Key Takeaways

• Digital asset management (DAM) costs anywhere from $0/month to $200,000/year for enterprise platforms. The final number depends on what your vendor bills for.
• Vendors usually price DAM on seats or monthly active users (MAU), storage bands, feature-gated plans, or usage credits.
• Compare quotes by what the base package locks in. Users, portals for outside partners, AI search, support, permission groups, and video processing all determine how expensive the DAM gets as you scale.
• MediaValet prices a custom subscription on storage. Users and support are unlimited, and AI search is included. Bynder, Canto, and Frontify quote custom packages (Frontify counts MAU), while Air publishes credit-based plans with unlimited users.

You need DAM software for your business to manage, share, and keep all digital assets up to date. The problem is, DAM can get expensive depending on the vendor, pricing system, and the features you lock in.

Let’s address these factors and compare how much some of the best DAM software costs in 2027.

Why DAM Software Costs Are Hard to Predict

With DAM, scaling user access and asset volume often drives up costs and can introduce billing unpredictability depending on your vendor’s pricing structure. 

In short: costs scale linearly with users and proportionally with data.

In 2026, marketing budgets sit at 7.8% of company revenue, and 56% of CMOs say it won’t cover their strategy. Plus, across software, 61% of IT leaders have already cut projects because SaaS costs rose more than planned.

The last thing you want is an extra bill to strain your budget. Start by understanding how DAM vendors price their software.

Further reading: MediaValet’s guide to DAM costs breaks down the upfront and ongoing costs that sit outside it.

What Are the Pricing Models for Digital Asset Management (DAM) Solutions?

One quote can combine several of these models, so check every unit it counts before you compare totals.

Per-User and Monthly Active User (MAU) Pricing

With per-user pricing, you pay for every person with a login, and it works best when your user list is small and stable

MAU pricing only counts people who log in during a set period, so anyone who stays out that month doesn’t add to the bill. But agency partners and regional teams who may need access will push your count up. 

Frontify uses a MAU pricing model. Learn more about MediaValet vs Frontify here.

Tiered Storage Limits

Storage-based plans charge for how much you keep in the DAM. You buy a band of storage, and going past it can mean overage fees or a move to the next band.

This is the easiest model to forecast if you know how fast your library grows. Video and high-resolution files fill a band far faster than images and documents do.

So pull your last 12 months of uploads before you pick a band; that growth rate is your best forecast.

Feature-Gated Plans

Feature-gated plans put capabilities like AI tagging or single sign-on (SSO) behind higher plans. That works until one team needs a feature from the next plan up. Then the whole account upgrades, even if nobody else uses it.

Feature-gated plans can also change at renewal. For example, after SaaS inflation hit 16.4% in June 2026, vendors now use shrinkflation too, where a plan keeps its price, but a feature moves up a tier.

For DAM, get the features you need written into your contract for its full term.

Usage-Based Fees

Usage-based pricing charges for what you do in the DAM, like credits spent on AI actions or bandwidth used by shared files. It’s the hardest model to budget for. 

Cloud buyers know the feeling: 85% of organizations call managing cloud spend a top challenge.

AI features make it harder, because nobody knows how often a team will run them until they’re live. If a vendor bills this way, ask what happens when you run out. Do actions stop, or does the bill grow?

Once you know how a vendor bills, check what its base package covers.

How Do You Determine If a DAM Provider Will Have Predictable Pricing?

Compare what each quote includes before you compare the price. A cheaper quote that leaves out what you’ll need next year ends up costing more.

1. How Many Users Does the DAM Package Include?

Count everyone who’ll need the DAM over the next two years. That includes agency partners and regional marketers who only log in a few times a quarter.

Then hold that number up against the package. If the quote caps users, you’ll pay again the first time a new team asks for access. 

So build your user list early in your DAM buying process, before the first quote lands.

How Many Portals are Included in the DAM?

Portals let press and distributors grab approved assets without getting into your full library. If your brand operates in different regions, you’ll likely need more than one portal. So, find out whether branded portals come with the package or sell as add-ons.

