- BFSIBanking, Financial Services & Insurance
- IT & ITESIT services, BPM, GCCs & SaaS
- Retail & e-commerceStore chains, D2C brands & marketplaces
- HealthcareComing soon
- ManufacturingComing soon
Every remote tool connects. Only some can prove what happened.
The cheapest tool here and the most expensive do the same session. What you are buying is the licence shape (who may connect, how many at once), the mode (a person at the other end, or an agent waiting) and the record — what can be shown about the session after it ends.
AnyDesk stores session recordings locally, on the recording side. BeyondTrust records every session centrally, tamper-evident, with the approval that allowed it. Same screen; different evidence.
Already decided — before the trial
Still yours to weigh
What remote access & support actually is
One human, one screen, somewhere else. Either a technician takes over a user’s machine to fix it (remote support), or an employee reaches their own office PC from home (remote work). The tool brokers the connection, encrypts it, decides who is allowed, and — in the products that cost more — records what happened so someone can prove it later.
Two mechanics underneath decide nearly everything. Attended sessions need a person at the far end to launch a code and accept; unattended sessions use an agent installed in advance, so the machine can be reached with nobody there. Products sell one, the other or both — and the licence shape (per concurrent technician, per named user, per device) follows from which.
The line buyers get wrong most often
Attended is not unattended. A Splashtop SOS session code covers attended help, while unattended reach on the same licence is capped at its 10 or 300 managed computers; Splashtop Business Access is unattended-only, and for your own machines. A helpdesk that buys the wrong one discovers it on the first after-hours call — and a remote-work purchase made on a technician licence pays per seat for people who are not technicians.
Remote support vs remote work
Same session, different licence. Support is per technician (named or concurrent); remote work is per employee reaching their own PC. TeamViewer and AnyDesk cover both; Rescue, BeyondTrust and Splashtop SOS are support-only; Splashtop Business Access is work-only.
Remote support vs your RMM’s built-in remote
Every RMM ships remote control — NinjaOne and Atera bundle Splashtop, Action1 and ManageEngine have their own, LogMeIn Resolve is both. If an RMM is on the bill, a separate support tool is only justified by audit, approval or vendor-access needs.
Remote support vs privileged access
BeyondTrust Remote Support sits on the line: approval per session, credential injection, forensic recording. Third-party vendor access into production is a privileged-access purchase (its sibling, Privileged Remote Access), however it is labelled.
Often confused withRMM & Patch — if an RMM is already on the bill, its remote tool may be enough →· UEM & MDM — enrolling and proving the devices you reach →
The four routes of endpoint management — and which one is yours →
Narrow 22 products to your shortlist
Pick the constraints that hold for you. A product that fails one stays on the page, faded, with the reason stamped on it; one we cannot verify for your plan line is marked and kept. Unset any chip and it returns.
Audit & control
Licensing model
Hosting
Session mode
Commercial shape
Mobile
Unattended access and poor-link performance remove nothing as chips — all eight have the first and all eight claim the second. Their reasoning is below, and in the audit ladder.
per month, annual — Remote Access · Business · Premium · Corporate (licensed users + concurrent channels)
The broadest cross-platform remote access there is — one tool for staff remote work, attended support and unattended machines, Windows to Linux to mobile.
The catch: Licensed by named users with a fixed number of concurrent channels (Premium: one channel), session recordings are kept locally, and the consumer-grade free tier blocks you the moment it suspects commercial use.
enterprise licence — SSO, conditional access, central auditability / event log, session recording
Enterprises standardising TeamViewer with SSO, conditional access by device and user group, and a central audit log a regulator can read.
The catch: Quote-only; conditional access is in Tensor Pro / Unlimited only; no credential vault or per-session approval workflow — policy, not privileged access.
per user / month, annual — Solo $6 · Pro $8.25 · Performance $13 (Pro / Performance add session recording)
Staff reaching their own office PCs from anywhere — the remote-work purchase, per user, at the lowest published price here.
The catch: Unattended access to your own machines only — no attended support sessions; session recording is local and only on Pro / Performance; account data sits on a US, German or Australian stack with no India region, and on-prem is the separate Splashtop On-Prem product.
per concurrent technician / year, billed yearly only — $259 with 10 managed computers per licence, $399 with 300 (licences stack to 1,200); SOS session codes reach any number of devices on demand; Enterprise is quoted
Helpdesks and MSP-style teams: attended sessions on demand (SOS) and unattended access to managed endpoints (Remote Support), billed per concurrent technician.
