Sophos raises prices again: XGS, AP6 and Email

A few days ago, I was shown an article from another blog that regularly covers Sophos news. It described the latest price trend using the term gearflation. I was already familiar with the term, but in the context of Sophos it captured the situation surprisingly well: hardware is becoming more expensive because RAM and flash storage in particular now cost significantly more. Enormous demand from the AI market is tying up production capacity and raising the price of components also used in servers, PCs and network devices.

It is understandable that manufacturers cannot absorb these additional costs indefinitely. Gartner expects combined DRAM and SSD prices to rise by 130 percent by the end of 2026 compared with 2025. A firewall contains considerably less memory than a large server, but its bill of materials is still affected by such market movements.

Even so, the partner notification from Sophos on 1 September left us concerned. Not because of a price adjustment in itself, but because of the short interval and the renewed impact on subscriptions. Sophos is again raising prices for XGS hardware and the related subscriptions by 10 percent from November. The previous increase, also of 10 percent, has only been in effect since 1 July 2026.

What Sophos is making more expensive from November 2026

The new prices apply to term licences from 1 November 2026 and to MSP offerings from 1 January 2027. The new price lists are due to be published in October.

XGS hardware appliances: +10 %. HWaaS and accessories are excluded.
Hardware-bound XGS subscriptions: +10 %. Virtual, software and cloud subscriptions are excluded.
AP6 access points: +10 %. Sophos states no further exceptions.
One-year AP6 support: now 10 instead of 5 % of the hardware price. The corresponding MSP price will also be adjusted.
Sophos Email: +7.5 %. Email Plus, Phish Threat, EMS and other Email add-ons are excluded.

For Sophos Firewall, the increase therefore affects more than newly purchased appliances. Existing customers with an XGS that was paid for and has been in operation for months or years will also pay more at their next renewal. For some customers, both increases will even become visible on the same renewal invoice for the first time.

Two 10 percent increases add up to 21 percent

Mathematically, two successive increases of 10 percent do not equal 20 percent, but 21 percent. If an affected item on the Sophos price list cost 1,000 euros before July, for example, it rose to 1,100 euros after the first adjustment and to 1,210 euros after the second. For Swiss customers, the effective price in francs also depends on the EUR/CHF exchange rate. This may slightly reduce or increase the impact in individual cases, but it does not change the cumulative increase in the list price.

Customers who renewed their annual subscription between January and June 2026 are particularly hard hit. The first increase on 1 July did not apply at the time of their renewal. When the licence falls due again between January and June 2027, both price steps will already be in effect. The underlying list price may therefore be around 21 percent higher in one go compared with the previous invoice. Customers whose renewal took place from July 2026 onwards, by contrast, have already paid the first stage and will see only the second increase added at their next renewal.

A second adjustment only four months after the first effective date is difficult to classify as normal annual price maintenance. More significant still is the fact that Sophos is again using the same reasoning: to avoid a much steeper increase applying solely to hardware, it is spreading the increase across hardware and related software subscriptions.

The hardware argument does not fully explain the licence increase

From the manufacturer’s perspective, this distribution has an advantage. The appliance appears less expensive at the point of purchase, while part of the surcharge is financed through the ongoing subscription. From the customer’s perspective, however, a different picture emerges: the installed base bears higher recurring costs even though the hardware was manufactured, sold and paid for long ago.

In economic terms, this looks like cross-subsidisation. Through higher licence renewals, existing customers help to keep the visible price of new hardware lower. It is impossible to prove from the outside whether Sophos actually calculates its prices in exactly this way. The effect of the pricing structure, however, is the same.

A software subscription naturally incurs ongoing costs. Sophos continues to develop SFOS, provides signatures and hotfixes, operates infrastructure and offers support. A subscription must therefore not be treated as if it had no value of its own. However, when rising hardware manufacturing costs are cited as the specific reason, a permanent increase in existing subscriptions requires further explanation. Component prices may fall again later. In our experience, once a licence price has risen, it is rarely reduced again to the same extent.

High discounts for new customers deepen the contradiction

At the same time, Sophos continues to offer generous promotions. In the overview effective since July, the manufacturer lists, among other offers, a 50 percent discount on XGS and three years of Xstream Protection when switching from a competitor, as well as 30 percent off hardware and subscriptions for certain refresh projects. Until the end of June, Sophos also documented several switch offers with free hardware, and a hardware promotion code remains part of the new programme.

Such offers are not unusual in sales. Acquiring a new customer may cost money if it leads to a long-term business relationship. It becomes problematic when the difference between a low-cost entry and an expensive renewal grows too large. This creates the impression that loyalty is treated less favourably than switching vendors.

