The short version
If you also want the referral and booking portal, MiniPACS and Vendo together are $640 per location per month, which is $7,680 per location per year. Vendo on its own is $500 per location per month. Every figure on this page is per physical location, and that is the only axis the price moves along.
MiniPACS
$300
per location per month
$3,600 per location per year, billed yearly
The self-hosted archive, browser viewer and worklist on one machine. No per-study fees.
Vendo
$500
per location per month
$6,000 per location per year, billed yearly
The referral and booking portal on its own: intake, scheduling and status.
MiniPACS + Vendo
Most complete$640
per location per month
$7,680 per location per year, billed yearly
The archive and the referral portal together. Book the referral online and land it on the worklist.
Which is right for me
Buy MiniPACS if the pain is owning your archive and reading studies.
Add Vendo if referrals still arrive by fax.
Take both to book the referral online and land it on the worklist.
What the flat fee includes
The number is deliberately simple because the thing it buys is the whole system, not a bare server. For $300 per location per month you get:
MiniPACS is self-hosted: it installs with Docker on Linux and runs comfortably on a mini PC for a single site, which means the imaging data never leaves the building. For the full account of running your archive on your own hardware, see self-hosted PACS.
No per-study fees, on purpose
This is the part that matters most, so it gets its own heading. Most cloud PACS bill per study or per stored gigabyte. That model looks cheap on the first invoice and then grows for years, because the cost of yesterday's imaging keeps arriving long after you read it. Every scan you take adds to a recurring bill, and the total is something you find out rather than decide.
MiniPACS replaces that with a flat figure per location. You can hold millions of images and the price does not change. A center that reads a steady volume ends up paying less over a few years and, just as important, can put an exact number in next year's budget today. If you want to model the gap for your own volume, the cloud PACS cost calculator does the arithmetic, and cloud PACS versus on-site walks through how the two models diverge over a multi-year horizon. If you are comparing the budget end of the market, the affordable PACS guide prices per-study meters, cheap capped tiers and open source against the flat rate honestly, break-even volumes included.
The numbers in one place
The whole PACS pricing model is three prices, all per physical location, all with no per-study or per-machine add-on:
- MiniPACS: $300 per location per month. Billed yearly, that is $3,600 per location per year.
- Vendo standalone: $500 per location per month. The referral and booking portal on its own.
- MiniPACS + Vendo: $640 per location per month. Billed yearly, that is $7,680 per location per year, for the imaging archive and the referral portal together.
A second site is a second location fee. There is no separate charge for more machines, more users, or more images at a given location.
Setup and migration are separate from the license. Standing the system up and moving your existing archive in is a one-time fee from $1,500, scoped to the size and state of your archive. The license never includes it and it never repeats. Ask for a setup quote on the demo and quote form and you get the exact figure for your archive before you commit.
What you own, and what happens if you stop
Your data stays yours.
Because MiniPACS is self-hosted, the archive sits on your own storage in standard DICOM. Two consequences follow directly from that, and both are in your favor.
Your data stays yours. The imaging data never leaves the building, which makes the data-residency and access questions in a HIPAA review simple to answer. There is no third party holding your studies and no request to file to get them back, because you already hold them.
Read-only access continues if payment lapses. You are never locked out of your own imaging history. If a bill goes unpaid you keep the ability to view and export what you already have. That is a deliberate contrast with cloud arrangements, where the practical question at the end of a contract is how, and in what format, you get the full archive back.
Where MiniPACS fits
MiniPACS is built for an independent imaging center that wants to own its archive without running a data center. It is the whole system on one machine in the clinic, priced as a flat fee per location rather than per study, so the bill is predictable and the data stays on premises you control. If you are weighing it against other options, the PACS vendor comparison lays out the market, and the landing page has a live demo you can click through.
See it run before you look at numbers again: the live demo is the real app on synthetic data, and the login is one click. Pricing is simple enough to keep in your head: $300 per location per month for MiniPACS, $640 with Vendo, flat, no per-study fees, and read-only access that outlives a lapsed invoice.
FAQ
How much does MiniPACS cost?
MiniPACS is $300 per location per month, flat, billed yearly, which works out to $3,600 per location per year. That single figure covers unlimited machines and unlimited staff at the site. There are no per-study fees and no charge that grows with your imaging volume. Setup and migration are a separate one-time fee, from $1,500, scoped to your archive. If you also want the referral and booking portal, MiniPACS and Vendo together are $640 per location per month, or $7,680 per location per year.