The catch: A technician tool, not a remote-work licence; cloud session recording and mobile support vary by plan line and are not documented for every SKU — confirm before quoting; account data sits on a US, German or Australian stack with no India region; on-prem comes through Enterprise and the separate Splashtop On-Prem product.
per month, billed yearly, excl. tax — Solo · Standard (20 users / 500 devices / 1 connection, add-ons to 20) · Advanced (100 / 1,000 / 2, add-ons to 50); 20% off the first year; Ultimate quoted from 5 users; Indian visitors see Solo at ₹1,350
Fast sessions on poor links (the DeskRT codec), a self-hosted On-Premises edition, and published tiers that scale named users, devices and concurrent sessions together.
The catch: Session recordings are always stored locally on the recording side, there is no central audit trail on the standard tiers, annual billing only, and the free tier is personal use only.
per technician / month, billed annually; GoTo draws the dollar figures in the browser, so TechBag confirms today’s per-technician price; Mobile Support is a paid add-on
Enterprise helpdesks: attended support at scale with audit-ready session logging, disruption-free unattended access for kiosks and signage, and granular permissions.
The catch: Per-technician seats at a premium price, mobile iOS / Android control is a paid add-on, and it is a support tool — not licensed for staff remote work.
per endpoint / month, billed annually — Starter · Advanced · Complete; 25-endpoint minimum, unlimited technician users; Advanced and Complete include one Remote Support licence; GoTo draws the dollar figures in the browser, so TechBag confirms today’s per-endpoint price
Small IT teams wanting remote support, ticketing, patching and MDM in one light console, with automatic session recording on by default.
The catch: Licensed per managed endpoint with a 25-endpoint floor (not per concurrent technician), so it does not fit a desk supporting a handful of ad-hoc machines; MDM is included in Complete and an add-on below it; remote-work use for staff is not documented; plan names changed with the LogMeIn rebrand (formerly GoTo Resolve).
per concurrent technician, annual (one licence ≈ 150 managed assets); cloud — which BeyondTrust can host in its Asia (India – West) region — or B Series appliance on-prem
Regulated support desks: forensic session recording, approval workflows, credential injection from a vault, Jump agents for unattended, and an on-prem appliance option.
The catch: Quote-only and priced like the privileged-access product it is; overkill for a five-person helpdesk; third-party vendor access is properly its sibling, Privileged Remote Access, not this SKU.
per technician / month, billed yearly — Standard · Professional · Enterprise (2 / 4 / 6 concurrent sessions); unattended access is priced separately per 25 computers; Zoho publishes an INR list too
Small and mid-sized IT teams that want attended support and unattended access from a published price list — with a free plan for one technician and five unattended computers.
The catch: Session recording and audit need Enterprise (or Unattended Professional), no self-hosted edition is published, and SSO is not on Zoho’s plan comparison.
for 25 computers with five technicians (Standard); Professional $95 / yr or $15 / mo adds recording; perpetual from $187; free edition for 10 computers; USD only
IT teams that want remote support on their own Windows server — with a perpetual licence option — or the same tool in the cloud.
The catch: Standard has no session recording, iOS is not supported and Android only on-premises, and ManageEngine does not tie the cloud edition to an India region.
N-able publishes no price — plans are chosen inside a 14-day, no-card trial; licences cover 50 or 500 devices by tier
MSP technicians who need more than the remote sessions built into their RMM: a web portal, end-user logins, longer session history and 24/7 phone support.
The catch: No published price, and N-able hosts it in three AWS locations it does not name — no India region is documented.
per month, billed annually, for 2 / 5 / 10 computers — Individuals · Power Users · Small Businesses; unlimited users; USD only, no INR list
Individuals and small teams reaching their own pre-installed computers from anywhere, with remote printing and antivirus in every plan.
The catch: Reaches computers you set up in advance — not on-demand support for someone else’s device. Linux hosts are beta only, and GoTo names no India hosting site.
per concurrent technician / month, billed annually — One (single licence, 10 unattended agents) · Standard · Premium ($59 / $69 billed monthly); Remote Access alone from $33 / month for 25 agents; On-Premise and Enterprise quoted
MSPs and IT teams that license by concurrent technician, want unlimited unattended agents from Standard, and may need a self-hosted On-Premise server.
The catch: Behind February 2024’s CVSS 10 flaw (CVE-2024-1709) and a May 2025 nation-state event that affected a very small number of customers; no India cloud region is documented and prices are USD only.
per technician, perpetual with no monthly fees — includes Mini Remote Control (sold alone from $370); internet sessions need the centralised-mode proxy
Windows-heavy IT teams that want remote control plus Active Directory, service and event-log admin on their own servers, bought once per technician.
The catch: Session recording is not documented, phones only get a technician app (no support for phone screens), sign-on is Active Directory rather than SAML, and you patch the server yourself.
sold as an annual subscription; each licence covers one concurrent technician and 500 endpoints
IT teams that want cloud remote support to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS, with sessions recorded to the cloud.