This is precisely where our main criticism lies. A new customer may save a significant portion of the hardware costs through a promotion. An existing customer who continues to operate a functioning XGS, and therefore requires neither new hardware nor new manufacturing expenditure, still pays more at renewal.

Firewalls have high switching costs

With ordinary software, a price increase can at least theoretically be answered by cancelling the contract. With a firewall, that is considerably more difficult. Switching manufacturers affects rules, VPN connections, authentication, certificates, logging, high availability, training and operating processes. It also requires planning, migration and testing, and carries the risk of an interruption.

In economics, this is referred to as high switching costs and correspondingly lower price elasticity. Put simply, even dissatisfied customers do not switch immediately because the alternative may initially be even more expensive and risky. This gives a manufacturer room to raise prices.

That room is not unlimited, however. Firewall solutions are now available that can operate without mandatory recurring licence fees and are technically far more advanced than they were only a few years ago. They do not provide the same range of functions in every environment and are by no means free to operate. Hardware, updates, support, migration and internal expertise still have to be funded. The key difference is that continued operation does not depend on an annually repriced subscription.

In discussions and projects, we can clearly see that more and more customers are considering such alternatives or have already made a deliberate move to them. The issue is not merely saving money in the short term. Many organisations want to be able to continue operating their firewall securely without being entirely exposed to the licensing decisions of a single manufacturer. With every further increase, this independence becomes more attractive economically.

An exaggerated thought experiment illustrates the point. If a provider doubles its prices and loses half its customers as a result, revenue remains mathematically unchanged while fewer customers need to be supported. In reality, costs, discounts and customer values are of course more complex. The example nevertheless shows why a company does not necessarily need to retain every customer for a steep price increase to work economically.

We are not suggesting that this exact scenario is the strategy behind Sophos’s adjustment. The renewed increase does, however, exploit a genuine economic advantage: a large part of the installed base cannot reasonably migrate to another firewall manufacturer within a few weeks.

Price increases also create work for resellers

We view this announcement from our perspective as a Sophos reseller. Pricing is determined by the manufacturer, while we put the changes into context and explain them in direct discussions with our customers. When several adjustments are made within a short period, this creates additional advisory and costing work, as well as challenging budget discussions.

We therefore do not simply pass on a higher list price. We explain the adjustment, prepare new quotations and discuss upcoming renewals. Together with the customer, we look for a solution that is viable both technically and economically, even if that solution may no longer come from Sophos in future. If the budget no longer works, we review licensing models, terms and, where necessary, migration options. Our aim remains to find the right solution for the customer.

What organisations should review now

Panic is not a good procurement strategy. The specific amounts will also remain unknown until the price lists are published in October. Nevertheless, organisations with an upcoming purchase or renewal should now clarify three points:

Check the renewal date and licence model: The key questions are whether a term licence or an MSP model is affected and when the next renewal is due.
Request a quotation before the effective date: Whether an order can still be placed under the current terms must be clarified with the reseller or distributor for the specific quotation.
Compare total costs rather than entry prices: Promotions can make a new purchase attractive. A fair assessment, however, must consider hardware, subscriptions, term, support and expected renewal costs together.

Sophos subscriptions can already be extended for one, two, three, four or five years. A long term can protect against further short-term price increases and initially provide budget stability. At the same time, however, it ties the organisation to a manufacturer and its technological development for years.

Personally, I would not commit for five years under the current conditions. In the past six months alone, AI has significantly changed the security market, the threat landscape and the available solutions. It is therefore reasonable to ask whether a manufacturer that is the right choice today will still be the best fit for an organisation’s strategy in one or two years. A long-term renewal is consequently not automatically the best economic decision. Price stability is valuable, but so is strategic flexibility.

A hasty change of manufacturer based solely on this announcement would be no more rational than blindly accepting every increase. Anyone already facing a hardware refresh should compare alternatives and migration costs objectively. Anyone who is technically satisfied with their existing XGS may conclude that continuing to operate it remains more economical despite the higher subscription price.

Our assessment

The strained situation in the RAM and flash markets is real. A targeted increase in hardware prices can therefore be justified in principle. Sophos’s decision to spread the costs across hardware and subscriptions once again, however, is not convincing to us.

The structure is particularly difficult to explain to existing customers. They have already paid for their appliance, do not create new manufacturing costs and still help finance, through higher recurring fees, a pricing structure that is further distorted by substantial promotions for new customers.

Sophos Firewall remains a technically strong product, and a price increase does not suddenly make an existing infrastructure a poor choice. A long-term business relationship, however, depends not only on functionality but also on predictability and pricing logic that can be explained to loyal customers. After two increases within a few months, that predictability has been damaged.

Sources

Sophos partner email dated 1 September 2026
Gartner: Surging Memory Costs Will Reduce Global PC and Smartphone Shipments in 2026
Sophos: Network Promo Updates From July 1