BEFORE YOU START

Use this with the right vendor shortlist

This framework assumes you've already narrowed the field to 3-5 vendors. If not, start at the VSaaS hub for category definitions, then the best VSaaS providers for an opinionated 15-vendor ranking with country, parent, acquisition history and honest pros/cons. Come back here for the evaluation grid.

Pricing figures, ownership, acquisition dates and product behaviour cited on this page are point-in-time and drawn from public sources - see the disclaimer at the bottom of this page for sourcing, "as of" date, and how to flag corrections.

The 10 questions - jump to one

1 Is the platform open or closed on cameras?
2 Is it NDAA / country-ban compliant for the customer's vertical?
3 How transparent is the pricing?
4 How many mobile apps does the customer have to install?
5 Is AI / natural-language search in production?
6 Is it channel-only, direct-only, or mixed?
7 Does the VSaaS bundle monitoring inside the subscription?
8 How does it handle multi-site at scale?
9 Does it survive Internet outage?
10 What's the real 5-year TCO?

QUESTION 1

Is the platform open or closed on cameras?

The single most consequential question. Closed VSaaS (Verkada American, Rhombus American, Cisco Meraki MV American) locks the customer to proprietary cameras that brick without the subscription. IPVM coined "Hostage as a Service" for this pattern.

Open VSaaS (TetherX UK + AU, Eagle Eye Networks American/Brivo, Videoloft British, Camcloud Canadian, Milestone Arcules Danish/Canon) takes any ONVIF camera and 200-700+ named manufacturers. Existing cameras stay. Camera-brand decisions remain the integrator's.

Score: open = +2, hybrid open-with-preferred-brand = +1, closed = 0.

QUESTION 2

Is it NDAA / country-ban compliant for the customer's vertical?

US NDAA Section 889 bans federal-adjacent buyers from using video surveillance from Hikvision (Chinese), Dahua (Chinese), Huawei, Hytera, ZTE - plus any kit using Huawei HiSilicon SoCs as a substantial component. Maintenance counts. Foreign offices count. Canadian federal ban now official 2025; UK MoD + government-site restrictions; AU federal sites instructed to remove 2023; Netherlands, Taiwan, EU NIS2 referenced.

For the VSaaS platform, ask: is the vendor on the SIA NDAA-compliant list? For the cameras, ask: which manufacturers does the platform support that are NDAA-compliant - Hanwha Vision (South Korean), Axis Communications (Swedish, Canon-owned), Avigilon (Canadian, Motorola), Pelco (American, Motorola), Bosch (German), i-PRO (Japanese), VIVOTEK (Taiwanese), Mobotix (German)?

TetherX handles the migration via ringfencing - existing Hikvision/Dahua cameras stay behind a TetherBox so they never touch the public Internet, then phase replacement over 12-36 months. Full detail: NDAA compliance and ringfencing.

QUESTION 3

How transparent is the pricing?

Per the IPVM 2026 pricing-transparency analysis, only Videoloft (British) and Rhombus (American) publish full per-camera / per-retention price matrices. Eagle Eye Networks (American, Brivo) publishes tiers but specifics need a quote. Verkada (American) publishes ranges only. Milestone Arcules (Danish, Canon), Spot AI (American), Cloudastructure (American), YourSix (American), TetherX (UK + AU) are all quote-only through channel.

Quote-only isn't automatically bad - channel-only vendors price by deal context - but it makes benchmarking harder. Ask for: per-camera per-month effective cost at the target retention and resolution; total 5-year cost including hardware, licences, subscription and any maintenance fees; what gets billed extra (LPR, AI, storage tiers, integration modules).

QUESTION 4

How many mobile apps does the customer have to install?

Verkada has five apps (Command, Pass, Events, Mailroom, Verkada Air). Eagle Eye has three (Viewer, Smartphone Camera, CameraManager). Rhombus has two (Rhombus + Rhombus Key). Milestone post-Arcules-merger has up to four UX surfaces (XProtect Smart Client + Milestone Mobile + Arcules console + BriefCam). Netvue (Chinese consumer) has three.

Single-app experience is a real differentiator. End-users install the wrong app, can't find features, lose patience. Per the IPVM home-use thread on smartphone-alert quality: "Almost every residential customer concerned with mobile apps and notifications gravitates toward consumer companies like Vivint, Arlo, and Nest" - commercial VSaaS has lost prosumer SMB on the one feature buyers care about most. Single-app + push parity with consumer apps is the bar.