The catch: SolarWinds publishes no hosting region, SAML sign-on or Dameware-specific SOC 2 or ISO report for it, and the price for endpoints beyond 500 is not listed.
per active connection a month, billed annually — Essentials (1 user, 1 connection, 3 devices) · Plus (up to 3 connections, 50 devices) · Premium (up to 5 connections, 150 devices); Enterprise custom; per-user HelpDesk plans $16.49 / $24.99
Teams reaching Windows, Mac, Linux and Raspberry Pi machines — including industrial and embedded screens — over the cloud or directly on the LAN, from the company founded by the creators of VNC.
The catch: Recordings stay on the technician’s machine (no central archive); single sign-on is OIDC on Enterprise only; direct LAN connections need Premium and offline use needs Enterprise with the Classic Viewer; no India data centre.
per concurrent technician a month, billed yearly — Starter (1 user, 10 devices) · Standard (40 users, 1,000 devices) · Premium (unlimited within fair use); Self-Hosted $44.90; Managed Private Cloud $99.90 (20-licence minimum)
Support teams that want attended and unattended support with a published price and a genuine self-hosted or private-cloud option — now part of PDQ.
The catch: SAML single sign-on only from Premium; cloud recordings stay on the technician’s PC (server-side recording needs Self-Hosted); iPhones and iPads are view-only; no India data centre.
a year at renewal per account for 1 / 10 / 50 / 100 computers — Solo · Pro · Team (unlimited users) · Enterprise; 25% off the first year; HelpDesk $99.50 per technician a year
Small teams that want low-cost access to a fixed set of computers, priced by computers rather than by user — with unlimited users on Team.
The catch: Every list price is a first-year discount (renewals are a third higher), SSO only on Team and Enterprise, recordings save to your own computer, and there is no on-premises edition.
per named user a month, billed annually ($360 a year) — the “Remote desktop management & IT operations” package, with the Devolutions Server or Cloud vault and Gateway; Free edition for individual use; list price, not a promotion
IT and ops teams juggling hundreds of RDP, SSH, VNC and web connections who want them — and the credentials behind them — in one shared, permissioned console.
The catch: A connection manager, not a support tool: no session codes and no support agent of its own — it launches RDP, SSH, VNC or a tool like TeamViewer — and recordings are 1-frame-per-second video of embedded sessions.
per admin user / year, quoted (minimum 10 admins) — runs on ISL Online’s technology, launched from Heimdal’s dashboard; unattended access is switched on by policy; recordings kept three months
Heimdal customers who want remote support launched from the same dashboard as their patching and protection modules.
The catch: Runs on ISL Online, so compare it with ISL’s own licences; Windows-only per Heimdal’s compatibility matrix, and tenant data stays in Europe, the US or the UK.
per concurrent session a year, plus VAT, on the Matrix42 Marketplace (published in euros only); each licence covers up to 100 unattended agents; only the technician needs a licence; on-prem server available
IT teams, especially Matrix42 service-desk customers, that want attended and unattended support launched from the ticket at a published per-session price, with the option to run the server themselves.
The catch: Priced only in euros, and the web console cannot record sessions yet (Matrix42's own FAQ says recording is planned); no credential vault or per-session approval, and no India presence.
quote-only, with a free trial; a desktop connection manager for RDP and SSH sessions in tabs, with credentials injected from Delinea Secret Server
Secret Server admins juggling many RDP and SSH sessions who want them in one window with no password ever typed.
The catch: A connection manager, not a support tool: no session codes, no attended support, RDP and SSH only. Its value depends on Secret Server behind it, and recording on its own is not documented.
Why each constraint rules out what it doesShow the reasoning ↓
Approval workflow and credential vaultRules out TeamViewer Remote, TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Business Access, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, AnyDesk, LogMeIn Rescue, LogMeIn Resolve, Zoho Assist, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, N-able Take Control, LogMeIn Pro, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Support, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, RemotePC, Remote Desktop Manager, Heimdal Remote Desktop, Matrix42 FastViewer and Delinea Connection Manager — no per-session approval workflow or credential injection (policy controls at most). That leaves BeyondTrust Remote Support.
Central, tamper-evident session recordingRules out TeamViewer Remote, Splashtop Business Access, AnyDesk, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online and RemotePC — recordings are stored locally on the technician or host side. That leaves TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, LogMeIn Rescue, LogMeIn Resolve, BeyondTrust Remote Support, Zoho Assist, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, N-able Take Control, LogMeIn Pro, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Support, Dameware Remote Everywhere, Remote Desktop Manager, Heimdal Remote Desktop, Matrix42 FastViewer and Delinea Connection Manager. It flags Splashtop Remote Support / SOS — Central recording not documented for every plan line, N-able Take Control — Central recording not documented for every plan line, LogMeIn Pro — Central recording not documented for every plan line, ScreenConnect — Central recording not documented for every plan line, Dameware Remote Support — Central recording not documented for every plan line, Matrix42 FastViewer — Central recording not documented for every plan line and Delinea Connection Manager — Central recording not documented for every plan line — marked on the cards, not removed.
