to choose from.
I'd rate the solution two out of ten in terms of affordability. It's an expensive product.
The solution is more expensive than other options. I'd rate it six out of ten in terms of affordability.
We pay for our license annually. If it could be cheaper that would be good, but I would rate it as a four out of five for price, with one being very expensive and five being very affordable.
We recommend using smart licensing with this product because of the positive experience we have had with it.
Cisco is good in terms of pricing. You get good value for money. They've got different models which come at different prices. If you have a Cisco 3800 router, you may find you are buying it at maybe $4,000 or maybe $3,000. It depends on who's selling. Obviously, the markup is a low code. Sometimes a company exaggerates import duties. If I had to buy directly, it looks cheaper than if I tried to go through a reseller that messes with the costs.
The cost of this solution is very low compared to other products.
The license of Cisco Enterprise Routers is too expensive compared to other solutions. As we try to increase the bandwidth, it gets even more expensive. There is an annual license needed to use the solution.
Normally, we pay for the licenses upfront. I think it's mostly just a perpetual, once-off license.
We don't need a license if we use IOS for basic, IT-related tasks. However, if we want to use a security feature, advanced IT features, video conferencing, voice conferencing, or UT, we must purchase a license for each of these features. Cisco Enterprise Routers are not the cheapest routers on the market, they are expensive.
Cisco Routers are quite affordable. The price is not the problem. It's the availability and the lifecycle.
The routers require a one-time license fee as they are perpetual.
I like the price of the solution.
We do not have an issue with the price. The license is perpetual and is in-built to the router upon purchase of the device. However, they recently changed the licensing model to one which is subscription-based for periods of three, five or seven years. The licensing fee is okay and matches industry standards, which is the benchmark.
This solution is expensive compared to competitors. There are additional costs if you want to have their support.
The solution could be cheaper. There is no licensing cost.
The prices of Cisco are mostly fair. Cisco is similar to BMW for the networking industry. If you compare it with other vendors, such as Huawei, they cannot match the service. Cisco solution serves as the BMW of the networking industry in the way that the others are trying to live up to those expectations. Cisco is justified in some of the pricing, not all the pricing, if you go to the Cisco website, you can see the detailed documentation. I am currently working with Nokia and it is very difficult to find where the documentation is on the web. They do not even provide the datasheets, and they are only provided them on request for the equipment. How will a person really appreciate a company when it comes to that kind of solution? I can go to the Cisco website and look at the SD-WAN to see the validated designs, all the information, and understand them just by creating myself an account but not with Nokia. I am even trying to figure out what are the protocols that Nokia will use in their SD-WAN solution. It would be much easier to have documentation to compare the advantage and disadvantages. Cisco's openness in their documentation is one of the most appealing strengths of the company, it really gives you an indication of how open they are. The documents detail how much money they spend on it, and how they are helping the industry from an infrastructure perspective. Additionally, Cisco gives you talented individuals. There are people who are self-learners who will go to the website and look at the documentation, learn, and understand the software to find which functionality has a bug. When it comes to a Nokia, they will only help you if you are a managed service with a contract. Otherwise, you cannot even deploy their equipment, this is not a good practice. I justify part of the pricing that Cisco has but not the full model. There is a 25 percent price increase over the Nokia and it is justified for what Cisco delivers to its customers. I am calculating not just the pricing for just the routers, but the overall price, including openness and how much support they can handle. They are excellent. If you run a network without software support from Cisco and call technical support they will help. For example, they will indicate the problem exists because you upgraded the software and if you have a contract, you can automatically download the software to fix the problem. This would not be the case with Nokia, you will need them to be involved, they select the managed services, and that makes it extremely difficult for people to afford. Cisco is way too expensive for small and medium businesses. They must lower their prices in the lower range equipment. They need to make sure that they do not ignore that market segment because they will lose it for good. They will be gone from the Asian market and they will survive with only those companies which are extending their arms into India and South Asia because of the large companies that are there. They will not be able to penetrate the markets in all small and medium businesses and will not thrive.
It's not probably the best solution if you have a very limited budget, as it can become very expensive to have robust equipment.
The price of Cisco Enterprise Routers is good for the service that you get.
The price is reasonable. We pay for licensing every year.
It's expensive and the pricing could be improved. The license is paid yearly.
There are licensing costs and they are expensive.
It's quite expensive for small businesses.
The price should be reduced.
Some companies provide initial licenses very cheaply, as do Cisco, but when you want to renew or expand something, the licensing becomes expensive.
I have found the price to be expensive for the solution. Other products are coming to the market that are not as expensive, Cisco should reduce their price to be more comparable.
It's not a fair price, it's a bit too high.
Linksys products are cheaper than Cisco Switches. Cisco Switches are an expensive product in India.
Cisco Enterprise Routers are expensive.
I am happy with the price of Cisco Enterprise Routers, but they could offer more discounts to their customers.
The price is reasonable.
Cisco routers are very pricey. This is the biggest complaint from customers for which we provide support.
The initial costs of using a full Cisco scenario like purchasing gears and licenses may be a little bit high. However, with accurate design and implementation, you should make sure you are good to go for years.
We don't have any licenses at this time. There were some compensating licenses that needed to be renewed every year, but then Cisco ended that practice. It was also sort of the local price break for the solution. Currently, we just pay for the hardware once and extra for the warranty extension. Besides those costs, there were no additional expenses. We did pay additional for a specific module. It was from another company embedded inside the Cisco product and we had to renew every year on that license. But then Cisco stopped promoting the use of that feature. When they did the product performed better because the module was taking up too much of the CPU usage. On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Cisco Enterprise Routers poorly from the experience that I have had. I would say a three or possibly four. I wish we had gotten the correct information from Cisco when we talked to them back when we were considering the solution. We told them what we wanted them to do and they recommended this solution. I think there may have been a miscalculation of the sizing of the equipment. So, I give it three out of ten because I could do the same or have the same or better result with a different solution that was not as expensive as this equipment. The company and products are good overall, but they still overprice the equipment compared to the competition.
There's a yearly licensing agreement. You can add more features at an additional cost if you need to.
The price of this solution is high.
This solution is expensive.
Cisco is mid-tier in terms of pricing and quite affordable by most enterprises.
Our issues are basically currency related. The licensing is in dollars and the dollar is steadily rising. We've had an increase in the licensing fee due to the simple reason that the exchange rate is almost over 40%. That creates a major issue. If the currency devaluation doesn't stabilize, we may have to look at another solution.
The pricing is a huge issue. I had to convince my company to purchase this solution. It is very expensive, and prohibitive.