Blue Iris price and license cost for business use, with the commercial license

A Blue Iris license costs $99.95 once for the full version, which runs up to 128 cameras, or $39.95 for the LE version, which runs one camera. The first year of maintenance is included, and after that updates cost $44.95 a year. A business is a different case: on Blue Iris's own maintenance table, commercial use is permitted only under the Commercial license plan at $39.95 a month, which puts a business's real cost at $579.35 in year one and $479.40 a year after.

Every price here is read from the Blue Iris website, where the software is sold directly by its developer, Perspective Software. We sell person and vehicle detection for cameras a business already owns, which is the job many people buy Blue Iris for, so the last sections say plainly where Blue Iris is the better buy.

The Blue Iris price list

There are two licenses and four ways to keep them current. The license itself never expires. Maintenance decides whether you get new versions and email support, and whether you may use the software in a business.

Two rules matter when you budget. Maintenance is what carries you across major versions: moving from version 4 or 5 to version 6 needed only active maintenance, not a new license, so a lapsed plan means buying back in when the next major release lands. And both licenses and activated maintenance keys are treated as non refundable, with exceptions at the developer's discretion, so the 15 day evaluation is the time to test your cameras.

Business use and the commercial plan

This is the line that changes the budget. The Blue Iris maintenance table has a row called "Commercial use permitted", and it is checked only in the Commercial license column. Basic and Priority are unchecked. If the cameras watch a shop, an office, a rental property or a job site, the plan built for that use is $39.95 a month, or $479.40 a year.

That plan is also the only one with the highest priority email support, and it includes the phone and remote desktop help that Priority offers by appointment. For a business that depends on the recorder, that support tier is worth having anyway. It does change the headline number, though. Blue Iris is often described as a $70 or $100 purchase, and for a business it is closer to a $480 a year subscription with a small license fee in front.

The Windows PC you also pay for

Blue Iris runs only on Windows. The developer's minimum is a newer Intel processor, 8GB of RAM and 64 bit Windows 10; the recommended build is an Intel Core or Core Ultra processor, 1GB of RAM for each high megapixel camera, Windows 11, fast drives or SSDs, and optionally an Nvidia graphics card. That machine records every camera, so it has to run all day, every day, and somebody has to keep Windows patched and the disks healthy.

Since version 6.0.1, released in December 2025, AI detection is built into Blue Iris rather than needing a separate AI server, and the developer notes it is fast on capable hardware. Older installs used CodeProject.AI or DeepStack alongside it. Either way the AI runs on your PC, so the detection quality you get depends on the box you built.

Because that one PC is the whole system, it is worth knowing the moment it stops answering. A small uptime monitor that checks the web server port every minute will tell you that Windows rebooted for an update and the service never came back, before you need a recording that does not exist.

Five years, four and fifteen cameras

Software only. The Windows PC, disks, cameras and your time are extra for Blue Iris, and our product runs beside whatever recorder you already have, so no hardware line applies to it.

Read it honestly. For fifteen cameras, Blue Iris on the Commercial plan is about $1,900 cheaper than our Operate tier over five years, and it records video, which we do not. If you want one Windows box that records and detects, and you are happy to own that box, buy Blue Iris. If you would rather not run Windows at all, a sealed hub is the other one box route, and the Camect price breakdown shows how its 24MP limit per hub adds up for the same fifteen cameras.

The arithmetic flips for a small shop. With four cameras, the Commercial plan still costs $479.40 a year, so over five years it is about $1,057 more than our Watch tier, before the PC. And a business that already has an NVR or a VMS recording its cameras does not need a second recorder at all.

If you are buying it for better alerts

A lot of Blue Iris purchases start the same way: the NVR that came with the cameras sends a push for every headlight, shadow and moth, and someone reads that Blue Iris with AI filters those out. It can. But the route is a new Windows PC, moving every camera to a second recorder, tuning motion zones and AI confidence per camera, and keeping that PC alive, all to change what counts as an alert.

There is a shorter route. MotionDetection reads the RTSP sub stream of each camera your current NVR already records, labels every real motion event as a person, vehicle, animal or package, and alerts only on the classes you pick, by email, webhook or Slack. The recorder stays as it is, there is no PC to build, and continuous video never leaves your network. You can run the demo on a clip before you create an account, and every tier is on the video analytics software price page. Our person detection camera software page shows what the alerts look like.

If your recorder is a NAS, the QNAP QVR Pro license price and the Synology Surveillance Station license pages total the per camera cost of adding cameras there, and the video management software guide compares larger recording platforms by license model. If the recorder will be a Mac rather than a Windows PC, the SecuritySpy price post totals that route the same way. Agent DVR is the cross platform alternative that charges per computer rather than per camera, and the Agent DVR pricing page shows what its business subscription costs over five years. Many people pricing Blue Iris are leaving Sighthound Video, which no longer gets updates; our Sighthound Video alternative page compares the replacements side by side. The same is true of Netcam Studio, discontinued in 2025, and the Netcam Studio alternative post prices Blue Iris against the others for a business that ran it.

Questions buyers ask

How much does Blue Iris cost?

Blue Iris costs $99.95 for the full license, which supports up to 128 cameras, or $39.95 for the one camera LE license. Both include a year of maintenance, after which Basic maintenance is $44.95 a year. Business use is permitted only on the Commercial license plan at $39.95 a month, so a business pays $579.35 in year one.

Is Blue Iris a one time purchase?

The license is. You pay $99.95 or $39.95 once and the software keeps running. Updates, support and major version upgrades need maintenance, which is included for the first year and then costs $44.95 to $249.95 a year, and commercial use is covered only by the $39.95 a month Commercial plan.

Can I use Blue Iris for my business?

Yes, on the right plan. The Blue Iris maintenance table marks commercial use as permitted only under the Commercial license plan, $39.95 a month, which also includes the highest priority email support and limited phone and remote desktop help. The Basic and Priority plans do not show commercial use as permitted.

What happens when Blue Iris maintenance expires?

The software keeps working on the version you have. You stop receiving current version updates and email support, and you lose major version upgrade protection, so moving to the next major release can mean buying back in. Renewing before expiry from the Settings and About page in the software gets the lower auto renewing price.

What is the difference between Blue Iris full and LE?

Camera count. The full version at $99.95 runs up to 128 cameras on one PC, and the LE version at $39.95 runs one camera. Maintenance plans and features are otherwise the same, so LE only makes sense for a single camera that will never become two.

Does Blue Iris have person detection?

Yes. Since version 6.0.1, released in December 2025, Blue Iris has AI detection built in, running on your own Windows PC, and it still integrates with external AI servers such as CodeProject.AI. Detection speed and accuracy depend on that PC's processor and whether it has a supported Nvidia graphics card.

Can I get person alerts without buying Blue Iris?

Yes. A detection layer can read the RTSP sub stream your existing NVR already pulls and classify every motion event before it alerts. MotionDetection does this from $49 a month for four cameras, or $888 a year for fifteen, with no Windows PC to build, no second recorder and no cloud archive of your video.