Concurrent-technician licensingRules out TeamViewer Remote, Splashtop Business Access, AnyDesk, LogMeIn Rescue, Zoho Assist, Dameware Remote Support, Remote Desktop Manager and Heimdal Remote Desktop — named users (with or without concurrent channels), not concurrent seats; LogMeIn Resolve, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, LogMeIn Pro and RemotePC — priced per agent and per device, not per concurrent technician. That leaves TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, BeyondTrust Remote Support, N-able Take Control, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, Matrix42 FastViewer and Delinea Connection Manager. It flags TeamViewer Tensor — Licence model on quote and Delinea Connection Manager — Licence model on quote — marked on the cards, not removed.
Self-hosted or on-premRules out TeamViewer Remote, LogMeIn Rescue, LogMeIn Resolve, Zoho Assist, N-able Take Control, LogMeIn Pro, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RemotePC and Heimdal Remote Desktop — cloud-only. That leaves TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Business Access, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, AnyDesk, BeyondTrust Remote Support, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Support, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, Remote Desktop Manager, Matrix42 FastViewer and Delinea Connection Manager. It flags TeamViewer Tensor — On-prem option not documented either way, Splashtop Business Access — On-prem is the separate Splashtop On-Prem product and Splashtop Remote Support / SOS — On-prem is the separate Splashtop On-Prem product — marked on the cards, not removed.
Attended supportRules out Splashtop Business Access, LogMeIn Pro, Remote Desktop Manager and Delinea Connection Manager — unattended access to your own machines only. That leaves TeamViewer Remote, TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, AnyDesk, LogMeIn Rescue, LogMeIn Resolve, BeyondTrust Remote Support, Zoho Assist, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, N-able Take Control, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Support, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, RemotePC, Heimdal Remote Desktop and Matrix42 FastViewer.
Staff remote workRules out Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, LogMeIn Rescue, BeyondTrust Remote Support, N-able Take Control, Dameware Remote Support, Remote Desktop Manager and Delinea Connection Manager — a technician support tool, licensed per technician, not per employee. That leaves TeamViewer Remote, TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Business Access, AnyDesk, LogMeIn Resolve, Zoho Assist, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, LogMeIn Pro, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, RemotePC, Heimdal Remote Desktop and Matrix42 FastViewer. It flags LogMeIn Resolve — Remote-work licensing for staff not documented either way, Zoho Assist — Remote-work licensing for staff not documented either way, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus — Remote-work licensing for staff not documented either way, Dameware Remote Everywhere — Remote-work licensing for staff not documented either way and ISL Online — Remote-work licensing for staff not documented either way — marked on the cards, not removed.
Vendor-published list priceRules out TeamViewer Tensor, BeyondTrust Remote Support, N-able Take Control, Heimdal Remote Desktop and Delinea Connection Manager — quote-only. That leaves TeamViewer Remote, Splashtop Business Access, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, AnyDesk, LogMeIn Rescue, LogMeIn Resolve, Zoho Assist, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, LogMeIn Pro, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Support, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, RemotePC, Remote Desktop Manager and Matrix42 FastViewer.
Supporting iOS and Android screensRules out Splashtop Business Access, LogMeIn Pro, Dameware Remote Support and Delinea Connection Manager — desktop access only, no mobile device support. That leaves TeamViewer Remote, TeamViewer Tensor, Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, AnyDesk, LogMeIn Rescue, LogMeIn Resolve, BeyondTrust Remote Support, Zoho Assist, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, N-able Take Control, ScreenConnect, Dameware Remote Everywhere, RealVNC Connect, ISL Online, RemotePC, Remote Desktop Manager, Heimdal Remote Desktop and Matrix42 FastViewer. It flags Splashtop Remote Support / SOS — Mobile support varies by plan line, LogMeIn Rescue — Mobile support is a paid add-on, LogMeIn Resolve — Mobile support is a paid add-on, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus — Mobile support varies by plan line, N-able Take Control — Mobile support varies by plan line, RealVNC Connect — Mobile support varies by plan line, RemotePC — Mobile support varies by plan line and Heimdal Remote Desktop — Mobile support varies by plan line — marked on the cards, not removed.
Unattended access to managed machinesRules nothing out: all twenty-one reach an unattended machine — twenty through an installed agent (Matrix42 FastViewer, TeamViewer host, Splashtop streamer, AnyDesk, Rescue unattended access, Resolve, BeyondTrust Jump agent, the Zoho Assist and Remote Access Plus agents, Take Control, the LogMeIn Pro host, the ScreenConnect agent, both Dameware agents, RealVNC Server, ISL AlwaysOn, the RemotePC host and the Heimdal agent), and Remote Desktop Manager over the machine’s own RDP, SSH or VNC service. What differs is who may reach it and what is recorded — the audit chips above.