Is MiniPACS an affordable PACS for a small practice?
For a practice doing real volume, yes, and by design: $300 per location per month is inside the $150 to $2,000 band that cloud PACS subscriptions occupy, and it does not climb with volume the way per-study meters do. A cheap per-study cloud plan at $2.00 per study crosses $300 at 150 studies a month, about 7 studies a working day, and keeps rising after that. Below that volume a per-study plan can genuinely be the more affordable choice; the affordable PACS guide walks the break-even math honestly.
Is MiniPACS the cheapest PACS?
Not at every volume, and we say so plainly. Open source is cheaper on license at $0 if you have the engineer to run it, and below roughly 100 studies a month a per-study cloud meter at $0.10 to $2.00 per study can produce a smaller bill. What MiniPACS is built to be is the cheapest predictable bill above that volume: a flat $300 per location per month that does not move with studies, seats or storage, so the price you budget is the price you pay.
Are there per-study or per-image fees?
No. This is the core difference from most cloud PACS. Cloud vendors commonly bill per study or per stored gigabyte, so the cost of yesterday's imaging keeps arriving for years and your bill climbs with every scan you read. MiniPACS is a flat fee per location. You can hold millions of images and the price does not move. That makes the yearly cost something you can actually budget instead of a number you find out at the end of the month.
What is included in the price?
Everything the site needs to run: the DICOM archive, the browser-based viewer and the worklist, running together on one machine in the clinic. Unlimited machines and unlimited staff are included, so you do not count seats. Installation and migration of your existing archive are handled for you as a separate one-time setup fee, from $1,500, scoped to the archive. The software is self-hosted with Docker on Linux and runs comfortably on a mini PC for a single site, so the imaging data never leaves the building and scans open in about 0.6 seconds (measured).
How does MiniPACS pricing compare to cloud PACS?
Cloud PACS trades a low entry point for a bill that scales with your archive, usually per study or per gigabyte, and your imaging history lives on the vendor's systems. MiniPACS trades that for a flat, known figure and full ownership: $300 per location per month, and the data stays on hardware you control. Cloud PACS bills run $150 to $2,000 a month and climb with every study you store; MiniPACS stays $300. Over five years that is $18,000 against as much as $120,000, and the flat number is one you can write into next year's budget today instead of discovering at month end. To model your own numbers, use the cloud PACS cost calculator linked below.
What happens when storage fills up?
You buy a bigger disk, and that is the whole answer. On your own hardware, or on a cloud volume in your own account, archive growth is a one-time drive purchase: a few hundred dollars buys terabytes that hold years of imaging. On a metered cloud PACS the same growth becomes a permanently higher monthly bill, because per-study and per-gigabyte pricing charges you every month for studies you acquired years ago. This is the quiet difference between the two models: one turns storage into a commodity you own, the other turns it into a subscription you can never finish paying.
Why are all MiniPACS prices public?
Because quote-only pricing is how this market keeps buyers blind, and we think that is the wrong side to be on. Most PACS vendors publish no prices at all: you request a quote, sit through a demo call, and receive a number shaped by what the salesperson thinks your budget is. It is why our own comparison tables are forced to say 'not published' so often. Every MiniPACS and Vendo price is on this page, flat, before you ever talk to us: $300 per location per month for MiniPACS, $500 for Vendo, $640 for both, setup from $1,500 one time. If a vendor will not tell you the price until they have qualified you, that tells you how the rest of the relationship will go.
What happens if I stop paying?
Read-only access continues if payment lapses. Because MiniPACS is self-hosted and the archive sits on your own storage in standard DICOM, you are never locked out of your own imaging history. You keep the ability to view and export what you already hold. That is a deliberate contrast with cloud arrangements where the practical question at the end of a contract is how, and in what format, you get the full archive back.
Is there a per-machine or per-user charge?
No. The $300 per location per month is flat and covers unlimited machines and unlimited staff at that site. You do not buy seats, you do not license workstations, and adding another reading station or another member of staff does not change the bill. Pricing is per physical location, so a second site is a second location fee, and that is the only axis the price moves along.
