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# What Do Private Desktops Cost?

Compare private desktop costs: shared services, per-person workspaces, and Windows 365 pricing.

Adjartey Odopey

September 29, 2026

· Updated October 14, 2026

10 min read

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![Private desktops: what they cost. ZCP cover showing NFS shared storage connected to compute and desktop icons.](https://zcp.zsoftly.ca/images/blog/2026/what-private-employee-desktops-cost.webp)

This is part 2 of a 3-part series on private employee desktops on ZCP. [Part 1 covers what we built and why](https://zcp.zsoftly.ca/blog/why-we-built-private-employee-desktops). This post gives finance and IT owners a cost model: shared monthly services, the desktop cost per employee, and the comparison with a Cloud PC. The published infrastructure figures exclude endpoint replacement, identity, logging, data-loss-prevention controls, and operating staff. The lifecycle comparison below lets readers add those costs.

## What this costs

These figures use the live ZCP rate card for Montreal (YUL-1) as of October 2026. The tested configuration uses premium-ssd root disks, a pro-nvme data volume, 1 vCPU/2GB for each shared VM, and 4 vCPU/16GB for each desktop. If you omit these settings, the deployment scripts discover defaults independently. The root disk and data volume can then use the same storage category. Before budgeting, rerun `zcp plan vm -o json`, `zcp plan network -o json`, `zcp plan router -o json`, and `zcp plan storage -o json` for current rates. Run `zcp storage-category list -o json` to check the category slugs. Each network plan used here includes one public IP, which we confirmed from a live deployment record. ZCP charges CA$3 per month for each additional public IPv4 address. Those commands do not include that charge. The catalog changes over time.

Shared infrastructure is shared across the team and recurs monthly:

Shared infrastructure by monthly cost

CAD per month. The $54.40 total is shared infrastructure, not a one-time charge.

Show the data

| Shared component | CAD/month |
| --- | --- |
| Network | CA$3.00 |
| Access | CA$16.20 |
| Bridge | CA$16.20 |
| Storage | CA$19.00 |

Show the detailed shared-infrastructure calculation

| Component | Size (tested) | Monthly |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Private network + gateway | - | $3 |
| Secure access server (replaces a VPN) | 1 vCPU / 2GB | $9.60 |
| + its root disk (40GB) | - | $3.60 |
| + its network connection | - | $3 |
| Network bridge to the internet | 1 vCPU / 2GB | $9.60 |
| + its root disk (40GB) | - | $3.60 |
| + its network connection | - | $3 |
| Shared company file storage | 1 vCPU / 2GB | $9.60 |
| + its root disk (40GB) | - | $3.60 |
| + its network connection | - | $3 |
| + its 20GB data volume | - | $2.80 |
| Shared total | | ~$54.40/month |

Every shared component uses 1 vCPU/2GB. Headplane documents 1 vCPU as its minimum and 2GB RAM as its recommended amount. Its full recommended tier is 2 vCPU/2GB. Headplane also documents 1 vCPU/1GB as the minimum for both values, but we did not test that lower-priced option. We pinned 1 vCPU/2GB for this test because auto-discovery might choose a different plan or storage split. A production deployment would likely need more capacity. Treat $54.40 per month as the tested baseline, not the cheapest catalog entry.

Per-employee desktop (one desktop per person, including root disk and network):

| Sizing | Monthly | With a 1-year reserved commitment |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 4 vCPU / 8GB (usable, smallest real option) | ~$61.80 | not checked |
| 4 vCPU / 16GB (our default, noticeably smoother in testing) | ~$128.20 | ~$106.20 |

We did not check a reserved rate for the 4 vCPU/8GB tier, so the table marks it not checked instead of estimating it from the 16GB discount.

The tested cost is about $54.40 per month for shared infrastructure, plus $61.80 to $128.20 per employee. A 10-person team would spend about $672 to $1,336 per month, or $67 to $134 per employee after shared costs are allocated. These figures exclude engineering time, storage growth, and onboarding and offboarding work. Those costs do not appear on the compute invoice, but the business still pays them.