Performance on poor connectionsRules nothing out on documentation — every vendor claims it. AnyDesk documents its DeskRT codec, Splashtop its high-frame-rate engine, TeamViewer adaptive quality. The honest test is your worst branch link at 4 pm; which tool wins it for your sites is [TechBag to confirm].
Already bundled in your RMMNot a chip because it removes nothing here — it removes the purchase. NinjaOne and Atera bundle Splashtop; Action1 and ManageEngine Endpoint Central include remote control; N-central and N-sight include a lighter Take Control; LogMeIn Resolve is an RMM with support built in. If an RMM is on the bill, its remote tool may already cover attended and unattended support — only the audit and privileged cases justify a second tool.
Twelve situations, twelve shortlists — and what each one gives up
The session is the same in every row. The shortlist changes with who must be able to prove what, afterwards.
A five-person helpdesk doing attended support all day
Why: Attended sessions on demand at published prices; Splashtop bills per concurrent technician, Resolve per managed endpoint (25 minimum, unlimited technicians), AnyDesk per named user with concurrent sessions included.
The trade-off: Recordings are local on AnyDesk and plan-dependent on Splashtop — fine until an audit asks; then the next shortlist applies.
Staff need their own office PCs from home
Why: Licensed per user for unattended access to their own machines — Splashtop Business Access is built for exactly this at the lowest published price.
The trade-off: Support tools (Rescue, BeyondTrust, Splashtop SOS) are the wrong licence for this — per technician, not per employee. And every tool here needs MFA enforced on day one.
BFSI or regulated — a regulator will ask for the recording
Why: Central, tamper-evident recordings and audit logs; BeyondTrust adds per-session approval and credential injection from a vault, Tensor adds conditional access and a central event log, Rescue audit-ready logging.
The trade-off: BeyondTrust is priced as privileged access; Tensor is a quote; Rescue is per technician at a premium. The cheapest tool on the page does the same session — and cannot answer the regulator.
You already run an RMM
Why: NinjaOne and Atera bundle Splashtop; Resolve is itself an RMM with support inside. The remote tool may already be on the bill.
The trade-off: The bundled tool covers attended and unattended support; it does not cover privileged approval or vendor access — if you need those, one additional tool, not a replacement.
Kiosks, signage and OT screens — unattended without disturbing the display
Why: Rescue's disruption-free unattended mode, BeyondTrust Jump agents, Splashtop Remote Support on managed endpoints — reach a machine nobody is sitting at, without interrupting what it is showing.
The trade-off: Unattended agents on shared machines need an offboarding process — the access outlives the technician unless somebody revokes it.
Third-party vendors need into your systems
Why: Approval per session, credential injection so the vendor never sees the password, full recording — BeyondTrust (properly its Privileged Remote Access sibling); Tensor's conditional access scopes who may reach what.
The trade-off: This is a privileged-access purchase wearing a remote-support label; price it as one. Generic tools can do the session and cannot prove what the vendor did.
Branches on bad links, across regions
Why: Codec and relay design decide it — AnyDesk's DeskRT, Splashtop's engine, TeamViewer's adaptive quality; all three publish prices and self-serve trials for a real test.
The trade-off: Test on the worst link, not the demo. On-prem relays (AnyDesk On-Premises, Splashtop On-Prem, BeyondTrust appliance) change the answer if traffic must stay inside.
Macs, Linux boxes and phones, one support tool
Why: Cross-platform attended and unattended with mobile screens: TeamViewer and AnyDesk natively, BeyondTrust with full audit; Rescue and Resolve add mobile as paid add-ons.
The trade-off: Mobile remote control depends on the phone's OS permissions (Android vendor-specific; iOS screen-view only) — no tool changes that.
A small IT team that wants a free start and rupee pricing
Why: Zoho publishes an INR list and a free plan (one technician, five unattended computers); ManageEngine’s free edition covers 10 computers.
The trade-off: Zoho keeps recording to Enterprise; ManageEngine lists USD only and keeps recording to Professional.
Remote support must run on your own servers
Why: Remote Access Plus installs on a Windows server you own, with a perpetual licence option; BeyondTrust ships as an appliance.
The trade-off: You run the server and its patching — and roaming machines need ManageEngine’s gateway, a quoted add-on.
An MSP already on N-central or N-sight
Why: A lighter Take Control is already in both RMMs; the standalone Plus adds a web portal, cloud recordings and end-user logins.
The trade-off: N-able publishes no price — the upgrade is quoted inside a 14-day trial.
Two to ten of your own computers, reached from anywhere
Why: LogMeIn Pro is priced per computer pack with unlimited users; Splashtop Business Access is licensed per user.
