Ring is looking to pull off a backdoor price hike

Ring is renaming its three-tiered Ring Protect subscription service and adding five new features to it, including 24/7 video monitoring. It’s also trying to sneak in a de facto price hike.

Chief among the new features of the rebranded Ring Home is 24/7 video recording, which Ring says has been one of its customers’ “most highly requested features.”

But for Ring’s most valuable customers, the company’s “new features, new name, same price” claim is patently bogus.

Follow the money

For starters, not every new feature is available at every service tier, and 24/7 recording is only available with some of its home security cameras.

Meanwhile, the most important service for any home security system–professional monitoring–will now be offered on an à la carte basis, meaning it will cost $10 per month in addition to whichever other subscription service you sign up for.

If you’re paying for Ring’s top tier of service today with professional monitoring, you’ll be transitioned to the middle tier at $9.99 per month starting in November, and then billed $10 per month for professional monitoring. So, your cost won’t go up, but you won’t get the new 24/7 recording feature, either.

Ring Alarm Pro users paying for professional monitoring will be worse off. They’ll also be transitioned from the top tier service plan to the middle tier (now called Ring Home Standard), which doesn’t include Digital Security by eero Secure (relevant only to the Ring Alarm Pro, which has an integrated Eero router) or Ring Edge (the ability to record video to a user-supplied microSD card plugged into a Ring Alarm Pro). 24/7 cellular backup for Ring Alarm Pro systems will move down from the top tier to Ring Home Standard, but 24/7 cellular broadband backup will require the more-expensive Ring Home Premium plan.

Those customers will also need to pay $10 per month for professional monitoring, bringing their total cost back up to $19.99 per month, but they’ll only get one-year free trials to the other set of features. That means they’ll need to upgrade back to the top tier at $19.99 per month plus $10 per month for professional monitoring–$29.99 per month in total–starting in November, 2025 if they want the same basket of services they have today (granted, they will gain 24/7 recording).

So unless you think 24/7 video recording is worth an extra $10 a month, Ring’s new pricing structure pretty much adds up to a price hike.

Ring Protect is now Ring Home

As I said up top, Ring is changing the name of its subscription service plan, formerly called Ring Protect, to Ring Home. I’ll explain the names first, and then go over the new features that come with them.

Ring Protect Basic is now called Ring Home Basic. It still costs $4.99 per month for one camera or doorbell, but it now includes a new Video Preview feature.

Ring Protect Plus is now called Ring Home Standard. It still costs $9.99 per month and covers as many doorbells and cameras as you own. Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro users will also get cellular backup for alarm connectivity. This tier will gain the new Video Preview feature as well as new Extended Live Preview and Doorbell Calls features.

Ring Protect Pro is now dubbed Ring Home Premium and has the same feature set as Ring Home Standard in addition to the new 24/7 video recording feature and backup internet service over a cellular connection for a Ring Alarm Pro system. It also includes Ring Edge and Digital Security by eero Secure, and it will still cost $19.99 per month, but it no longer includes professional monitoring.

In another twist, Ring Alarm Pro owners who’ve taken advantage of that system’s ability to host a microSD card for local storage and processing of camera recordings will need to disable that feature and return to cloud storage if they want 24/7 recording with a Ring Home Premium sub, because 24/7 recording cannot be performed anywhere other than to Ring’s cloud.

If you’re a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro user with professional monitoring, Ring will be give you a Hobson’s choice in November, 2025: You can pay $30 per month for the same services you have today, or you can give up one or more of the services you depend on most for home security.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss in more detail what Ring is adding to its subscription services.

24/7 video recording

Raise your hand if this has happened to you: An intruder managed to evade the motion detector on your Ring security camera, so there’s no video evidence of what the miscreant was doing on your property. It’s a common problem with home security cameras in general, but Ring will soon offer a solution: 24/7 recording to the cloud.

The recording option is not dependent on the camera’s motion zones, but it will be available only on Ring security cameras that use wired power–i.e., those that are plugged into AC adapters–and you’ll need to pay for Ring’s top-tier subscription service to get the service. Battery-powered models won’t work, even those that have dual batteries or are plugged into solar panels that keep their batteries perpetually topped off.

At launch, the list of compatible cameras consists of the Stick Up Cam Pro, the Ring Indoor Cam 2nd Gen, and the Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam. Ring says more of its wired-power models will gain this feature over time, including its wired doorbells.

Two new Live View features

Ring also announced that subscribers will get longer live viewing sessions through their cameras. Where Ring Live View currently limits you to streaming 10 minutes of live camera viewing, Extended Live View increases that limit to 30 minutes, but you’ll need to subscribe to at least the Ring Home Basic tier to get that feature.

A Ring Home Premium subscription, meanwhile, unlocks Continuous Live View on wired-power cameras that support 24/7 recording.

Doorbell Calls

With Ring video doorbells—both wired and battery-powered models—a new feature called Doorbell Calls will ring your smartphone when someone rings your doorbell, much like receiving a video call.

Unlike the current method of getting a push notification, you’ll be able to answer the call and speak directly to your visitor through Ring’s Live View feature.

This new feature requires either a Ring Home Standard or Home Premium subscription.

Video Preview Alerts

Ring launched its Rich Notifications feature in 2020 to give subscribers a better idea of the types of motion that triggered an alert. This feature is being transformed into Video Preview Alerts that deliver a short video clip along with the push notification. From there, you’ll be able to initiate two-way talk to speak with your visitor or initiate a Live View session.

This service is available with all three subscription tiers, but you’ll need to sign up for one of them.

Launch date

Ring says all five of these new features will begin rolling out later in October and will be available worldwide by November 5.

Want more information about the Ring products discussed here? Take a look at our in-depth reviews of the Stick Up Cam Pro, Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, Ring Alarm, and Ring Alarm Pro.

Correction: This article was updated shortly after publication to report that 24/7 cellular backup for the Ring Alarm Pro system is moving to Ring’s mid-tier subscription plan, Ring Home Standard (formerly known as Ring Protect Plus). So, Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro users won’t need to upgrade to Ring Home Premium to retain this feature in November 2025, but Ring Alarm Pro users will if they also want 24/7 broadband backup over a cellular connection.