Against traditional VDI, we use the same currency and billing term on both sides: Canadian dollars, month-to-month. The closest equivalent is a 4 vCPU/16GB hyperscaler Cloud PC. It lists CA$85.90 to CA$128.80 per user per month depending on storage tier, 128GB to 512GB, well above our 40GB default. This covers compute and the OS license, nothing more. Its productivity suite is a separate subscription, CA$22.80 to CA$35.76 per user per month on the same terms. That subscription bundles 1TB of cloud storage per user, far more than the 20GB shared team drive in our own number below. The Cloud PC price never includes private, mesh-secured storage. Fully loaded: CA$108.70 to CA$164.56 per user per month. This vendor also sells an annual-commitment tier, but its public pricing page lists no price for it. CA$106.20 is the one annual figure in this comparison we can verify: our own.

In this section, “fully loaded” includes compute, the OS license, the productivity suite, and storage for both options. It does not mean total cost of ownership. Our figures exclude engineering time, ongoing operations, onboarding, and offboarding. They also exclude the cost of administering a Cloud PC deployment.

For a 10-person team, our own number is $133.64 per employee, or $111.64 with a 1-year reserved commitment: the $128.20 desktop plus a tenth of the shared $54.40, on our 40GB default disk. On raw compute, with neither side’s optional productivity subscription added, Windows 365 beats this at every storage tier we checked: $85.90 to $128.80. The margin at their top tier is thin. Our bare desktop alone, before any shared-infrastructure share, is $128.20, only $0.60 under their $128.80. Our number only comes out ahead of their high tier once we add their optional productivity subscription to their side and leave it off ours, and that is not an equivalent comparison either.

ZCP also publishes a volume discount: 20% off for 10 to 24 VMs on one account. This example qualifies, since 10 desktops plus 3 shared servers add up to 13 VMs. We left it out of the number above because the pricing page does not say whether it covers storage and network along with compute. Applying the discount to compute only (the conservative reading) drops the desktop to $103.88/month and the shared total to $48.64/month: $108.74 per employee, our infrastructure total, for a 10-person team. That beats their highest storage tier, $128.80, on raw compute alone, with no productivity subscription assumed on either side. It beats it by a wider margin once we add their optional purchase back. It still loses to their two smaller storage tiers, $85.90 and $96.90, even with the discount applied.

It is not an equivalent-storage comparison either way, and the gap moves if the disk sizes match. Upsize our own desktop to their 512GB tier at $0.09/GB/month and it runs $170.68 before the volume discount. Add the same tenth of shared infrastructure and our infrastructure total is $176.12, higher than every Cloud PC tier checked here. Without a team to amortize the shared cost at all, a single-employee deployment on our 40GB default loses to every tier too: $182.60 as an infrastructure total, no volume discount available at that size. Commercial VDI broker licensing has no official vendor-published list price for full desktop VDI. We found no unofficial estimate close enough to the product compared here to be worth citing.

For a team that has already standardized on a Cloud PC subscription, this is not a swap on price alone. For a team deciding what to build next, storage tier and team size determine the number. The business value is a clearer split between shared platform costs and each employee’s workspace, plus control over how the workspace connects to backend systems.

Use the cost model for a staged decision. Price a small pilot with the real applications, connection locations, storage needs, endpoint replacement, and operating owner. Include the identity, logging, and data-handling controls the workflow requires. Use the ten-person figures only when the team will share the infrastructure and its operating responsibilities.