QUESTION 5

Is AI / natural-language search in production?

The 2025-26 VSaaS feature war is GenAI / natural-language search ("show me people in red jackets near the loading dock between 2-4pm"). Production today: Verkada (American), Rhombus (American, ChatGPT-powered 2025), Spot AI (American), Eagle Eye Networks (American), Coram AI (American), Hakimo, March Networks (Canadian - Delta-owned since Dec 2021; AI Smart Search uses snapshot-sampling GenAI for natural-language + image + voice prompts; absorbing VIVOTEK branded business April 2026), Genetec (Canadian, NLP added September 2025), Lumana, Conntour, VisionPlatform.ai.

Not yet in production: Videoloft (British), Camcloud (Canadian), Milestone Arcules (Danish, Canon - BriefCam integration maturing), TetherX (UK + AU - shipping 2026), HikCentral (Chinese), Bosch BVMS (German), Senstar Symphony (Canadian), VIVOTEK VAST / VORTEX (Taiwanese).

If the customer's workflow leans heavily on retrospective video search (loss prevention, incident reconstruction), AI is a 2026 must-have. If the workflow is operational (live monitoring, alerts), AI is a nice-to-have.

QUESTION 6

Is it channel-only, direct-only, or mixed?

Channel posture determines who owns the customer relationship. Channel-only: TetherX (UK + AU), Videoloft (British), Camcloud (Canadian). Channel-led with direct: Genetec (Canadian, certified-only), Milestone (Danish, Canon), Eagle Eye Networks (American, Brivo - large channel + some direct), Hanwha (South Korean), Axis (Swedish, Canon). Direct-heavy: Verkada (American - integrators report "they will sell around the installer"), Rhombus (American), Spot AI (American), Coram AI (American), Cloudastructure (American). Direct + Amazon: Netvue (Chinese consumer), consumer cloud cameras.

For an integrator-led deal, channel-only or channel-led vendors protect the customer relationship and the recurring revenue. Direct-only vendors put the integrator at risk of disintermediation.

QUESTION 7

Does the VSaaS bundle monitoring inside the subscription?

True PSaaS (YourSix American, Cloudastructure American, post-merger Brivo+EEN bundle, Verkada Command monitoring) includes the central-station service inside the subscription. For an integrator who runs a UL-listed SOC or has an ARC relationship (Immix British, Sentinel American, CONXTD British, MASterMind British, Bold Patriot Manitou American, Stages American), bundled monitoring competes with the integrator's recurring revenue line.

VSaaS-with-multi-system-integration (TetherX) leaves the SOC layer to the integrator - cameras + alarms + access in the platform, monitoring is the integrator's service. Cleaner for the channel.

QUESTION 8

How does it handle multi-site at scale?

One cloud console for unlimited sites is the table-stakes VSaaS promise. The implementation details matter: per-site setup time, single sign-on across sites, user / role hierarchy that maps to multi-tenant integrator-of-integrators structures, cross-site search, cross-site export with chain-of-custody.

On-prem VMS multi-site is structurally awful - N firewalls, N VPN tunnels, N port-forward configurations, N firmware-upgrade visits. Cloud VSaaS is built for it.

Stress-test the demo with a 20-site portfolio in mind - does the integrator-admin console scale to that without becoming a wall of buttons? Verkada and Rhombus admin consoles get noisy fast above ~50 sites.

QUESTION 9

Does it survive Internet outage?

Pure cloud VSaaS (Verkada American, Rhombus American direct mode) fails badly when the customer's Internet drops. Cameras with on-board SD storage buffer locally and sync when the link returns, but live remote viewing is gone.

Hybrid edge + cloud architecture (TetherX with TetherBox, Eagle Eye Networks Bridge American/Brivo, Milestone Arcules Gateway Danish/Canon) records continuously to the on-site appliance regardless of WAN status, and syncs to the cloud opportunistically. The same architecture also handles the "no inbound ports" corporate-IT mandate post-ransomware.

For retail, hospitality, multi-site commercial - where Internet outage is a weekly occurrence at some site somewhere - hybrid is the operational default. For single-site, well-connected corporate offices, pure cloud is fine.

QUESTION 10

What's the real 5-year TCO?

The on-premise VMS line item that buyers most often miss is the Software Assurance / Care Plus / SMA at 18-25% per year - five years = 100-125% of the original licence again. Plus Windows Server hardware refresh, MS SQL CAL costs, separately-licensed analytics modules, stranded licences when sites shrink, engineer truck-rolls for upgrades.

