Docker will hike subscription prices by up to 80 percent from November 15 2024, as well as introducing storage charges for its Docker Hub repository, and to justify this it will bundle more services in order to offer what the company calls “seamless access to Docker’s full capabilities under one subscription.”

The container biz will also introduce a new Docker Insights Dashboards, currently in private preview, but set for launch on November 1. Full details are not available but it will include data on build times and container image usage.

The last major change in Docker’s subscription options was in October 2022, when prices jumped by up to 28 percent, and a 100 user limit was introduced for the Team subscription, forcing customers to upgrade to the more expensive Business license.

Dev Class asked Chief Product Officer Giri Sreenivas why the company is upping prices by such a large percentage. “They’re meaningful percentage increases, but there is increased value that comes with the subscription,” he told us. “We have bundled in a considerable amount of consumption for Docker Build Cloud, for Scout, as well as for Hub … we’ve continued to deliver increased value in Docker Desktop along with the additions of the new products.”

Accoring to Sreenivas, among customers with whom the price changes has been shared, “most people have not felt that it’s a substantial price increase.”

Docker currently has four pricing plans, and we decided to quote the annual fees since the cost rises further if organizations do not commit to a full 12 months.

• Personal – was and remains free but limited to companies with fewer than 250 employees and less than $10 million annual revenue
• Pro – was $60 annually (for individuals)
• Team – was $108 annually (no more than 100 users)
• Business – was $288 annually

Docker Hub is currently free in terms of creating repositories but image pulls are charged beyond a certain limit, 200 per 6 hours for Personal and 5,000 per day for the other plans.

In the new subscription model, Pro rises by 80 percent to $108 annually and Team to $180 annually, a 67 percent increase. The price of Business remains the same. Docker Hub will have new image pull and storage limits. 

Docker will bundle more usage of services including Docker Build Cloud and Docker Scout (vulnerability analysis), and will discount its Testcontainers Cloud offering, adding some value to the subscriptions. The exact details of what will be bundled were not shared with us, but Docker claims the bundled extras will be worth more than the price increase. For Team users, a spokesperson told us, “while your monthly cost will increase by $600, you will gain $4,310 in value from the included products. Similarly, a single developer on the Docker Pro plan will pay just an additional $4 per month, yet receive an extra $138 in value.”

The snag with this kind of arithmetic is that it only applies if the customer would have otherwise purchased what is bundled. If in fact they do not use these other services, the extra value disappears. It is also a common strategy to win customers from competing products, since it may be better value to use what is bundled.

Docker argues that it is no longer just a provider of developer tools, but an end to end platform with an integrated toolchain, and is upping prices accordingly.

More details can be found on the company blog.