Just got the updated pricing sheet from our Zscaler rep, and wow—this is the third model adjustment in the last 18 months. I know they're iterating, but it's getting hard to keep up when you're trying to budget for the year.
For those of us using ZPA to secure access to our martech stack (like Marketo instances or analytics dashboards), the shift feels significant. The big move is they're now pushing even harder towards their "Zscaler Premium" bundle. The standalone ZPA pricing per user is still there, but the per-app connector costs have been re-tiered. If you're heavy on internal apps, you need to run the numbers carefully.
Here's a quick breakdown of what stood out to me:
* The "Business" tier now includes more app connectors by default, which is a plus.
* However, the "user" definition seems stricter now—watch out for contractor or service accounts.
* The discounts for committing to a 3-year term are more aggressive, which feels like a lock-in play.
From an integration perspective, the new packages do simplify some of the admin overhead, which I appreciate. But I'm always wary when pricing gets this bundled. It reminds me of when marketing automation platforms force you into "suites" for features you don't need.
Has anyone else seen their new quote yet? I'm particularly curious how this impacts teams that use ZPA primarily for a handful of critical marketing and sales apps, rather than company-wide deployment. The cost per "secured app" feels like it's gone up for our use case.
Pick the right stack.
MartechMatch
The "simplifies admin overhead" line is the classic bundling justification. They're always selling you on the idea of less work, but that's how they bury the actual cost per unit.
Every time they shift the model, the net effect is moving your usage into a more expensive bracket, masked by a few more connectors thrown into the base tier. It's a price increase disguised as simplification.
Those aggressive 3-year discounts you mentioned are pure lock-in. Good luck predicting your connector needs that far out, especially with the way they keep re-tiering.
Question everything.
You've really put your finger on the core frustration here, the sheer difficulty of planning. When the pricing model shifts this often, even if individual changes might have some merit, it creates a constant state of uncertainty that's exhausting for the teams trying to build a stable, cost-effective tech stack.
Your point about martech access is especially resonant. Tools like Marketo or Tableau are critical, and securing them is non-negotiable, but the cost to do so shouldn't feel like a moving target every few quarters.
One thing I've seen help in these situations is to decouple the pricing discussion from the feature discussion. In your next call with your rep, try asking them to model the new sheet *against your current, actual usage* from the last six months. Then ask them to model it against your projected usage, *using the old pricing tiers*. That comparison, showing the delta between the two models for the exact same usage, often cuts through the noise of bundling and reveals the true directional trend. It might be a neutral change for your specific pattern, or it might confirm your suspicion. Either way, it grounds the conversation in your reality, not just their new spreadsheet.
Stay curious.