## Current endpoint prices for planning

The Apple prices below were checked on October 14, 2026. They are Canadian retail prices before tax and exclude accessories, support, imaging, management, and retirement. Current MacBook Air configurations start at 512GB, so the table uses 512GB models.

| Endpoint | Memory and storage | Current Canadian price | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MacBook Air 13-inch, M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU | 16GB / 512GB | CA$1,799 | [Apple product page](https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/13-inch-silver-m5-chip-10-core-cpu-8-core-gpu-16gb-memory-512gb-storage) |
| MacBook Air 15-inch, M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU | 16GB / 512GB | CA$2,099 | [Apple product page](https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/15-inch-silver-m5-chip-10-core-cpu-10-core-gpu-16gb-memory-512gb-storage) |
| Dell XPS 14 | Target: 32GB / 512GB | Quote required | [Dell XPS 14](https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptop-computers/spd/xps14da14260) |
| Dell XPS 16 | Target: 32GB / 512GB | Quote required | [Dell XPS 16](https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/spd/xps16da16260) |

Dell’s visible base prices are for 16GB / 512GB configurations. We could not verify a current 32GB / 512GB final configuration price, so the table does not use a 16GB price or estimate an upgrade. These endpoints are not equivalent to the 16GB desktop VM tested above, and a managed VM workflow still needs an endpoint.

Over the selected 36-month planning horizon, endpoint acquisition alone may cost less than an always-on managed VM. That does not decide the comparison. Access control, endpoint handling, and lifecycle operations are costs a business still needs to enter and own.

## Compare selected lifecycle costs

A desktop decision includes more than a monthly VM price. A company laptop program can carry endpoint procurement, imaging, fleet management, departure handling, reuse, and disposal. A ChromeOS or BYOD endpoint paired with a managed VM can move backend access into the managed workspace, but it still needs endpoint decisions, workspace operations, and a departure process. The comparison below does not assume either option saves money. It shows only the costs a team enters for the selected time horizon.

| Lifecycle area | Company laptop | ChromeOS or BYOD plus managed VM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Procurement and imaging | Purchase, prepare, and issue a company endpoint, including third-party imaging where used | Assign an endpoint cost, including $0 where an existing endpoint is in scope |
| Controls | Apply endpoint and fleet controls on the company device | Configure identity, access, logging, and permitted connections for the managed workspace |
| Departure | Recover or reassign the endpoint and remove access | Revoke access and handle the endpoint separately from the cloud workspace |
| Reuse and disposal | Budget reuse, disposal, or physical drive destruction if client policy requires it | Budget endpoint reuse or disposal, plus cloud retention and operations |

Deleting a VM is not media sanitization. Attached volumes, snapshots, backups, local copies, retention rules, and provider physical media need their own process. If a client requires physical destruction, confirm that its accepted cloud-sanitization process covers the workload before adoption. NIST describes sanitization decisions for virtual and cloud resources, including conditions around cryptographic erase and purge, in [SP 800-88 Rev. 2](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/88/r2/final), sections 3.1.2, 3.1.3, and 3.2.2. This post does not claim ZCP cryptographic-erase certification.

### Selected lifecycle cost model

Planning assumptions start at 10 people and 36 months. The desktop selector defaults to the tested 4 vCPU / 16GB option. Additional lifecycle cost fields begin blank. Enter every field, including an explicit zero where it applies, before the comparison appears. CAD, before tax. The model excludes reserved and volume discounts, renewal cycles, and any cost you do not enter.

Company laptop

Managed VM workspace

Enter all lifecycle cost fields, including explicit zeros, to compare selected costs. Blank fields stay unknown, so no total is shown until every cost is entered.

## Get started

This is part 2 of a 3-part series. [Part 1 covers what we built and why](https://zcp.zsoftly.ca/blog/why-we-built-private-employee-desktops). [Part 3 covers what we learned testing it](https://zcp.zsoftly.ca/blog/what-we-learned-testing-private-employee-desktops), including the real limitations worth knowing before you commit.

[Talk to us](https://zcp.zsoftly.ca/contact) to size a pilot around your team, or walk through the [technical tutorial series](https://docs.zcp.zsoftly.ca/tutorials) to see every tested step.

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