The trade-off: Neither is an on-demand support tool — Pro costs more per computer but includes antivirus and remote printing.
The audit ladder — four rungs, and where each product stands
This is the most useful content on the page. Every product connects; they differ in what can be shown to a regulator, an insurer or a court afterwards. Climb only as far as someone will actually ask.
Rung 1
Session happened
Connection logs with who, when, which machine. Recordings, if any, are started by the technician and saved locally — on their laptop, or the host. Enough for an internal ‘who touched this?’; not evidence.
Rung 2
Session recorded centrally
Every session recorded by policy, stored by the service, searchable in the console, with session reports. Rescue, Resolve (automatic by default) and Splashtop’s cloud recording where the plan includes it.
Rung 3
Access controlled by policy, centrally audited
SSO, conditional access by device and user group, a central event log of every action — TeamViewer Tensor’s auditability and conditional access (Tensor Pro / Unlimited).
Rung 4
Approved, injected, forensic
A session needs approval; the credential is injected from a vault so the technician never sees it; the recording is tamper-evident and attributable; Jump agents reach unattended systems under the same rules. BeyondTrust — priced as the privileged-access product it is.
Attended, unattended, remote work — three licences, not one
Attended
A person at the machine runs a session code or app and accepts. Nothing installed in advance; nothing left behind. The helpdesk mode — and what a Splashtop SOS session code is for.
Unattended
An agent (host, streamer, Jump agent) is installed ahead of time; the technician connects with nobody present — servers, kiosks, after-hours fixes. Access outlives the technician unless revoked: offboarding is part of the purchase.
Remote work
Unattended access, but by the employee to their own office PC. Licensed per user, not per technician — Splashtop Business Access, TeamViewer Remote Access, AnyDesk Solo / Standard. MFA on the account is non-negotiable.
Licensing arithmetic
Concurrent counts sessions. Named counts people. Per device counts machines.
- —Concurrent (Splashtop Remote Support / SOS, BeyondTrust): eight technicians who never run more than three sessions at once need three licences. Cheapest for large desks with low simultaneity; the ceiling is discovered mid-incident.
- —Named (TeamViewer, AnyDesk, Rescue): every technician is a seat; TeamViewer and AnyDesk then cap concurrent channels or sessions per tier on top. Predictable; punishes occasional users.
- —Per agent + device (Resolve) and per user (Business Access): suit small teams and remote work respectively; the bill follows the estate, not the desk.
Poor connections
Test on the worst branch link at 4 pm, not in the demo.
- —What decides it: the codec (AnyDesk documents DeskRT; Splashtop its high-frame-rate engine), whether the session is relayed or peer-to-peer, and where the relay lives — an India relay or an on-prem relay changes the result more than any setting.
- —Every vendor here publishes a self-serve trial except Tensor and BeyondTrust. Run the same ticket through three tools on the same bad link; the winner for your sites is [TechBag to confirm].
- —Mobile screens depend on the phone, not the tool: Android control is vendor-specific, iOS is screen-view. No product changes that.
Five, twenty-five and a hundred technicians
Remote tools scale by desk size, not fleet size. The licence shape decides the bill at each step; the audit rung decides whether the tool survives the first incident review.
The licence shape is the constraint
- —Named vs concurrent barely matters at five; the mode does — attended-only tools fail on the first unattended server call.
- —Consumer-grade tiers get used ‘for now’; TeamViewer blocks suspected commercial use, AnyDesk’s free tier is personal only.
- —MFA and SSO are rarely enforced at this size — and this is the tool an attacker wants most.
Put this in your PoC
Run one after-hours unattended session and one attended session through the same tool; confirm MFA is enforced on every technician account.
Simultaneity and recording are the constraint
- —Concurrent-session ceilings (channels on TeamViewer Premium, sessions on AnyDesk tiers) are discovered during an outage — count peak simultaneous sessions, not technicians.
- —Local recordings on 25 laptops are not an audit trail; central recording starts to matter the first time a user disputes what a technician did.
- —Offboarding: unattended agents and accounts outlive technicians unless a process revokes them.
Put this in your PoC
Simulate peak: all technicians connect at once and note where the tool refuses. Pull last month’s session list for one technician in under a minute.
Policy, SSO and evidence are the constraint
- —Central policy (who may reach what, from which device) and SSO are mandatory — this is Tensor / BeyondTrust territory, or an RMM-embedded tool with the RMM’s RBAC.
- —Vendor access and privileged sessions need approval and credential injection; a support tool cannot be stretched into a privileged-access control.
- —Recordings become a retention and storage decision with a legal owner.
Put this in your PoC
Ask for the event log of one session end to end — approval, credential, recording — and the retention policy in writing.
Switching is cheap on the technician side and forgotten on the endpoint side
Technicians install a new console in an afternoon. The unattended agents on every server, kiosk and home PC are the project — and the old ones are a standing backdoor until removed.
