Archer GRC pricing and RSA Archer cost from ten years of federal renewal records

The short answer: Archer prints no price, but US federal agencies publish every renewal they sign, and those records are the best Archer GRC pricing data in public. A single USDA branch renews its Archer software for $74,384.62 a year. NASA's agency renewal with associated services is $328,679.55 for fiscal 2026. And the year after Cinven bought Archer from RSA in July 2023, renewals on the same contracts rose 49 to 101 percent. Budget for the platform, the services around it and the renewal curve, not only the first-year license.

Every figure below comes from award records on USAspending.gov, from Archer's own AWS Marketplace listing and pricing page, or from contracts reported by buyers on Vendr. We read them on 6 October 2026. Agency awards are a sound guide to scale because they are signed, dated and repeated year after year for the same line, which no review site can match.

Archer GRC pricing is not published, and the AWS price is a placeholder

Archer's pricing page has feature comparisons, analyst badges and a demo button, and no numbers. Its AWS Marketplace listing (prodview-3owfl3dca6igg) has exactly one 12-month dimension, "Archer SaaS Risk and Compliance solutions, contact Archer for pricing", at $9,999,999.00. Nobody pays that. A marketplace requires a price on every dimension, so vendors that only sell by private offer set one high enough that nobody clicks. Workiva does the same thing at $1,000,000.

The practical meaning for a buyer: there is no list price for a salesperson to discount from, so whichever side names the first number sets the anchor. Walk into the first pricing call with the federal figures below and a competitor quote, not with "what does it cost".

RSA Archer cost in federal renewals, year by year

These are the cleanest series in the records: the same agency, the same product line, renewed on roughly the same date each year. The descriptions are the agencies' own.

Two patterns stand out. Before mid-2023, renewals moved by about 3 percent a year, which is what a maintenance uplift usually looks like. After the sale to Cinven closed on July 10, 2023, the next renewal on each line jumped: USDA's doubled six days after closing, and NASA's rose by almost half. Increases since then have settled at 5 to 12 percent a year. Over four years the USDA line is up 136.5 percent and NASA's 72.5 percent.

Be fair about what the records cannot show. Award descriptions do not list modules or user counts, and NASA's wording changed from "licensing renewal" to "Archer and associated services" in the same year as the jump, so part of that increase is probably added services. The USDA line is cleaner: the same branch, the same renewal date and the same plain description before and after. If you hold an Archer contract that predates 2023, assume your next renewal is the one most likely to be repriced.

What else agencies buy around the Archer license

The license is rarely the whole bill. The same records show the services that sit around it:

• Training. USDA paid $4,000 per person for a four-day Archer GRC administration course in 2017 and 2018, and $3,920 in 2016.
• Expert on Demand. Archer's consulting subscription appears at $31,279.23 a year for one Navy command, $71,436.30 over two years for another, and $198,173 and $212,987.01 for single-module subscriptions at a Defense agency in 2020.
• Implementation and configuration. Large programs run far higher. One Homeland Security component awarded about $1.19 million a year for Archer professional services in 2022 and 2023, and a two-year task order of $2.5 million in 2024.
• Maintenance on older licenses. Agencies that own perpetual licenses still pay yearly maintenance: the TSA renewed perpetual Archer user licenses and maintenance for $89,148 in 2021, and a Transportation office paid $162,600 a year for maintenance and training in both 2019 and 2020.

For a private-sector buyer the useful ratio is simple. A configurable GRC platform like Archer needs someone to build and maintain its use cases, and agencies that cannot do it in house pay a services line that can rival the license. Ask for the services estimate in the same proposal as the license, and ask who will own the configuration after go-live.

Searching these awards yourself is straightforward. Agencies file every order under a contract number with a plain description, and a federal contract search by product name surfaces the renewal history for most enterprise software vendors that sell to government.

Archer pricing compared with the platforms it competes against

Archer is one of the older configurable GRC platforms, and most of its rivals publish more than it does. The table uses the most primary figure available for each, read between 21 September and 6 October 2026.

The comparison is not like for like. Archer, ServiceNow and MetricStream are built for large risk programs with many use cases and a team to configure them. If that is your shape, the useful benchmark is ServiceNow's per-operator list price, because it lets you model the bill for your own head count. Our integrated risk management software page compares the platforms on what they cover, and the LogicGate competitors breakdown goes deeper on the mid-market tools.

How to negotiate an Archer renewal

1. Get the renewal quote 120 days out. The federal data shows the renewal, not the first purchase, is where Archer reprices. Leave time to run a competing quote.
2. Ask for a written cap. Pre-2023 renewals moved about 3 percent a year. Ask for that number in writing for each year of the new term.
3. Split license from services. Price Expert on Demand and implementation as separate lines, so a services increase cannot hide inside the platform fee.
4. List the use cases you actually run. Archer licenses by use case. Retire the ones nobody opens before the quote is built, not after.
5. Clarify Evolv. Archer has been adding its cloud-native Evolv layer module by module since February 2025. Ask whether your renewal moves you onto it and whether that changes the price.

Where a regulatory change tool fits next to Archer

Many Archer customers buy it for one job and pay for twenty. If the work your team actually needs is knowing which regulations apply to you, catching when they change and updating the affected policies, that does not require a configurable platform. ComplianceOfficer builds that register from your sector and states, watches it daily and drafts the policy update when a rule moves, for $149 a month. Run the scan above to see the register for a bank, or compare the dedicated regulatory change management software and its pricing against the specialists.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Archer GRC cost?

Archer publishes no price. Federal award records show what agencies pay: a USDA branch renewed its Archer software for $74,384.62 in July 2025, and NASA renewed Archer with associated services for $328,679.55 for fiscal 2026. Smaller Commerce Department renewals ran $33,891 to $39,930 a year. Third-party guides put small deployments from about $14,000 a year.

Does Archer publish its pricing?

No. archerirm.com/pricing carries feature comparisons and a demo request, with no figures. Archer's AWS Marketplace listing has one 12-month dimension, Archer SaaS Risk and Compliance solutions, priced at $9,999,999.00 with the note to contact Archer for pricing. That is a placeholder that routes every buyer into a private offer, not a real list price.

Did Archer prices go up after the Cinven acquisition?

Federal renewals jumped in the year after Cinven bought Archer from RSA on July 10, 2023. A USDA renewal went from $31,452 in July 2022 to $63,096 in July 2023, up 100.6 percent, and NASA's renewal rose 48.9 percent from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2024. The award text does not break out scope, so part of each jump may be added modules or services.

How much does Archer training cost?

The Department of Agriculture paid $4,000 per person for a four-day Archer GRC administration course in 2017 and 2018, and $3,920 in 2016. Agencies also buy Archer Expert on Demand consulting subscriptions, recorded at $31,279.23 to $212,987.01 a year depending on scope.

What are cheaper alternatives to Archer?

On recorded contracts read in September and October 2026, Hyperproof has a median of $41,400 a year, Optro (formerly AuditBoard) $45,516 and LogicGate $53,784, all below a typical Archer agency renewal. LogicManager sells unlimited users with a fixed package price. For tracking regulatory change and policy gaps alone, ComplianceOfficer starts at $149 a month.

Is Archer still owned by RSA?

No. Cinven announced the purchase of Archer from RSA on April 13, 2023, and the sale closed on July 10, 2023. Archer now operates as a standalone company, sells a cloud-native layer called Archer Evolv alongside classic Archer, and owns the regulatory content business Compliance.ai. Federal buyers still describe it as RSA Archer in award records.