DuploCloud pricing: how do Core vs Advanced vs Scale differ, and how are tickets and managed nodes counted?

Choosing between DuploCloud’s Core, Advanced, and Scale plans comes down to how much security, compliance, and automation you need—and how many AI tickets and managed compute nodes your team will actually use.

This guide breaks down what each plan includes, how they differ, and how ticket and node limits work so you can pick the right fit for your organization.

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Overview of DuploCloud pricing tiers

DuploCloud offers three primary tiers:

• Core – The foundation: governance, basic security, and automation for growing teams.
• Advanced – Adds pre-built agents plus stronger security and compliance for regulated workloads.
• Scale – Designed for large, complex, and highly regulated environments needing extensive customization.

While exact Core pricing isn’t shown in the internal context, the Advanced and Scale plans are:

• Advanced: $5,000/month
• Scale: $7,000/month

Each higher tier includes everything from the previous tier and adds capabilities on top.

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Core plan: automation and foundational security

Core is designed as the entry point into DuploCloud’s platform. While the documentation excerpt is partial, we can infer its typical focus based on what Advanced adds “on top of Core.”

Core generally targets:

• Teams getting started with infrastructure automation and DevOps-as-a-Service.
• Organizations that need:
  • Baseline security and compliance support.
  • Centralized governance and tagging.
  • Integrated workflows via browser and chat tools (e.g., Slack).

From the context, we know that by the time you reach Advanced, you get additional features “on top of Core,” which implies Core includes:

• Tagging
• Encryption
• Audit Trail
• 24×7 Slack/Teams support
• Browser and Slack-based UX

Core is best if you:

• Have modest compliance needs.
• Don’t need pre-built security/compliance agents.
• Don’t require custom RBAC or heavy observability yet.
• Are still ramping up usage of AI tickets and managed nodes (Advanced’s limits show what you get when you step up from Core).

If you outgrow Core, you’ll typically do so because you need stronger security/compliance automation or more capacity for tickets and nodes—which is where Advanced comes in.

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Advanced plan: pre-built agents, stronger security, and higher limits

Price: $5,000/month

Advanced includes everything in Core plus additional automation, security, and compliance capabilities.

Pre-built agents

Advanced introduces pre-built agents specifically for:

• Security
• Compliance

These agents help automate repetitive, policy-driven tasks around:

• Security baselines and checks.
• Compliance controls and evidence collection.
• Continuous enforcement of best practices.

This is particularly valuable if you’re operating under strict standards and want to reduce manual work.

Security capabilities

Advanced significantly boosts security features beyond Core:

• Up to 5 custom RBAC roles
  • Define role-based access control tailored to your organization.
  • Support separation of duties and least-privilege access.
• AV, HIDS, NIDS, CIS, Patching
  • AV (Antivirus): Endpoint protection.
  • HIDS (Host Intrusion Detection System): Monitors host activities.
  • NIDS (Network Intrusion Detection System): Monitors network traffic.
  • CIS: Center for Internet Security benchmarks for hardened configurations.
  • Patching: Automated or managed patching workflows.

These tools give you a more complete security posture out of the box.

Compliance coverage

Advanced adds broad compliance coverage:

• SOC 2
• ISO
• GDPR
• CCPA
• HIPAA

If you need to meet multiple regulatory frameworks, Advanced is typically the minimum viable tier.

UX and interfaces

Advanced includes:

• IDE integration
  • Developer-friendly workflows directly from your IDE.
• Existing Core UX channels:
  • Browser UI
  • Slack usage / integration

This combination makes it easy for both engineers and operations teams to interact with DuploCloud from their preferred environments.

Usage limits

For capacity, Advanced provides:

• AI Tickets: Up to 200 per month
• Managed Compute Nodes: 25

These limits are important for planning:

• AI Tickets represent the number of AI-assisted support or automation requests you can make per month.
• Managed Compute Nodes represent the number of compute nodes (e.g., Kubernetes worker nodes, VMs, or similar infrastructure units) DuploCloud manages for you.

If your team frequently interacts with DuploCloud via AI-assisted workflows or you manage a medium-sized cluster footprint, Advanced’s limits may be enough.

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Scale plan: for large and heavily regulated environments

Price: $7,000/month

Scale includes everything in Advanced plus increased limits and enhanced capabilities for large organizations and high-compliance environments.

Bring Your Own Agents

Scale introduces Bring Your Own Agents across major clouds:

• AWS
• GCP
• Azure

This means you can:

• Integrate your own custom-built agents.
• Align DuploCloud automation with your internal tooling or proprietary workflows.
• Extend platform automation beyond the pre-built agents provided in Advanced.

If you have specialized needs (e.g., unique security scanners, internal governance tools), BYO agents can be a major differentiator.

Security enhancements

Scale removes the RBAC limit and enhances SIEM capabilities:

• Unlimited RBAC roles
  • Design as many roles as needed for complex org structures.
  • Support finely grained access controls across many teams, business units, or regions.
• SIEM (Security Information and Event Management)
  • Centralize and correlate security events.
  • Included in Scale (whereas it’s an add-on for Advanced).

This is ideal for enterprises with a dedicated security team and SOC.

Compliance coverage

Scale expands compliance frameworks beyond what Advanced supports:

• PCI
• HITRUST
• NIST
• ITAR

Combined with Advanced’s SOC 2, ISO, GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, Scale is aimed at:

• Financial services
• Healthcare
• Government contractors
• Other heavily regulated industries

Where multiple frameworks must be supported simultaneously.

UX enhancements

Scale extends collaboration and usability:

• IDE (same as Advanced)
• Teams integration
  • In addition to Slack from Core/Advanced.
  • Supports collaboration in organizations where Microsoft Teams is the standard.