The cloud VSaaS line item buyers most often miss is the storage tier escalation - long-retention sites can cost 3-5x the headline per-camera price (especially Eagle Eye Networks American 911-ready storage tiers, Verkada American long-retention licences).

Build the 5-year model with: (a) hardware capex (cameras + on-site appliance + storage), (b) subscription / licence year 1-5, (c) maintenance / SMA year 1-5, (d) bandwidth (cloud uploads metered against site Internet plan), (e) integrator time (configuration + reconfigurations + version-upgrade visits), (f) end-of-life or refresh assumptions for hardware.

For 50-500 camera mid-market customers, cloud VSaaS usually beats on-premise VMS. For 1,000+ cameras at one site, on-prem (Genetec Security Center Canadian, Bosch BVMS German, Milestone XProtect Corporate Danish) often still wins. See VMS vs VSaaS for the worked example.

FAQ

Buyer's guide FAQ

Multi-site mid-market integrator: TetherX (UK + AU) or Eagle Eye Networks (American, Brivo). Single-vendor closed bundle for a US K-12 or campus: Verkada (American) or Rhombus (American). UK SMB video-only retrofit: Videoloft (British). Existing Milestone customer adding cloud: Milestone Arcules (Danish, Canon). US Axis-camera customer + bundled monitoring: YourSix (American). 1,000+ camera airport / transit on-prem mandate: Genetec Security Center (Canadian) or Bosch BVMS (German). Critical-infra PIDS-led deal: Senstar Symphony (Canadian). See best VSaaS providers for the full matrix.

Picking a closed VSaaS (Verkada, Rhombus, Cisco Meraki MV - all American) without realising the cameras stop working entirely without an active subscription, and the only path out is rip-and-replace. IPVM has been calling this "Hostage as a Service" for years. Five years later when budget tightens or the customer wants to negotiate, the leverage is entirely the vendor's.

Second biggest mistake: ignoring NDAA + country-ban exposure on Hikvision / Dahua, then losing a federal-adjacent contract because the procurement form caught it. Migration off NDAA-banned VMS is the slow + expensive part of getting compliant - see NDAA compliance and ringfencing.

You don't fight the existing on-prem VMS - you sit alongside it. Run TetherX cloud at one or two sites for 30 days. Show the customer (and the integrator) the operational difference: no port-forward, no Windows Server, no SMA renewal, no engineer truck-roll for the next version upgrade. The math wins itself by month 3.

For Hikvision / Dahua specifically, the NDAA + country-ban story does the work. Canadian federal ban now official 2025. UK and AU restricting on government sites. Integrators picking new platforms in 2026 are pricing in regulatory risk on Chinese-mfr kit.

Yes. Cameras never touch the public Internet directly. The TetherBox is the only thing that talks to TetherX cloud, over an outbound-only encrypted tunnel. Two paths to the same architecture: TetherBox software running on an existing server or PC already at the site (when there's spare capacity), or a dedicated TetherBox unit from the hardware range (compact in-vehicle and lamp-post models through to rackmount servers for sites recording hundreds of cameras with long local retention).

Yes. 30-day free trial through an integrator partner with a TetherBox, full platform access, and a dedicated onboarding contact. Run TetherX at one site alongside the existing VMS for 30 days, extend if you need more time. No card, no commitment.

Definitional: VSaaS hub. Vendor matrix: best VSaaS providers. Comparison hub: vendor comparison hub. Category comparisons: VMS vs VSaaS, VSaaS vs NVR. Compliance: NDAA compliance and ringfencing. Or jump straight to 30-day free trial.

Working through this with a specific deal? Read the best VSaaS providers or jump to the vendor comparison hub.

Read the full FAQ

Score TetherX against the framework

30-day trial through an integrator partner. Run TetherX alongside the existing VMS at one site. Take the 10 questions to evaluation. Extensions on request.

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About this comparison. Information about other vendors is drawn from their public product pages, datasheets, integrator forums (Reddit, vendor user groups), public CVE databases (NVD, CISA) and customer conversations - accurate to the best of our knowledge as of Q2 2026. Pricing, features, security posture and policies change. A vendor may have shipped a fix, dropped a price, added a region or changed an architecture since this page was last reviewed.

If you believe anything here is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us and we will review and correct it. Trademarks and product names belong to their respective owners and are referenced here for identification only.