← All posts · July 4, 2026 · By Brian Vitko

The free tier with a trapdoor (and the one with a ramp)

Let me open by losing an argument.

Action1’s free tier is 200 endpoints, full-featured. RFF’s free tier is 100 endpoints, also full-featured - every feature, no gate, patch automation and all. Side by side on a spec sheet, Action1 wins the number that’s easy to compare: twice the endpoints. If your fleet is going to stay under 200 forever, Action1’s free tier is genuinely one of the best deals in this space and you should consider it.

Now let’s talk about the part that isn’t on the spec sheet: what happens when you grow.

Endpoint 201

Here’s the thing about crossing Action1’s free line. You don’t pay for one more endpoint. You transition to a paid contract for all of them.

From their own pricing page and the public analyses of it, as of July 2026: the Growth tier runs about $4 per endpoint per month, billed annually, plus a mandatory support fee - and I can’t tell you what the support fee costs, because the amount isn’t published anywhere. Volume discounts exist but are also undisclosed. Above 1,000 endpoints it’s “contact sales” entirely.

Do the arithmetic on the day endpoint 201 shows up:

• 201 endpoints × $4/month = ~$804/month
• Billed annually, so the actual commitment is ~$9,650/year, plus that support fee
• To see your real number, you’re on a call with sales

That’s not a price increase. That’s a trapdoor. The free tier’s job was to grow your fleet inside it, and the moment you outgrow it, the floor opens and you land in an annual contract at a price you couldn’t see in advance.

Endpoint 101

Here’s the same moment on RFF.

You cross 100 endpoints, and the upgrade is Starter: $149/month. Monthly billing, self-serve card, cancel anytime. It includes your first 100 endpoints and then $2.00 per endpoint above that, with no cap. Every number in that sentence is on the pricing page - no call, no quote, no fee I’m not telling you about.

Same growth story, both platforms:

(Action1 numbers are their published $4/endpoint Growth rate; the support fee is extra and unpublished. Volume discounts may bring their number down - you’d have to ask, which is rather the point.)

Why free tiers work this way

I don’t think Action1 is doing anything evil. The generous-free-tier-into-enterprise-contract funnel is a completely standard SaaS play: the free tier is marketing spend, and the conversion event is designed to be big because that’s where the spend gets recouped. It works. It’s just a model where the vendor’s best outcome is you not thinking about the exit price until you’re standing on it.

My model is different because my situation is different. I’m one person building the fast Windows RMM I always wished I had, and I can’t fund a 200-endpoint giveaway with enterprise contract revenue I don’t have. So the free tier is smaller, and the paid tier starts at a number a manager can approve without a meeting: $149, monthly, walk away whenever.

What my free tier doesn’t do (saying it out loud)

Fair’s fair - here’s my gate, stated as plainly as their cliff. RFF’s free tier gates scale, not features: 100 endpoints, a 60-second poll cadence instead of Starter’s 20, two hours of remote desktop a month, and 5 GB of package storage. Every feature is included - Patch Tuesday automation, vulnerability scanning, unattended remote desktop, the self-service catalog, all of it. The wedge is the endpoint cap, that’s how the lights stay on, and you know the exact number going in - it’s the same clarity I’m asking Action1 for on their support fee.

(Updated July 31, 2026: when this post first ran, Patch Tuesday automation and vulnerability scanning were paid features. They aren’t anymore - every feature now ships on every tier, and the free gate is purely scale. Holding myself to the update promise below.)

The question to ask any free tier

Before you build your patching workflow on anyone’s free tier - mine included - ask one question:

“What does endpoint N+1 cost me, and can I see that number right now without talking to a human?”

If the answer is a page with a dollar amount on it, you’re on a ramp. If the answer is a quote form, you’re standing on a trapdoor. It’ll hold your weight for a long time. Just know it’s there.

Numbers in this post are from Action1’s public pricing page and third-party pricing analyses as of July 2026, and from RFF’s pricing page (which I can vouch for). If Action1 publishes the support fee or their pricing changes, I’ll happily update the table - transparency complaints only work if you hold yourself to them.