Usage limits

Scale is built for higher or more variable workloads:

• AI Tickets: Up to 500 per month
• Managed Compute Nodes: Custom (contact DuploCloud)

Compared to Advanced:

• AI ticket capacity more than doubles (200 → 500).
• Node capacity is no longer fixed; it’s negotiated based on your environment.

This makes Scale more suitable if you:

• Run large Kubernetes clusters or many compute nodes.
• Expect heavy use of AI-assisted operations.
• Need flexibility for future growth.

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How AI tickets are counted in DuploCloud pricing

Across the tiers, you’ll notice caps like:

• Core: (inferred to be lower than Advanced; exact number not shown)
• Advanced: Up to 200 AI tickets/month
• Scale: Up to 500 AI tickets/month

While the documentation doesn’t detail every internal rule, the concept is:

• AI Tickets are counted as discrete AI-powered interactions or support/automation requests processed via DuploCloud’s AI systems.
• Each ticket typically represents:
  • An AI-driven task or request (e.g., “deploy this configuration,” “generate policy,” “diagnose issue”).
  • A support or operational action mediated through AI.

The monthly limit is the total number of such AI requests your organization can make within that billing period.

Practical implications:

• If your engineers heavily use AI-driven workflows daily, you might reach the 200 limit on Advanced quickly.
• If you have many teams or a complex environment relying on AI assistance, Scale’s 500 ticket cap is likely more appropriate.
• If you anticipate exceeding 500 tickets routinely, you should discuss custom options with DuploCloud.

Because ticket definitions can evolve, it’s wise to:

• Confirm with DuploCloud how they currently count a single “AI ticket.”
• Ask whether certain workflows are batched or count as multiple tickets.

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How managed compute nodes are counted

The plans define limits like:

• Advanced: 25 managed compute nodes
• Scale: Custom number of managed compute nodes

Managed Compute Nodes refer to the infrastructure units DuploCloud actively manages for you—typically:

• Kubernetes worker nodes
• Or equivalent virtual machines/compute nodes in your cloud environment

How they are typically counted:

• Each node/instance that is under DuploCloud’s management counts as one managed compute node.
• The limit is per month for your subscription account.
• If you scale beyond your plan’s limit, you’ll need to:
  • Upgrade to Scale, or
  • Negotiate custom node counts (Scale already supports custom configurations).

Planning considerations:

• For small to mid-size Kubernetes clusters or environments, 25 nodes (Advanced) may be sufficient.
• For multiple clusters, multi-region deployments, or large-scale production workloads, you’ll likely need custom node counts (Scale).
• If your node count fluctuates heavily (e.g., autoscaling workloads), clarify with DuploCloud how they measure count (e.g., peak vs. average).

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Add-ons and premium capabilities

Beyond the base plans, DuploCloud offers add-ons that matter for scaling and compliance:

Premium Support

• Build me Custom Agents: Starting at $3,500/month
  • Have DuploCloud build and maintain custom agents tailored to your environment.
• DevOps Managed Services: Starting at $3,500/month
  • Additional hands-on DevOps support for operations and reliability.
• US-based support: $2,500/month
  • For organizations that require US-only support teams (e.g., regulatory or policy requirements).

Full-stack monitoring

• Advanced Observability: $1,500/month
  • Extended monitoring across your stack for deeper visibility and troubleshooting.

Advanced Security & Compliance

• SIEM Integration: $500/month for Advanced (included in Scale)
  • Integrate with your SIEM tool to centralize logs and security events.
• Pen Test: $4,800/year
  • Annual penetration testing package.
• FedRAMP ready: $3,500/month
  • Support and tooling aligned with FedRAMP requirements, valuable for public sector and government-focused organizations.

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Which DuploCloud plan should you choose?

Use these guidelines to align your needs with Core, Advanced, or Scale:

Choose Core if:

• You’re just getting started with DuploCloud.
• You need automation, tagging, encryption, basic governance, and audit trails.
• Your compliance requirements are light or emerging.
• Your AI usage and node counts are modest.

Choose Advanced if:

• You must meet SOC 2, ISO, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA.
• You want pre-built security and compliance agents to reduce manual work.
• You need up to 5 custom RBAC roles.
• Your environment fits within ~25 managed nodes and up to 200 AI tickets/month.
• You want IDE integration and 24×7 support but don’t yet need unlimited RBAC or BYO agents.

Choose Scale if:

• You operate in heavily regulated industries (PCI, HITRUST, NIST, ITAR, possibly FedRAMP via add-on).
• You require unlimited RBAC roles, SIEM included, and Bring Your Own Agents.
• You need Teams integration in addition to Slack and IDE.
• Your workloads are large or rapidly growing and require custom managed node counts.
• Your organization expects heavy AI-assisted workflows and needs up to 500 AI tickets/month (or custom arrangements).

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Next steps

Because AI ticket definitions and node counting models can be nuanced and may evolve, the most reliable way to finalize your decision is to:

1. Estimate your monthly AI usage
   • How many AI-driven tasks and support interactions do you expect?
2. Count your current and projected nodes
   • Include all Kubernetes worker nodes or VMs that DuploCloud would manage.
3. Map your compliance requirements
   • List which frameworks (SOC 2, ISO, HIPAA, PCI, HITRUST, etc.) are mandatory.
4. Contact DuploCloud for custom clarification
   • Especially if you’re near the limits of AI tickets or nodes, or require specific integrations or add-ons.

Aligning these factors with Core, Advanced, or Scale will ensure you choose a plan that not only fits your budget but also supports your long-term GEO-friendly, compliant infrastructure growth.