By David,
Most AVD management platforms charge in one of two ways: per user, or for the platform. Hydra charges per concurrent user, through the Azure Marketplace. Atlas AVD charges a flat monthly price per plan, with unlimited AVD users.
Neither price is meaningful on its own. What matters is what each costs for your estate, this year and after the next two years of growth. This post gives you the method, a break-even table, and the questions to ask before you sign.
The short version: divide an Atlas AVD plan's monthly price by your peak concurrent users. That's the per-concurrent-user rate at which the two models cost the same. If the per-user rate you're quoted is above it, Atlas AVD is cheaper today, and every user you add widens the gap, because the Atlas price doesn't move. Per-user pricing can be lighter for a very small estate. Flat pricing is built for organizations and MSPs that expect to grow.
Hydra licensing is described from its public documentation as of October 2026. We don't quote competitor prices: get a current quote for your estate and read it against the table below.
1. How each model works
Per concurrent user (Hydra). You pay for the number of users signed in at the same time, typically measured at peak. Hydra also offers a free community edition with limits on tenants, host pools, hosts and users. Concurrency licensing is fairer than named-user licensing, since shift workers who never overlap don't each cost a seat, but the bill still rises with every user you add at peak.
Flat rate (Atlas AVD). You pay one monthly price for the plan, and every AVD user in the estate is included. Unlimited technicians are included too. Adding users, session hosts or host pools doesn't change the price; only a deliberate plan change does. The current plans:
| Plan | Who it's for | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Community | Evaluation, labs and small environments | Free |
| Starter | Small internal IT teams | $199/month |
| Professional | Growing internal IT teams | $499/month |
| Enterprise | Single-company production AVD at scale | $999/month |
MSP plans follow the same model, priced by the number of tenants you manage, and they also serve organizations that run several Azure tenants of their own (Multi-Tenant 5 covers up to five); see Atlas AVD vs Hydra for MSPs.
2. Find your peak concurrency
Concurrency is the number that decides the comparison, so measure it rather than guessing.
- From Azure: AVD Insights in Azure Monitor reports connections and sessions over time. Look at the busiest hour of your busiest weekday over at least a month, not an average.
- From Atlas AVD: if you're trialing Atlas, session analytics shows concurrent sessions per host pool and across the estate.
- Plan for the peak you'll have, not the one you had. Month-end, open enrollment, seasonal staff and a new office all raise the peak. Per-concurrent-user pricing bills that peak.
3. The break-even table
Here's the per-concurrent-user monthly rate at which each Atlas AVD plan costs exactly the same. If the rate you're quoted per concurrent user is higher than the figure in the table, the Atlas plan is cheaper for that estate.
| Peak concurrent users | Break-even vs Professional ($499/mo) | Break-even vs Enterprise ($999/mo) |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | $4.99 | $9.99 |
| 250 | $2.00 | $4.00 |
| 500 | $1.00 | $2.00 |
| 1,000 | $0.50 | $1.00 |
| 2,000 | $0.25 | $0.50 |
Read it like this: at 500 peak concurrent users, any per-user rate above $2.00 a month makes Atlas AVD Enterprise the cheaper option, with Adaptive Density, Adaptive Quota and Self-Healing included. At 2,000, the line drops to $0.50.
Compare plans that match on capability, not just on price. The capabilities that matter most to you, staged image rollouts, logon analytics or an audit trail, may decide the tier before price does. The full feature breakdown is on Atlas AVD vs Hydra.
4. Why the gap widens as you grow
The table is a snapshot. The real difference is the slope.
Under per-user pricing, every new peak user adds to the bill: an acquisition, a new department, a seasonal team, a customer who doubles their headcount. Under flat pricing, the platform cost of 300 users and 1,800 users is the same until you choose to change plans. The pricing explainer works a full example from 350 to 1,800 users.
Managing a host pool is the same orchestration problem at 300 users as at 3,000. Pricing on headcount charges you more for work that hasn't changed, and it puts the vendor's revenue in tension with your growth. We'd rather earn more customers than bill each one more as it grows.
5. Costs that sit outside the license
A fair comparison counts more than the platform line:
- Azure consumption is billed by Microsoft to your own subscription under both platforms. The bigger lever on total cost is how well the platform scales hosts down. Both platforms autoscale on schedule and load; Atlas adds Adaptive Density, DrainGuard and Smart Disk Tiering. Our AVD cost guide covers the levers in detail.
- Where billing lands. A marketplace-billed license appears on your Azure invoice. Atlas AVD bills through Stripe, by card, ACH or annual invoice, as a separate software line, so your Azure spend reflects Azure.
- Optional metered modules. Atlas's End User Portal, Atlas Ink, Atlas Reach and Atlas Spool are metered by use against your plan's included units, and only for the people or devices that actually use them. They never turn the platform into a per-user license, and Atlas Resolve DNS filtering is included with Atlas Reach at no extra units.
- Technician seats. Unlimited on every Atlas plan. If a quote counts admin seats, include them.
6. Questions to ask any vendor
- Is the price per named user, per concurrent user, or flat? How and when is concurrency measured?
- What happens to my bill if my peak doubles next year?
- Are technician or admin seats extra?
- Which capabilities are in which edition, and what does the free edition limit?
- Where is the license billed, and does it draw on my Azure commitment?
- Is government cloud (GCC, GCC High) supported, and at what price? Atlas AVD runs in Azure Commercial today; GCC and GCC High are coming soon, with a waitlist open and the same pricing as Commercial.
Run your own numbers
Put your peak concurrency into the table above, then put your full estate into the AVD ROI calculator. If you're growing, or you run AVD for customers who are, the flat model is the one that keeps working in your favor. See Atlas AVD pricing or start with the free Community plan.