Data Erasure Software Pricing: What You Really Pay per Drive

You asked a vendor for a price and got "contact sales." You're not alone. Data erasure software is one of the hardest things in IT to price up, because almost every tool is sold differently, and the number on the quote is rarely the whole bill.

Here's how erasure software is actually priced, the costs that hide around the license, and exactly what reCore charges, in public.

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1. The five ways erasure software is priced

None of these is wrong. They suit different floors. The trouble starts when you compare them on the license price alone.

2. The costs that hide around the license

Before you compare two quotes, check whether each one includes these:

1. Diagnostics and testing. Some vendors sell hardware diagnostics as a separate product, licensed per device.
2. Grading. Often a different tool altogether, or a spreadsheet and a person.
3. Remote control. Starting wipes from a central screen can need a management console license, a network edition, or a private cloud "at an extra cost."
4. Network boot. Booting machines over the network usually means a server you build and maintain: one vendor's guide asks for a server with at least 16 GB of RAM running Windows Server, plus Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, WDS and IIS. We wrote about running a wipe floor without a server room.
5. Hardware. Appliances and boot media that have to be bought, shipped and replaced.
6. Failed wipes. Does a wipe that fails still use a license? Is the retry another license?
7. More sites. Is a site license tied to one address?
8. Certificates. Are per-drive certificates included, or an extra report?

Add those up and the cheapest-looking license is often not the cheapest floor.

3. What reCore costs, in public

reCore has one unit: the operation.

• One operation per unique device covers diagnostics, stress testing and grading.
• One operation per unique drive wiped covers the wipe, its verification and its certificate.
• Reconnecting the same device or re-wiping the same drive is free for 30 days after its charge.
• A drive whose wipe fails verification is still billed once, because the work and its record happened. Retrying it is free. A wipe that never finishes isn't billed at all.

Annual billing costs ten times the monthly price, so two months are free. Larger volumes are on contract, at rates as low as $0.05 per operation.

Every plan includes: diagnostics and stress tests, data wiping with a method chosen per drive and checked afterwards, grading, per-drive certificates approved by a second person, the live dashboard, and remote data wipe. There's no console license, no server and no hardware to buy. You download the reCore OS and write it to any USB stick.

The trial: 14 days, 10 operations, no credit card. See pricing.

4. Worked examples

A laptop that is tested, graded and wiped uses two operations: one for the device and one for its drive. Each example below is sized so the plan is used in full.

Between those sizes you pay the plan plus extra operations at its overage rate. For example, 1,000 laptops a month (2,000 operations) on Scale is $499 + 500 × $0.50 = $749, which is about $0.37 an operation.

Wiping loose drives through one machine? The machine is billed once, then it's one operation per drive: 500 drives a month on Growth is about $0.50 a drive.

5. When another model is cheaper

We'd rather you buy the right thing than the wrong one from us.

• One site, wipe only, very high volume. An unlimited site license is a flat fee. Wipe enough drives at one address and nothing else, and it can cost less per drive than any per-operation price.
• A floor that can never go online. Wipes in reCore finish offline and sync later, but stations do need to connect at some point. If yours never can, talk to us before you buy.

reCore is the better fit when your floor does more than wipe (testing, grading, certificates) or runs more than one site, and when you want remote wipe without buying a console, a server or an appliance.

6. Seven questions to ask any vendor about price

1. What is the unit: per drive, per device, per slot, per site or per year?
2. Are diagnostics, grading and certificates included, or separate products?
3. What does remote wiping need: a console license, a network edition, a server or hardware?
4. Does a failed wipe use a license, and does the retry use another?
5. If I open a second site, what changes?
6. What has to be shipped to us, and what happens when it breaks?
7. Can I see the price without talking to sales?

Conclusion

The cheapest erasure license and the cheapest erasure floor are rarely the same thing. Count the diagnostics, the console, the server, the hardware and the second site, then compare. Our prices are on the pricing page, and the trial needs no card.

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Sources

• reCore plans and trial terms: recore.replugit.com/pricing, from the live billing API on 2026-10-16. Billing rules from reCore's billing service (one operation per unique device and per unique drive; reconnects and re-wipes free).
• Other vendors' figures are from their own public pricing pages and documents, read on 2026-10-15 and 2026-10-16. We don't name vendors in our articles.