Ring Video Doorbell Camera Cost and Pricing

• Ring doorbells are affordable. Prices start at $64.99.
• Wired or wireless, Ring doorbells are a breeze to install.
• The Ring Video Doorbell Pro is one of Ring’s highest rated doorbells. Read our Ring Video Doorbell Pro review to see why.

If Ring’s appearance on Shark Tank in 2013 rings any bells, pun intended, then you’ll also know that the company was originally called Doorbot. Five years and a name change later, Amazon purchased Ring for over a billion dollars1, and from there, the humble beginnings of a five-person team2 grew into one of the most renowned smart security brands in the industry.

Ring’s original doorbell, the Ring Video Doorbell, has been spun, improved, and released as a new product several times over the years. Today, Ring has a line of eight different video doorbells, ranging from the simple and affordable Ring Video Doorbell Wired to the flush-mounted and pro-installed Ring Elite.

On this page, we’ll save you the trouble of browsing Ring’s extensive list of products by covering everything there is to know about Ring’s video doorbells — from features we enjoyed to how they compare to industry standards and more.

A Worthy Opponent

Market growth for home video doorbells is projected to reach $1.4 billion in 20233 which means more competition among top brands and new ones to come. To see how Ring fared against other competitors, we compared Ring to Nest, which is owned by Google, a battle for the ages.

The most apparent difference between Ring and Nest is that Nest offers only two video doorbells, the Google Nest Doorbell (wired) and Google Nest Doorbell (battery). Ring, as we mentioned earlier, has eight different doorbell variations, and some of them have niche features. For example, the Peephole Cam goes over the peephole instead of on the door frame or side of the door like most video doorbells do.

Ring’s monthly subscription plans are among the most affordable that we’ve ever seen. Ring Protect Basic costs $3 a month or $30 a year, Plus costs $10 per month or $100 a year, and Pro costs $20 a month or $200 a year.

When we looked at Nest’s second-generation subscription plans, they were a little more expensive — Nest Aware costs $6 per month and Nest Aware Plus costs $12 per month. For all three of Ring’s plans, 60-day video history is included while only the Nest Aware Plus includes 60-day video history. We’d be paying $9 extra for the same amount of video history as Ring’s basic plan if we went with Nest Aware Plus.

We should note that Nest’s second-generation subscription plans now cover all cameras while Ring’s basic plan only covers one device. Still, if you’re like us, we prefer accessing our video history for up to 60 days. So while we signed up for the Ring Protect Plus, we feel more inclined to recommend Ring Protect Basic if you only have one Ring Video Doorbell and value the 60-day video history.

The Price to Pay for Equipment

We briefly touched on equipment pricing for a few Ring Video Doorbells, but here’s where we can go all out. The most affordable Ring Video Doorbell, the wired video doorbell, costs $59.99 while the most expensive is the Elite at $349.99. Considering all the video doorbells in between, we felt that the price points were fair. The chart below provides a snapshot of the equipment pricing, as well as monthly payments through Affirm,4 for all Ring Video Doorbells:

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the prices and features across all Ring Video Doorbells:

Ring Doorbell Comparison

Looking for more information on how well each video doorbell works? Check out our reviews of the individual doorbells, specifically the Ring Peephole Cam, Ring Video Doorbell 2, the Ring Video Doorbell 3, the Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus.

The Price to Pay for Monitoring and Storage

Since we purchased every single Ring Video Doorbell, we wanted to choose a monthly subscription plan that not only covered all our devices but also didn’t break our bank into the ground.

As we mentioned previously, Ring Protect offers three plans: Basic, Plus, and Pro. We opted for the Plus because it covered all of our Ring Video Doorbells. If you also have the Ring Alarm security system we reviewed or the Ring Alarm Pro, the Ring Protect Pro ($20 per month) is another great option because it includes 24/7 monitoring of the systems, plus the same features as the Plus plan.

The Basic plan, on the other hand, provides cloud storage for one camera only. If you’re new to Ring, we recommend it as an affordable option. But, if you decide to buy more Ring cameras, we suggest upgrading to the Plus plan instead of adding Basic to every single camera.

Ring Monitoring Plans

Storage

What’s better than accessing our video history and seeing clips of first-time visitors at our apartment or our neighbor’s golden retriever poking his nose in front of our Ring Video Doorbells? Nothing, because without this feature, we wouldn’t be able to look back at these moments and save them on a hard drive to revisit them later.

When we tested the Ring doorbells, we could only rely on Ring’s cloud storage, which we could then manually download onto our local storage devices. All three Ring Protect plans include up to 60 days of video history, so even if we wanted to downgrade our plan from Pro to Basic, we’d still receive the same amount of storage.

Free storage only exists through Ring Protect’s 30-day free trial, which was included with each video doorbell. We love free stuff, but considering how affordable Ring Protect plans are, we kept the complaining to a minimum. However, note that after this trial ended, we didn’t get any cloud storage until we officially signed up for a paid plan.

While Ring still does not have a local storage option at the moment, it will have one soon. We don’t know exactly when, but we’re hoping before 2021 ends. Local storage for Ring cameras, otherwise known as Ring Edge, will come as a feature of the new Ring Alarm Pro base station. With a micro-SD card plugged into the base station, Ring cameras will be able to store videos locally. However, there’s a catch: you’ll still need a subscription to Ring Protect Pro, $20 a month, to use Ring Edge. So whether you choose local or cloud storage, there is a fee.

