Do you want to know what Google’s reCAPTCHA pricing looks like? Then you also need to know what features you get from Google for your money. Because the pricing model and the associated services are being critically scrutinized by website owners and programmers.
If you are looking for an alternative to reCAPTCHA to reduce prices and improve user privacy, then Friendly Captcha is the solution. With Friendly Captcha, users don’t have to mark bicycles or traffic lights on images and no cookies are set; at the same time, Friendly Captcha protects your data and makes your website secure.
In the following article, we compare the enterprise offerings of reCAPTCHA and Friendly Captcha.
What is reCAPTCHA Enterprise?
I’m not a robot – everyone has come into contact with Google reCAPTCHA at some point. In recent years, Google has become the top dog when it comes to bot protection. Using a checkbox or an image recognition task, the user is supposed to take action directly on the website to verify their human identity.
According to Google, reCAPTCHA v3 is designed to be invisible in the paid Enterprise version. Once the system suspects the user, a fallback solution with a manual user task like Google reCAPTCHA v2 must be used. With reCAPTCHA v2, the CAPTCHA is no longer invisible, but the user has to solve an image recognition task again. Unfortunately, this happens on a regular basis.
reCAPTCHA Enterprise Pricing – a sample calculation
A critical review of various CAPTCHA tools and the prices of reCAPTCHA is essential. Especially for companies with a high number of CAPTCHAs, the costs are correspondingly high.
reCAPTCHA is free to protect the website up to 10,000 hits. If this limit is exceeded, the Enterprise plan incurs costs of $1 per 1,000 hits per month.
With reCAPTCHA v3, you could protect up to one million requests in the free tier until April 2024. After a price increase in April 2024, Google introduced new reCAPTCHA Lite and reCAPTCHA Standard plans. reCAPTCHA Lite includes free spam and bot protection for 10,000 requests. The reCAPTCHA Standard plan is $8 per 1,000 requests per month for up to 100,000 requests. The reCAPTCHA Standard plan is followed by the reCAPTCHA Enterprise plan for more than 100,000 requests.
However, it is not clear in the Google price overview whether the various APIs will incur an additional $1 per 1,000 calls in addition to assessments.create for API calls such as password.check, siteverify and token verification. If this is the case, then there would be additional costs. It is also unclear how reCAPTCHA evaluates failed verifications. If reCAPTCHA is used for fraud prevention, then a monthly fee of $1 per 1,000 calls will be incurred from 2,001 calls. Good to know: With a passed password check and a check itself, two views are always counted by reCAPTCHA.
Basic support for onboarding is included with the reCAPTCHA Enterprise paid plans. There are also additional monthly fees for direct online support ($500 plus 3% of monthly costs) or dedicated technical support ($12,500 plus 4% of monthly costs).
The following sample calculation compares the pricing of reCAPTCHA for the thresholds of 50,000, 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 calls per month:
| reCAPTCHA Enterprise without support | reCAPTCHA Enterprise + online support | reCAPTCHA Enterprise + personal support | |
|---|---|---|---|
Review of the services and prices of reCAPTCHA
The price, support and data protection – there are countless things to consider in the decision-making process when using reCAPTCHA. We will look at these in the next section:
reCAPTCHA Pricing – financially noticeable for larger customers
As shown above, Google’s bot protection and fraud management features come at a price, especially when the support packages are also taken into account. Although the solution can be used free of charge for up to one million hits, larger companies will have to pay $1 for 1,000 requests on the Enterprise plan. For this price, the package is not clearly transparent for Enterprise customers: It is not clear in the Google pricing overview whether, in addition to assesments.create, another $1 per 1,000 calls is added for the API calls such as password.check, siteverify and token verification.
In addition, support is not specified in the reCAPTCHA pricing. All customers who want personal support in the form of online support or with a direct contact person must book additional support packages.
Google Support – an underestimated cost factor
For support requests beyond the initial CAPTCHA implementation, an additional support package must be purchased from Google. The reCAPTCHA Enterprise plan only includes onboarding support for standard questions. For more in-depth questions, customers can only access a community forum. Here, other users answer the questions, but this does not constitute official support.
As mentioned in the pricing, a direct line to the support team can also be purchased. Technical support that goes beyond the first steps with reCAPTCHA v3 costs $500 / month plus 3% of the monthly fees. Enterprise customers receive online support for production workloads. Only the Premium package provides customers with context-sensitive support and a personal technical account manager. This support plan is priced at $12,500 plus 4% of monthly fees.
As an American company, customer support for all reCAPTCHA customers is in English only. Only with the add-on, extended or premium package will website owners be helped in Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin) and Korean in addition to English.
Data protection with reCAPTCHA – critical from a GDPR perspective
In connection with the prices of reCAPTCHA, too little attention is often paid to one topic, namely data protection. Google collects and analyzes data. By setting cookies by the CAPTCHA and storing extensive user data, data protection concerns with Google are inevitable in this case. Compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a particular focus here.
With reCAPTCHA, however, the user data not only includes technical information such as IP address, user agent, or location data, but also personal data such as previously visited websites, browsing history and interactions with other websites. And it is precisely this collection of personal data that is contrary to the GDPR if it takes place without the clear consent of the user. Without such a basis, its use should be viewed critically by website operators.
Friendly Captcha: the reCAPTCHA alternative at a glance
So what can website operators do if they are dissatisfied with reCAPTCHA pricing after the price increase? To save costs, you can consider switching to other CAPTCHA solutions like hCaptcha or Friendly Captcha. Friendly Captcha solution is a suitable alternative to reCAPTCHA.
