How much does Kepware cost? It is one of the most common questions we hear from engineers evaluating industrial connectivity software in Southeast Asia. The short answer: it depends on which protocols you need and how you want to license them. Kepware uses a suite-based licensing model where cost is driven by the mix of communication drivers your plant requires — not by tag count, connection count, or throughput. A single-protocol deployment can be budgeted in the low hundreds of dollars per year; a fully loaded multi-vendor enterprise installation runs into the thousands.
This guide breaks down exactly how KEPServerEX (recently rebranded to Kepware Server on PTC’s website, though the industrial automation community still overwhelmingly uses the KEPServerEX name) is priced, what options are available, and how to get a sized quotation for your specific deployment in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, or anywhere in Southeast Asia. For background on what Kepware does and why it matters, see our complete guide to Kepware industrial connectivity.
Kepware offers two ways to license KEPServerEX. Both give you the same software with the same features — the difference is how you pay and how long you retain the right to use it.
A perpetual licence is a one-time purchase. You pay once for the software and keep the right to run it indefinitely. The purchase includes an initial one-year Support agreement (software updates, security patches, and access to Kepware’s technical support team). At the end of the first year, you can renew support annually or let it lapse. If you let support lapse, you keep the version you have — it continues to run and connect to your devices — but you no longer receive driver updates or security patches.
Perpetual licensing is the traditional model and is still the most popular choice for plants with stable, well-defined requirements. If you know the exact protocols you need and your plant is unlikely to add new PLC families in the next three to five years, perpetual is usually the most cost-effective path.
A subscription licence is an annual commitment that includes the software, support, and all maintenance updates. The annual cost of a subscription is typically around 40 percent of the equivalent perpetual licence price, making the initial outlay significantly lower — roughly 60 percent less in year one compared to buying perpetual. However, you must maintain the subscription to continue using the software. If you cancel, the licence expires.
Subscription licensing is a good fit for proof-of-concept projects, plants with evolving requirements (you plan to add new PLC brands as lines are added), or organisations that prefer OPEX over CAPEX accounting. It is also the model PTC is increasingly steering the market towards, in line with the broader enterprise-software shift to recurring revenue.
The break-even point between perpetual and subscription depends on how long you plan to run the software and whether you intend to renew support annually. As a rule of thumb: if you expect to use the same KEPServerEX deployment for three or more years and will renew support each year, perpetual is usually cheaper over the total cost of ownership. If the project is shorter-term, uncertain, or you want to start small and expand, subscription keeps the initial investment low.
Kepware bundles its 150-plus device drivers into suites — pre-packaged groups of drivers that cover the common device families in a given industry or vendor ecosystem. Buying a suite is almost always cheaper than buying individual drivers separately. The main suites available as of 2026:
The flagship package. Includes every driver Kepware publishes, including the Universal Device Driver (a scriptable, custom-protocol driver) and the ability to link tags across channels and log directly to databases. If your plant has a highly heterogeneous device landscape or you anticipate adding new protocols regularly, the Advanced Manufacturing Suite avoids future licence additions. It is the most expensive individual suite but the cheapest per-driver when utilisation is high.
The most popular suite. Bundles 100-plus drivers covering the most common PLCs, CNCs, robots, and device control systems used in factory settings: Allen-Bradley (ControlLogix, CompactLogix, MicroLogix, SLC, PLC-5), Siemens (S7-1200, S7-1500, S7-300/400), Mitsubishi MELSEC, Omron FINS, Modbus TCP/RTU, GE SRTP, Yokogawa, and many more. Best suited for general OT-to-IT connectivity projects — connecting industrial devices to HMI, SCADA, MES, historians, and ERP systems.
A collection of Kepware’s Siemens drivers covering Ethernet-based and serial-based Siemens PLCs. Includes the classic Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet driver (S7-200, S7-300, S7-400, S7-1200, non-optimized S7-1500 data blocks) and serial drivers. Does not include the S7 Plus Ethernet driver required for optimized data blocks on S7-1500 — for that, you need the Siemens Plus Suite.
Everything in the Siemens Suite, plus the Siemens S7 Plus Ethernet driver (required for optimized data blocks on S7-1500 CPUs) and the OPC UA Client driver. This is the recommended suite for any deployment that includes S7-1500 PLCs with optimized blocks enabled — which is the default TIA Portal configuration for S7-1500. See our step-by-step Siemens S7-1500 + KEPServerEX tutorial for configuration details.
A collection of Allen-Bradley drivers bundled together, supporting multiple Rockwell protocol networks including EtherNet/IP (ControlLogix, CompactLogix), DF1, DH+, DH-485, and CSP. If your plant is primarily Rockwell Automation, this suite covers the full product line from legacy SLC-500 and PLC-5 through to the current ControlLogix L8 family.
Covers the Modbus protocol family: Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU (serial), Modbus ASCII, Modbus Plus (via the Modbus Plus bridge driver), and Modbus unsolicited. A cost-effective choice for plants where Modbus is the primary field protocol — common in water/wastewater, HVAC, energy metering, and process instrumentation.
Bundles drivers for process-industry protocols: Modbus, DNP3, IEC 60870-5-104, HART, Fisher ROC, Bristol Babcock, Emerson DeltaV, Yokogawa, and other protocols common in oil and gas, petrochemical, water treatment, and power generation.
Includes the OPC UA Client driver and the OPC DA Client driver. Used when KEPServerEX needs to aggregate data from other OPC servers rather than connecting to PLCs directly. A common pattern is aggregating embedded OPC UA servers on Siemens S7-1500 CPUs or third-party machine OPC endpoints into a single corporate Kepware server. See our OPC UA vs OPC DA comparison for protocol guidance.