Favorite Features

With so many Ring Video Doorbells to choose from, we pinpointed the features that we loved across the board:

• Video doorbells for everyone: One glance at Ring’s video doorbells was all it took for us to feel overwhelmed — at first. After familiarizing ourselves with each video doorbell, we were able to pick out features and price points that suited different types of homeowners. Sure, the broad range of options is intimidating, but earlier generations of the video doorbells would appeal to those on a budget while the tech-obsessed would enjoy the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Elite devices.
• Hardwired or wireless options with battery packs: While we’re Team Wireless all the way, we know that there are plenty of Team Hardwired folks out there who prefer the secure connection. Ring gave us the option to choose either or, and while not every video doorbell could go wireless, we were happy with the options regardless. This made our setup process run faster than if we had to hardwire every single Ring video doorbell.

• Artificial intelligence with Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Elite: Like human life, technology evolves and becomes more intelligent as time goes on thanks to Ring’s hard-working engineers. With smart home security systems, we take a shine to products that implement artificial intelligence, which was the case for the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Elite devices. We liked that they identified people from moving objects like cars or animals, which prevented false notifications.
• Affordable monthly subscriptions: Compared to other home security brands, we found that Ring’s monthly subscription costs are pretty tame. Unlike their product list that has many options, Ring offers only three plans: Basic, Plus, and Pro, and they cost $3, $10, and $20 per month, respectively.
• Smart home integrations aplenty: Amazon owns Ring, so it goes without saying that we were able to control our Ring Video Doorbells by issuing commands to Alexa on our Echo Show 8 without lifting a finger. For example, we said, “Alexa, answer the side door,” and a live stream of our side door appeared on our Echo Show in seconds. We were also pleasantly surprised to find that Ring pairs with Google Assistant, as well as a handful of third-party devices.

Pairing Ring With Smart Home Integrations

It’s hard to imagine how our life was before smart home automation. Almost every nook and cranny in our apartment has some type of smart home device, and with our Ring video doorbells, we wasted no time integrating them. Shocking no one, we spoke commands to Alexa to control our Ring video doorbells. We also tested out controlling our Ring video doorbells using Google Assistant and connecting them to a few third-party brands such as Dome and Schlage, but let’s get to the voice assistants first:

Alexa

• When our hands were full, we relied on Alexa to either help us answer the front and side doors of our apartment or show us a live stream on our Echo Show. Examples of commands we issued were “Alexa, stop the front door camera” or “Alexa, show me the most recent activity from the side door.”Admittedly, there were times when we were too lazy to reach for our phones and access the Ring mobile app, so Alexa was super helpful in this regard. There was even an instance when one of us was stuck in bed with the flu, and when someone appeared at our front door, we simply told Alexa to answer before we stepped in to communicate with the visitor through Ring Video Doorbells’ two-way audio feature.In short, there was little to no effort on our part, and that’s just how we like it!

Google Assistant

• We noticed that there were fewer capabilities with Google Assistant, but it still got the job done. We said things like, “Hey Google, talk to Ring about starting a new recording” and “Ok Google, talk to Ring about the health of my devices.” Like Alexa and our Echo Show, we were able to view the live stream on our Nest Hub, even though Chromecast compatibility would’ve been our preferred choice so we could view the footage from our TV.

As for other third-party smart home devices that we integrated with our Ring video doorbells, we had a Schlage Encode Smart WiFi Deadbolt installed on our side door and a Dome Siren in our apartment. When a friend came to visit, we accessed the Ring mobile app and unlocked the Schlage Deadbolt without appearing at the door all from the Ring app, like a magic trick. Our friend knows about our smart home obsession, so they weren’t stunned or amazed by the door unlocking itself.

As for the Dome Siren, our grandparents stayed over for one week and both are hard of hearing. Whenever the Ring Video Doorbell Elite detected someone at the door, the siren would go off, letting them know that there was a visitor (or an intruder but thankfully, that was not the case).

Other third-party brands that are compatible with Ring include:

• Z-Wave
• Yale Locks
• Kwikset
• GE
• Leviton
• Ecolink
• Philips Hue
• IFTTT
• Brilliant

In Sum

At last, we come to the end. With seven Ring Video Doorbells, we were able to try out different features without feeling bored over the course of testing. Most of the video doorbells could be powered by batteries instead of hardwiring them into our existing doorbell set up, so our installation process ran a lot faster and without any migraines. Also, Ring Protect plans offer some of the lowest monthly rates that we have seen from security brands — with a whole lot of goodies packed into them.

Our only wish was for the Ring video doorbells that aren’t the Pro and Elite to include artificial intelligence like person detection. That way, we would save ourselves from going crazy over false notifications.

Granted, what we paid for was what we got, even though we paid for seven video doorbells overall; the monthly fees were low enough to make it worth our while, and the individual doorbell prices weren’t bad. In conclusion? There’s something for everyone with Ring’s affordable, flexible, and easy to install doorbell cameras, especially if you get a Ring Prime Day deal or a Ring Black Friday deal.