Technician consoles
Install, SSO, retrain on the new workflow. Days, not weeks.
Unattended agents
Deploy the new agent through the UEM / RMM, verify reach, then remove the old from every machine — and revoke the old accounts. The part that gets skipped.
Recordings and session history
Stay with the old service; central recordings have a retention clock. Export what policy or a regulator may ask for before the contract ends.
Integrations
Ticketing, RMM and identity integrations are rebuilt; a remote tool embedded in an RMM comes with the RMM and leaves with it.
Agent removal and account revocation hours for your estate: [TechBag to confirm] — TechBag scopes it from your unattended endpoint count and deployment tooling.
Concurrent, named or per device — worked for a real desk
What you may already hold, the same support desk priced three ways at three sizes in USD and INR, and what the licence line leaves out.
Do you already own one?
Remote control is the most-bundled capability in IT. Four places it may already be.
- Your RMM
- Usually NinjaOne and Atera bundle Splashtop; Action1 and ManageEngine Endpoint Central include remote control; N-central and N-sight include a lighter Take Control; LogMeIn Resolve is an RMM with support inside. Covers attended and unattended support; not approval or vendor access.
- Microsoft 365
- Partly Intune Remote Help (in Intune Plan 2 / Suite, or $3.50 per user / month) for managed Windows and Android; Windows Quick Assist is free, attended, consumer-grade — no central record.
- Your OS
- For some jobs macOS Screen Sharing / Apple Remote Desktop, Windows RDP, Chrome Remote Desktop: fine for a technician reaching a known machine inside the network, no audit trail, no attended-support workflow.
- Your EDR / UEM
- No Response consoles reach a shell, not a screen; UEMs push commands, not sessions. Neither is a support tool.
If the RMM you pay for already covers the sessions you run, a second tool needs an audit reason — and we will say when it doesn’t.
The same support desk at 5, 25 and 100 technicians
Monthly licence cost from published list prices, annual terms, INR at ≈₹83/$ for scale. Peak simultaneous sessions are an assumption — about a third of technicians — because concurrent licensing depends on it; your real peak is [TechBag to confirm]. Where a published tier caps users below the desk size, the line is left blank rather than guessed.
- ManageEngine Remote Access Plus$15 ≈₹1,245
- RemotePC$25 ≈₹2,075
- RealVNC Connect$37 ≈₹3,071
- AnyDesk$49.9 ≈₹4,142
- Splashtop SOS / Remote Support$66 ≈₹5,478
- ISL Online$70 ≈₹5,810
- Zoho Assist$75 ≈₹6,225
- ScreenConnect$90 ≈₹7,470
- TeamViewer Remote$120.9 ≈₹10,035
- Remote Desktop Manager$150 ≈₹12,450
- Dameware Remote Everywhere$162 ≈₹13,446
- Heimdal Remote DesktopQuote / above tier
- LogMeIn ResolveQuote / above tier
- LogMeIn RescueQuote / above tier
- BeyondTrust Remote SupportQuote / above tier
- N-able Take ControlQuote / above tier
per month · licence only
- RemotePC$25 ≈₹2,075
- AnyDesk$111.9 ≈₹9,288
- TeamViewer Remote$245.9 ≈₹20,410
- ManageEngine Remote Access Plus$256.667 ≈₹21,303
- Splashtop SOS / Remote Support$264 ≈₹21,912
- ISL Online$279 ≈₹23,157
- ScreenConnect$360 ≈₹29,880
- Zoho Assist$375 ≈₹31,125
- Dameware Remote Everywhere$648 ≈₹53,784
- Remote Desktop Manager$750 ≈₹62,250
- Heimdal Remote DesktopQuote / above tier
- LogMeIn ResolveQuote / above tier
- LogMeIn RescueQuote / above tier
- BeyondTrust Remote SupportQuote / above tier
- N-able Take ControlQuote / above tier
- RealVNC ConnectQuote / above tier
per month · licence only
- RemotePC$25 ≈₹2,075
- AnyDesk$111.9 ≈₹9,288
- Splashtop SOS / Remote Support$1,089 ≈₹90,387
- ISL Online$1,152 ≈₹95,616
- ManageEngine Remote Access Plus$1,162.917 ≈₹96,522
- ScreenConnect$1,485 ≈₹1,23,255
- Zoho Assist$1,500 ≈₹1,24,500
- Dameware Remote Everywhere$2,673 ≈₹2,21,859
- Remote Desktop Manager$3,000 ≈₹2,49,000
- Heimdal Remote DesktopQuote / above tier
- TeamViewer RemoteQuote / above tier
- LogMeIn ResolveQuote / above tier
- LogMeIn RescueQuote / above tier
- BeyondTrust Remote SupportQuote / above tier
- N-able Take ControlQuote / above tier
- RealVNC ConnectQuote / above tier
per month · licence only
Basis of each line
- —Heimdal Remote Desktop: quote-only per admin user a year, minimum 10 admins; Heimdal publishes no price.
