If you’ve been using PagerDuty for incident management, you’ve likely experienced both its power—and its price. While it’s a go-to tool for large enterprises, many small businesses, startups, and IT teams are now asking: “Is PagerDuty worth the cost?”
If you’re feeling the burn from PagerDuty’s pricing and you’re looking for a more affordable, streamlined solution, you’re not alone. In this post, we’ll explore the most capable affordable PagerDuty alternatives, including a standout option built specifically for teams who want on-call scheduling, escalation, and ticketing—without the enterprise price tag.
Let’s dive in.
Why People Are Looking for PagerDuty Alternatives
PagerDuty pricing starts at $21/user/month, and that’s for just the professional tier—not the enterprise plan. The more users and features you need, the more expensive it gets.
For many small to midsize teams, the cost is no longer justifiable. Beyond price, there are a few other reasons teams seek alternatives:
- Overcomplexity for small teams: Many features go unused but still cost money.
- Separate tools for ticketing and escalation: You often need to pair PagerDuty with another platform like Zendesk or Jira.
- Better options now exist for modern, lean support teams.
What to Look for in an Affordable PagerDuty Alternative
If you’re evaluating new options, here’s what really matters:
1. Reliable On-Call Scheduling
A visual, easy-to-manage schedule with rotations, overrides, and time zone awareness.
2. Automatic Escalation Logic
If someone doesn’t respond, the issue escalates to the next person or team—no manual juggling.
3. Multi-Channel Notifications
Support for email (at a minimum), and ideally SMS, Slack, or other integrations.
4. Affordable, Predictable Pricing
You should know what you’re paying per agent and not worry about surprise bills.
5. Integration with Support Workflows
Having ticketing and incident response in one place saves time and effort.
Top Affordable PagerDuty Alternatives
✅ 1. Support Oasis – Best All-in-One PagerDuty Alternative
Key Features:
- Visual on-call scheduling
- Automatic escalations based on ticket priority
- Shared inbox + email-based ticketing built-in
- Clean UI built for speed and simplicity
- Designed for startups, MSPs, and SMBs
- Affordable: $5/month per agent (annual) or $7/month monthly
- Free 14-day trial – no credit card needed
Why it’s a great PagerDuty alternative:
Support Oasis is built for teams who don’t want to juggle multiple tools. Instead of pairing PagerDuty with Zendesk (doubling your cost), you get ticketing, escalation, and scheduling in one. It’s perfect for lean teams that still need strong uptime and support workflows.
💡 Bonus: Unlike PagerDuty, you don’t need a full-time admin to set it up.
👉 Try Support Oasis Free for 14 Days
✅ 2. Opsgenie (Atlassian)
Price: Starts at $9/user/month
Strengths:
- Tight integration with Jira and other Atlassian tools
- Flexible scheduling and escalation
- Integrates with monitoring tools
Limitations:
- Still requires separate tools for ticketing
- Can get expensive at scale
- Learning curve similar to PagerDuty
✅ 3. Better Uptime
Price: Free tier available; paid plans from $30/month/team
Strengths:
- Incident monitoring included
- On-call scheduling
- Status pages built-in
Limitations:
- No ticketing support
- Limited integrations unless on higher-tier plan
- Geared more toward DevOps than support teams
✅ 4. VictorOps (Splunk On-Call)
Price: Starts at $10/user/month
Strengths:
- ChatOps features
- Timeline for incident resolution
- Dev-focused feature set
Limitations:
- Complex setup
- Not designed for small support teams
- Requires integration with other platforms for full support workflow
Why Support Oasis Is the Best Fit for Small Teams
While many tools offer pieces of the puzzle, Support Oasis is the only affordable PagerDuty alternative designed specifically for teams that also need ticketing + scheduling + escalation all in one.
Let’s break it down:
| Feature | PagerDuty | Support Oasis |
|---|---|---|
| On-call scheduling | ✅ | ✅ |
| Automatic escalations | ✅ | ✅ |
| Email-based ticketing | ❌ | ✅ |
| Simple pricing | ❌ | ✅ |
| Built for SMBs | ❌ | ✅ |
| Cost (per agent/month) | $21+ | $5–7 |
| Free trial | Limited | ✅ 14 days, no card |
🎯 Support Oasis simplifies your entire incident response and support workflow—without enterprise pricing.
Who Should Switch to Support Oasis?
If any of the following describe you, Support Oasis was made for your team:
- You’re currently using PagerDuty + Zendesk and want to cut costs
- You’re managing a small team and don’t need enterprise complexity
- You’re launching a new product and need built-in escalation logic
- You want your ticketing and on-call tools in one place
- You’re an MSP looking for a clean, low-cost support solution
Real Savings Example
Let’s say you have a 5-person support team using Zendesk + PagerDuty:
- Zendesk: $19/user → $95/month
- PagerDuty: $21/user → $105/month
- Total: $200/month
Switch to Support Oasis:
- 5 agents × $5/month = $25/month (annual pricing)
- You save $175/month — that’s $2,100/year!
💸 Imagine what you could reinvest that savings into: marketing, faster support response, better tools for your team.
Try Support Oasis Free for 14 Days
Not sure yet? Try it for yourself. Support Oasis offers a free, no-credit-card trial that lets you explore:
- Ticket routing and email-based support
- Visual scheduling for your team
- Automatic escalations that ensure nothing slips through the cracks
No hidden fees. No contracts. No headaches.
👉 Start Your Free Trial Now
Final Thoughts
PagerDuty is a powerful platform—but for many teams, it’s overkill and overpriced. If you’re a small business, startup, or MSP, you don’t need to pay enterprise prices for features you may never use.
Support Oasis is built with simplicity, power, and affordability in mind. It’s the best affordable PagerDuty alternative that also handles your ticketing and scheduling needs in one place.