Doppler vs Infisical Cloud vs AWS Secrets Manager: Real Secrets Management Cost for 100,000 Secrets in 2026
Prices checked: October 2, 2026.
DIRECT ANSWER
Short answer
For 100,000 secrets used by 50 engineers and 100 machine identities (services, CI pipelines, agents):
| Platform | Monthly cost | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Doppler Team | $1,050 | $21 × 50 users; no per-secret fee; non-human identities free |
| Infisical Pro | $3,000–$3,300 | $20–$22 × 150 identities (humans and machines) |
| Infisical Advanced | $6,000–$6,600 | $40–$44 × 150 identities |
| AWS Secrets Manager | $40,060–$40,600 | $0.40 per secret + $0.05 per 10,000 API calls |
All totals are ILLUSTRATIVE from OFFICIAL list prices.
At 100,000 secrets, AWS Secrets Manager costs about 38× Doppler, because it's the only one of the three that charges per secret. Doppler and Infisical charge per seat or identity, so the number of secrets barely matters. The number of people and machines does.
Native billing units
| Platform | Billed on | Rate | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Secrets Manager | Each secret, prorated hourly | $0.40 per secret per month | OFFICIAL |
| AWS Secrets Manager | API calls | $0.05 per 10,000 calls | OFFICIAL |
| Doppler Developer | Users | Free for 3 users, then $8/user/month; 10 projects, 50 service tokens, 3-day activity log | OFFICIAL |
| Doppler Team | Users | $21/user/month; 250 projects, 15 environments, 500 service tokens, 90-day activity log | OFFICIAL |
| Doppler Team add-ons | Seats | $9/seat/month (custom roles, user groups, integration syncs) | OFFICIAL |
| Doppler | AI agents / non-human identities | "Ride free" (no per-agent charge) | OFFICIAL |
| Doppler Enterprise | Custom | Custom | QUOTE-ONLY |
| Infisical Free | Identities | $0, up to 5 identities | OFFICIAL |
| Infisical Pro | Identities (any human or machine that authenticates) | $20/identity/month billed annually; $22 monthly | OFFICIAL |
| Infisical Advanced | Identities | $40/identity/month billed annually; $44 monthly | OFFICIAL |
| Infisical Enterprise | Custom | Custom, billed annually | QUOTE-ONLY |
None of Doppler's or Infisical's plans list a per-secret charge or a cap on total secrets. Their limits are on projects, environments, tokens and syncs.
Scenario breakdown (ILLUSTRATIVE)
The organization:
- 100,000 secrets, kept all month
- 50 human users
- 100 machine identities
- API usage tested at two levels: 4 reads per secret per day (12M calls/month) and 40 reads per secret per day (120M calls/month)
AWS Secrets Manager
| Item | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Secret storage | 100,000 × $0.40 | $40,000 |
| API calls, light (12M) | 12M ÷ 10,000 × $0.05 | $60 |
| API calls, heavy (120M) | 120M ÷ 10,000 × $0.05 | $600 |
| Total | $40,060–$40,600 |
Users and IAM roles cost nothing extra. You pay for secrets and calls only.
Doppler Team
| Item | Calculation | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 50 users | 50 × $21 | $1,050 |
| 100 machine identities | Free | $0 |
| Optional add-ons for all 50 seats | 50 × $9 | +$450 |
| Total | $1,050 (or $1,500 with add-ons) |
Infisical Pro / Advanced
| Item | Pro (annual / monthly) | Advanced (annual / monthly) |
|---|---|---|
| 150 identities | $3,000 / $3,300 | $6,000 / $6,600 |
Where the cost catches you
- AWS per-secret pricing punishes granularity. One secret per key/value pair, per service and per environment adds up fast. Bundling related values into one JSON secret (up to the size limit) cuts the bill proportionally: 100,000 values grouped 10 per secret becomes 10,000 secrets, or $4,000/month.
- Short-lived AWS secrets are prorated hourly. AWS's own example puts a secret that exists for 1 hour at about $0.00056. Ephemeral credentials that rotate often cost far less than the $0.40 headline.
- Infisical bills machines like people. Every service, CI runner or agent that authenticates is a billable identity. At 500 machine identities, Infisical Pro reaches $11,000–$12,100/month. Consolidating machine identities is the main cost lever.
- Doppler's limits are structural, not financial. The Team plan caps projects (250), environments (15) and service tokens (500). An organization with 100,000 secrets spread across many projects may hit those caps and need Enterprise (QUOTE-ONLY).
- Audit retention differs. Doppler Team keeps 90 days of activity logs. Infisical Pro keeps 30 days and Advanced 90. AWS logs API activity through CloudTrail, which has its own pricing.
- Regional replication on AWS. Replicating secrets to other regions for disaster recovery multiplies the secret count you pay for. Check the per-region total before enabling it.
Which one fits
- Many secrets, moderate team size: Doppler. It's the cheapest by far here, because secrets and machines are free.
- Self-hosting option or open-source core matters: Infisical. Keep the machine-identity count tight.
- AWS-native workloads with a few thousand secrets or fewer: Secrets Manager. At 1,500 secrets it's about $600/month with no extra vendor, but it doesn't scale economically to 100,000.
- Very large human teams with few secrets: compare Doppler's per-user price against AWS's per-secret price directly. AWS can win when secrets are few and people are many.
Assumptions
- 100,000 secrets stored for the full month; 50 users; 100 machine identities
- AWS us-east-1 list prices; no free-tier credits applied
- Infisical annual and monthly billing shown as a range
Pricing sources
- AWS Secrets Manager pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/secrets-manager/pricing/
- Doppler pricing: https://www.doppler.com/pricing
- Infisical pricing: https://infisical.com/pricing