As an innovation driver in the field of website security, at Friendly Captcha we have developed a modern spam or bot detection service, and at the same time take user data protection seriously. Based on proof-of-work technology, Friendly Captcha uses a combination of cryptographic puzzles and modern risk signals, while fully protecting privacy and security at all times.
As an invisible solution, the Friendly Captcha check always runs in the background. In the spirit of barrier-free access to websites, the user’s end device solves the cryptographic puzzle in the background. There is no need for user friction, while marking and recognizing traffic lights or crosswalks. The difficulty of the puzzle is scaled depending on advanced risk signals received by the CAPTCHA. This allows website operators to block their site against risky actors or bots. At the same time, Friendly Captcha is GDPR-compliant; the user’s prior consent is not required.
Friendly Captcha Enterprise Pricing – transparent and fair
In contrast to reCAPTCHA, Friendly Captcha offers transparent and fair pricing, with no hidden costs or unclear pricing structures, as with Google. With Friendly Captcha’s various volume plans, the costs for our customers can be clearly planned with a fixed monthly amount. Personal technical support is included.
Friendly Captcha’s starter plan is $9 per month. In addition to a protected domain, up to 1,000 requests per month are secured here. For up to 5,000 requests per month, the Growth package costs $39 for five protected domains. And for $200, companies or organizations receive the data-friendly protection of up to 50,000 requests/month for up to 50 domains. For Friendly Captcha’s Enterprise plans, a fixed monthly fee is agreed with the customer, which is a cost-effective alternative to reCAPTCHA, especially for high request volumes. Our solution scores points with extended functions for security, compliance, support and scalability. A check and validation are also counted together as one call in the billing. Contact our team for a non-binding price inquiry.
reCAPTCHA pricing compared with Friendly Captcha
Now we compare: price, support and data protection. How do the above points compare with Friendly Captcha? Finally, there are additional benefits that clearly set Friendly Captcha apart from reCAPTCHA.
| Friendly Captcha incl. online support | reCAPTCHA + online support | reCAPTCHA + personal support | |
|---|---|---|---|
Friendly Captcha Pricing – matching price-performance ratio
We have shown above how Friendly Captcha’s pricing model is structured. The advantage for large customers is obvious: with more than 50,000 views per month, they can get an Enterprise plan with better pricing earlier than the reCAPTCHA Standard plan. Our Enterprise customers secure an agreed number of domains and requests with their individual plan.
Personal support from Friendly Captcha staff is included in all Enterprise plans. You expect more services from your CAPTCHA and the costs are too high or too opaque for you after the price increase of reCAPTCHA? Contact our team and receive a non-binding quote for Friendly Captcha Enterprise.
Friendly Support – direct and easy to reach
What distinguishes Friendly Captcha’s support? In contrast to reCAPTCHA, Friendly Captcha customers do not have to purchase any additional support packages. Good contact with our customers, direct feedback and fast support in all situations are an important part of our corporate culture. Our technically skilled support staff are professionals in their field and usually answer your support requests in the shortest possible time. Friendly Captcha Enterprise customers receive technical support with personal contact persons.
Data protection at Friendly Captcha – GDPR-compliant from the ground up
Simply out of principle: Friendly Captcha stands behind the GDPR and is committed to protecting user data. That’s exactly why we developed the GDPR-compliant CAPTCHA solution. We know the privacy of our users and protect it with our software. Friendly Captcha does not store any personal user data; the legal provisions of the GDPR, CCPA, LGPD or PIPL are complied with.
This is in contrast to reCAPTCHA. Many data protection experts are critical of Google’s various services. When reCAPTCHA is used, personal data for example such as the IP address of the website visitor, mouse movements or installed browser plugins are collected and stored. In addition, cookies are typically used by Google to carry out the CAPTCHA challenge.
UX and accessibility – further advantages of Friendly Captcha
Whether in pricing, support or data protection, Friendly Captcha can compete with reCAPTCHA. Two additional added values are the positive user experience (UX) and accessibility. With the automated CAPTCHA solution, the entire check takes place unobtrusively in the background.
Anyone who has laboriously and time consuming marked hydrants, bicycles or traffic lights in a picture puzzle knows the importance of user-friendly websites. As an invisible CAPTCHA, users do not notice that they are being checked while filling out a form like contact forms, login pages or checkout processes. Security for website operators therefore no longer necessarily has to come at the expense of users.
The same applies to accessibility. Users with disabilities must not be excluded from online platforms. Friendly Captcha ensures complete CAPTCHA accessibility. Users no longer need to mark images; the end device performs this check in secret.
From reCAPTCHA to Friendly Captcha – why the switch is worth it
In our article, we examined in detail how the pricing of reCAPTCHA compares to Friendly Captcha. And the results leave no doubt: as a website operator, it’s worth thinking about which solution and which plan best suits your needs in order to save budget and achieve a good price-performance ratio.
For a long time, reCAPTCHA was considered the standard solution for many websites. It is time to break new ground and allow innovation. Friendly Captcha stands out here with its affordable, transparent prices, included support, data protection compliance and accessibility for users. Price alone is not everything – what matters is a convincing overall package that reliably and securely protects websites from bots and spam.
Contact our team now to secure powerful bot protection with Friendly Captcha.
FAQ
There are alternatives to Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise that offer a better price-performance ratio AND perform better after the price increase. To easily switch as a website owner, first create a free trial account. We will show you how to switch from reCAPTCHA Enterprise to Friendly Captcha in our blog.
For small websites with non-commercial use and for NGOs, reCAPTCHA offers free access to their bot protection. As companies grow in size, the service plans and therefore the costs increase. For enterprise customers in particular, it is therefore often worth comparing with other providers such as Friendly Captcha.
