PagerDuty review

PagerDuty has the deepest feature set on this list and ranks fourth mainly on value and setup effort. The free plan covers a single team with 5 users, 1 on-call schedule, 1 escalation policy and 100 SMS or phone notifications a month. Professional costs $21 per user a month billed annually, or $25 monthly, and adds an enhanced chat experience and post-incident reviews. Many features that rivals bundle are paid add-ons here, including AIOps noise reduction, PagerDuty Advance generative AI, Runbook Automation, Status Pages and Live Call Routing. Larger buyers can move to the PD Reliability Platform, priced by platform fee rather than seat: Starter at $2,800 a year, Essential at $12,000, Plus at $48,000 and Ultimate on request, each with a pool of Signal Intelligence Events and AI Actions. PagerDuty says 70% of the Fortune 100 use it. For a 10 person team, newer chat-first tools often cost less once add-ons are counted.

Who it is for

Larger engineering organizations that want a mature pager with AIOps, automation and enterprise plans.

Price

Free plan for 5 users; Professional $21 per user per month billed annually, $25 monthly.

Professional $21 / user / mo
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 9, 2026.

Key features

• On-call schedules with custom rotation types and escalation policies
• Email, push, SMS and phone notifications
• Service directory with business and technical service dependencies
• Post-incident reviews on Professional
• Add-ons for AIOps, PagerDuty Advance, Runbook Automation, Status Pages and Live Call Routing

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free plan for up to 5 users with 1 schedule and 1 escalation policy
• Strength: Broad platform tiers from Starter to Ultimate
• Strength: Trusted by 70% of the Fortune 100, per PagerDuty
• Weakness: Status pages, AIOps and runbook automation are add-ons on Professional
• Weakness: Free plan includes only 100 SMS or phone notifications a month
• Weakness: Reliability Platform plans start at $2,800 a year

Key facts

• Free plan: Yes, 5 users
• Professional: $21 per user a month billed annually
• Platform plans: Starter $2,800, Essential $12,000, Plus $48,000 a year
• Annual discount: 16%

Where it ranks

PagerDuty is No. 4 in our Best Incident Management Software verdict.