Drivers for building management systems: BACnet/IP, LonWorks, and related protocols. Relevant for data-centre operators, smart-building integrators, and facilities teams that need to bridge BACnet networks to enterprise analytics platforms.
Drivers for the power generation and distribution industry, including IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, and related substation-automation protocols. Used by utilities and independent power producers to aggregate substation data into SCADA and historian systems.
KEPServerEX plug-ins extend the server’s capabilities beyond device communication. Plug-ins are licensed separately from suites and can be added to any base installation:
Add-on plug-in costs are additive to your base suite cost. IoT Gateway and Media Level Redundancy are the most common additions in our Southeast Asia deployments.
Whether you choose perpetual or subscription licensing, Kepware’s annual Support agreement covers:
For subscription licences, support is built into the annual fee — there is no separate line item. For perpetual licences, the initial one-year support is included in the purchase price; renewal in subsequent years is optional but strongly recommended for any production deployment. Running an unsupported KEPServerEX in production means you miss security patches (a real risk in OT environments where the server is on a plant-floor network) and cannot get help when a driver misbehaves after a PLC firmware update.
If you let support lapse on a perpetual licence, reinstatement within the first 12 months requires backdated renewal to cover the gap. Lapses beyond 12 months may require a reinstatement fee or may not be recoverable under current PTC policy. Keeping support current from the start avoids this risk entirely.
No two Kepware deployments cost the same. The main variables:
PTC offers a free demo download of KEPServerEX (Kepware Server) from their website. The demo runs in 2-hour mode: it is fully functional with no limitations on channels, devices, tags, or features. After two hours the server stops — you restart it and get another two hours. There is no limit on how many times you can restart.
This means you can evaluate Kepware against your real plant hardware at no cost. We recommend:
The demo is a practical way to prove connectivity before committing budget. Many of our Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam customers use the free trial to validate their device list before requesting a formal quotation.
Allied Solutions Global is an authorised Kepware distributor across Southeast Asia, with offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Ho Chi Minh City. To get a sized Kepware quotation:
We do not publish Kepware prices on our website because real-world sizing varies substantially — a single-driver Modbus deployment is a fraction of the cost of a fully loaded Advanced Manufacturing Suite with redundancy and IoT Gateway. Publishing a generic price would be misleading. What we can promise is a fast, transparent, engineering-led quotation process.
A single-protocol deployment (e.g., Modbus Suite subscription) starts in the low hundreds of US dollars per year. A mid-range Manufacturing Suite perpetual licence with one or two plug-ins is typically in the low thousands. Enterprise-scale deployments with the Advanced Manufacturing Suite, redundancy, and IoT Gateway run higher. The exact figure depends on your protocol mix — contact us with your device list for a precise quotation.
Yes. PTC recently rebranded KEPServerEX to Kepware Server on their website and marketing materials, but it is the same product. The industrial automation community still overwhelmingly uses the KEPServerEX name, and the software itself still installs as KEPServerEX. If you see “Kepware Server” on PTC’s site, it is the same product you have been evaluating.
Yes, but the process involves PTC and your distributor. Switching from perpetual to subscription typically means converting your existing licence. Switching from subscription to perpetual requires purchasing a new perpetual licence. Contact us for guidance on the most cost-effective transition path for your situation.
Yes. Subscription licensing includes all software updates, new driver versions, security patches, and access to technical support for the duration of the subscription. There is no separate maintenance fee.
Yes. PTC offers volume pricing and enterprise agreements for organisations deploying Kepware across multiple sites. If you are planning a multi-factory rollout in Southeast Asia, let us know the site count and estimated per-site requirements — we can negotiate a regional pricing agreement on your behalf.
ThingWorx Kepware Edge (now marketed as Kepware Edge) is a separate product for Linux-based industrial connectivity. It supports a subset of the KEPServerEX driver portfolio and is licensed by tag count rather than by suite. It is subscription-only. Kepware Edge is a good fit for edge gateways, embedded systems, and Linux-native environments where running a Windows server is not practical. For most plant-floor deployments, the Windows-based KEPServerEX remains the recommended choice due to its broader driver support and mature tooling.
Your KEPServerEX installation continues to run — there is no “phone home” or licence expiry. However, you stop receiving software updates (including security patches), new driver versions, and access to PTC technical support. If support lapses for less than 12 months, you can reinstate with backdated coverage. For lapses beyond 12 months, reinstatement may require additional fees or may not be available under current PTC policy. We strongly recommend keeping support current for any production deployment.
The fastest way to get from “How much does Kepware cost?” to a real number is to download the free demo, validate connectivity against your hardware, then send us the device list. We will return a sized suite recommendation and quotation within one business day — no obligation, no pressure.
For more on what Kepware does and how it fits into your plant architecture, read our complete guide to Kepware industrial connectivity or the Siemens S7-1500 + KEPServerEX tutorial.
Allied Solutions Global is an authorized Kepware (PTC) distributor across Southeast Asia. KEPServerEX and Kepware Server are registered trademarks of PTC Inc.
Keep Reading
The complete list of 150+ KEPServerEX device drivers from the official PTC datasheet โ organised by manufacturer. Find your PLC brand, check which Kepware suite covers it, and learn how to evaluate connectivity with the free demo. Covers Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Mitsubishi, Omron, Modbus, Yokogawa, Honeywell, GE, and dozens more.
A practical, vendor-neutral comparison for plant engineers and OT architects. Why OPC UA replaced OPC DA, where DCOM still bites, how the security and information models differ, when to migrate, when to run both, and how KEPServerEX bridges the two.
A practical, screenshot-free walkthrough for engineers in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Configure your S7-1500 in TIA Portal, install KEPServerEX, set up the Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet driver with the correct rack/slot, expose tags over OPC UA to any SCADA, and avoid the four configuration mistakes that account for most failed first connections.