IBM NS1 Connect
Managed authoritative DNS with traffic steering, formerly NS1, owned by IBM since 2023. Self-serve plans plus custom Premium contracts.
- Headquarters
- 🇺🇸 United States
- Parent jurisdiction
- 🇺🇸 United States (parent: IBM)
- EU self-serve plan
- No / not documented
- GDPR DPA
- Yes
- Billing
- subscription
- Free tier
- 30-day free trial (50M queries/month, 500 records).
- Open source
- No
- Website
- www.ibm.com
- Source last checked
- 2026-10-06
- Pricing evidence
- Modeled rates
Pricing
Published rates converted using workload assumptions. Read the notes. Starting Essentials tier only, capped at 30M queries. The 1,000-record limit is not a calculator input; larger plans need a separate quote. How to read these estimates.
| Base fee / month |
|---|
| $99 |
Allowances, plan limits & calculation details
Rates are shown at their recorded precision. A zero means no charge in this calculation; the vendor may charge for things we leave out. See the notes for usage assumptions and currency conversions.
- Base fee / month
- $99
- Included zones
- 0
- Zone / month
- $0
- Included queries / month (millions)
- 30
- 1M DNS queries
- $0
- Modeled plan limits
- ≤ 30 queries / month (millions)
Modelled on Essentials, "starting at $99/month" with 30-80M queries/month and 1,000 records (overage rate not published, so usage above 30M queries is treated as needing a bigger plan or contract). Standard starts at $349/month (50M-1B queries, 1,000-10,000 records). Premium (the enterprise tier most large customers are on) is contract-only. Vendr's public NS1 data (vendr.com/marketplace/ns1, Oct 2026) shows a median of $49,714/yr across 38 purchases, ranging $12,000-$374,703/yr. GDPR DPA via IBM's standard DPA.
What companies report paying
What other customers have paid for IBM NS1 Connect, with sources. Their usage, features and discounts may differ from yours; these are not quotes.
- $49,714/yr · Vendr median for NS1; range $12,000-$374,703; 38 purchases
“Median buyer pays $49,714 per year Based on data from 38 purchases. Median: $49,714 $12,000 $374,703 Low High”
Vendr purchase data, Oct 2026 - $600/yr · Annualized from $50/month invoice; small business, post-IBM-acquisition invoicing (no card billing); no usage stated
“NS1 was easy-peasy, but post-IBM I now receive a PDF invoice for $50 once per month with no credit card-based billing options and have to remind finance to cut a paper check.”
Hacker News, Jan 2025 - $360,000/yr · Annualized from ~$30,000/month. PeerSpot user review (CTO, tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees); ~4.5 billion DNS requests (period not stated), low TTLs; got a discount for fast migration and agreeing to be a homepage case study; previously ~$20k/month with Dyn. PeerSpot review, not a blog strictly
“they gave us a good price at the time. We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now”
PeerSpot review, Feb 2022
Managed alternatives
At 50 hosted zones, 1B queries / month. Adjust usage and requirements.
No managed cost estimate is available for this option at the selected usage.
- Bunny DNS: $0/yr estimatedPublished rates
- Cloudflare DNS: $0/yr estimatedPublished rates
- deSEC: $0/yr estimatedPublished rates
- Hetzner DNS: $0/yr estimatedPublished rates
- Gcore Managed DNS: $2,647/yr estimatedPublished rates
No cheaper managed estimate matches your filters. Adjust your usage or compare with your actual contract bill.
The price difference leaves out migration costs, operating costs and any features you’d need to replace.
Self-hosted options
Operating cost is not estimated. These options are not counted as savings against managed services.
Want a European-owned provider? See European alternatives to IBM NS1 Connect among european DNS providers.
Compare IBM NS1 Connect
Migration guides
Found a wrong rate or plan restriction? Report a correction with a current source.