A Microsoft Sentinel Cost Alternative: Beyond Per-GB Pricing

TL;DR — Microsoft Sentinel is a capable cloud-native SIEM, but its pricing is tied to data ingested — roughly $4.30/GB pay-as-you-go, and commitment tiers that start at 100 GB/day. At that volume the bill runs into six figures a year before retention and add-ons. The structural problem isn't the number; it's that the model taxes visibility. A flat per-asset alternative removes the meter entirely.

Sentinel's tight Azure and Microsoft 365 integration is real, and for Microsoft-heavy shops it can make sense. But every Sentinel deployment eventually collides with the same wall: the more you monitor, the more you pay — by the gigabyte.

The per-GB trap

The engineering effort then shifts from detection to cost engineering — filtering, sampling, tiering logs to a cheaper store — which is time your team spends managing a bill instead of managing risk.

The alternative: price by asset, not by log

But we're all-in on Azure

Fair — and Ayati One ingests Azure and M365 telemetry too. The point isn't to rip out Microsoft; it's to stop letting an ingestion meter decide how much of your environment you're allowed to watch. For teams also weighing IBM QRadar or Rapid7 InsightIDR, the same structural logic applies: decouple security coverage from data volume.

Frequently asked questions

Is per-asset always cheaper than per-GB?

Not universally — model it. Per-asset wins decisively for log-heavy estates and for any team already sampling logs to control Sentinel spend. At small, low-volume footprints the gap narrows. We'll model your estate.

Does removing the ingestion meter mean less retention?

No. Retention is a policy you set, not a per-GB penalty you pay each month.

Can Ayati One run in our Azure tenancy for residency?

Yes — in-tenancy deployment keeps data in your Azure region of choice. See data residency.

Escaping Sentinel's per-GB bill? Build a flat per-asset estimate or talk to our SOC engineers about a managed SIEM that doesn't tax your visibility.