What Search Capabilities are Included in the DAM?

You need advanced search, especially since it’s the one feature your team will use daily. It’s the last thing you’d want billed separately. 

AI tagging takes manual keywording off your team’s plate, and AI-powered metadata is what makes assets findable at scale. Some plans still sell those features as add-ons or draw them from a credit pool.

How Much DAM Support Are You Offered?

Support looks like a small line item until you roll the DAM out to a second department and need training all over again. 

Adoption depends on it too, since the first months after launch shape how people use the DAM long term. So, ask each vendor if DAM training is unlimited after go-live, and if you get a named contact.

Are Custom Permissions Included in the DAM?

User permissions decide who can see or download each asset. Every new agency or region needs its own user groups and access rules.

On some plans, extra permission groups sit on a higher tier that turns a new partnership into a plan upgrade. This is something to clarify before choosing a vendor.

Is Video Storage or Processing Included in the DAM?

If you want DAM for video management, understand that storage estimates can become a bit unpredictable. The files are large, and AI features like transcription use processing time on top of the storage.

If video is a big part of your library, get both numbers in writing. That means the storage the plan holds and the hours of video processing it includes.

Pro tip: Give every vendor the same growth scenario, like your user count and library size three years from now. Ask for a price at each year, then compare the year-three totals side by side.

Once you have those answers, put numbers on the value side with a DAM ROI calculator. Then see how the leading DAM tools for video management price against these checks.

How Do Leading DAM Tools Compare on Pricing?

Here’s how some of the best DAM platforms quote:

Further reading: For how these platforms rate on support, adoption, and ROI, see the 2026 G2 DAM Vendor Comparison Guide.

1. MediaValet

MediaValet builds a custom subscription around how much you store, and onboarding is a one-time flat fee. Everything tied to headcount is unlimited, including users and permission groups. So adding an agency or opening a new region doesn’t change your price.

In addition, every customer gets unlimited support and training and a dedicated customer success manager (CSM).

AI also comes with the platform. Smart Image Search is free for every customer, and advanced search lets your team find assets by face or color without watching a credit balance. Video-heavy teams can add Audio Visual Intelligence (AVI) to transcribe footage and search what’s said in it.

With that setup, brands find it easy to scale. For example, Monumental Sports & Entertainment runs 60 Branded Portals for its campaigns and events from one library. And 95% of MediaValet customers see ROI within one year.

How 3 Organizations Maximize Video ROI with MediaValet

See MediaValet in action.

2. Bynder

Bynder builds a custom package for each customer. Your price depends on your number of users, storage, the modules you add, and the support level you choose. This model suits teams that want to add modules over time. 

Want to learn more? Read how MediaValet and Bynder compare.

3. Canto

Canto quotes custom packages and shows four sample plans to start from: 

• Core Essentials
• DAM PLUS
• DAM for Products
• DAM PRO

Canto calls these plans illustrative, so your final package can mix features. But worth noting: DAM PLUS adds proofing, brand templates, AI search, and brand portals. It suits marketing teams that want to start from a defined use case. 

See how MediaValet and Canto compare.

4. Air

Air is the only DAM here with published prices. As of September 2026, Starter costs $25/month, and Business costs $900/month. There’s also a free tier, and Enterprise is quoted separately.

Storage and AI use draw from one monthly pool of credits, and you can buy more when you run low. This pricing suits creative teams that can predict their usage month-to-month. 

It’s worth remembering, that although Air’s sticker price seems lower upfront that most DAM systems, sticker price and total cost are not the same thing.

Compare MediaValet and Air.

5. Frontify

Frontify prices by monthly active users and reviews that number once a year. It averages usage over six months, and people who view your Frontify space without logging in don’t count. It suits brand teams with a steady number of active users. 

See how MediaValet and Frontify compare.

Get DAM Pricing That Holds Steady as You Grow With MediaValet

The DAM you pick now will hold your content for years, so its price needs to hold up too. If your user list keeps growing, start with a quote that doesn’t charge per person.

Get your custom MediaValet pricing and see what a DAM good budget looks like.