- —Splashtop SOS / Remote Support: $399 a year per concurrent technician with 300 managed computers (≈ $33 / month; $259 with 10 computers), billed yearly.
- —AnyDesk: Standard $49.90 / mo covers 20 users with 1 connection; Advanced $111.90 covers 100 with 2 — extra connections are add-ons, not shown.
- —TeamViewer Remote: Premium $120.90 / mo, billed annually (up to 15 licensed users, 1 channel); Corporate $245.90 / mo, billed annually (30 licensed users, more channels); beyond that Tensor on quote.
- —LogMeIn Resolve: priced per managed endpoint (25 minimum, unlimited technicians), not per technician, and GoTo draws the dollar figures in the browser — TechBag confirms today’s per-endpoint price.
- —LogMeIn Rescue: per named technician, billed annually — quote-led; TechBag confirms today’s figure.
- —BeyondTrust Remote Support: quote-only per concurrent technician.
- —Zoho Assist: Professional $15 per technician / month, billed yearly (Enterprise $24 adds recording and audit).
- —ManageEngine Remote Access Plus: Cloud Professional $15 / mo for 25 computers with 5 technicians; extra technicians $145 / yr each — shown at the 25-computer band.
- —N-able Take Control: quote-only — plans chosen inside the 14-day trial.
- —ScreenConnect: Standard $45 per concurrent technician / month, billed annually.
- —Dameware Remote Everywhere: from $972 a year per concurrent technician (annual subscription, 500 endpoints).
- —RealVNC Connect: Plus from $18.25 per active connection a month, billed annually (up to 3 connections), then Premium from $29.75 (up to 5); beyond 5, Enterprise is quoted.
- —ISL Online: Standard $34.90 per concurrent technician a month, billed yearly (Premium $54.90 above 40 users).
- —RemotePC: Team renews at $299.50 a year for 50 computers with unlimited users (about $25 a month) — sized by computers, not technicians.
- —Remote Desktop Manager: $30 per named user a month, billed annually — every admin who opens the console is a user; it launches your RDP, SSH or support tool rather than replacing it.
Read the shape, not the ranking: concurrent licensing stays flat while named seats climb with headcount; tiered bundles (AnyDesk, TeamViewer) are cheapest until the desk outgrows the tier, then jump. The remote-work lines — Splashtop Business Access at $6 ≈ ₹498–$13 ≈ ₹1,079 per user — are a different purchase and are not in the grid. Mobile add-ons (Rescue and Resolve, both on quote) and Tensor / BeyondTrust quotes sit outside it.
TechBag gives INR pricing, GST, PO cycle, minimums and tier-matched quotes. The INR above is conversion for scale; the tier-matched INR quote — with your real peak concurrency counted — is ours.
What the licence line leaves out
The audit rung you actually need
The price gap between rung 1 and rung 4 is the gap between a session and evidence. Buying rung 4 for a five-person desk is waste; buying rung 1 for a bank is a finding. Decide the rung before the vendor, then the grid above is short.
Add-ons and ceilings
Mobile support (Rescue, Resolve), extra concurrent channels (TeamViewer), the next user tier (AnyDesk), cloud recording where the plan does not include it (Splashtop). Price the desk you will run in month six, not the one in the trial.
Offboarding and the old agents
Every unattended agent is standing access. Removing the previous tool’s agents and revoking its accounts is people-hours that nobody budgets — it sits in the switching-cost section, and for your estate the hours are [TechBag to confirm].
What goes wrong — the failure modes we can document
Documented vendor behaviour, cross-checked against TechBag engagements before any is presented as a case. Most of these cost nothing to avoid and a great deal to discover.
Consumer-tier licences used commercially
TeamViewer’s free version blocks sessions when it detects business-use patterns; AnyDesk’s free tier is personal use only. The helpdesk that ‘just used the free one’ loses access mid-ticket.
Concurrent-session limits discovered mid-incident
TeamViewer Premium carries one concurrent channel; AnyDesk tiers cap simultaneous sessions; concurrent-technician plans cap by seat. Peak load arrives during the outage, which is when the ceiling shows.
No audit trail when a regulator asks
Local recordings on technician laptops, or none. A disputed session, an insurer’s question or a BFSI audit needs a central, attributable record — rung 2 at least, rung 4 for privileged work.
Unattended agents outlive the technician
Host agents, Jump agents and streamers keep working after the person leaves unless accounts and agents are revoked. Offboarding is part of the tool, not HR’s problem.
MFA not enforced on the remote tool
The remote-access account is the most valuable credential in the company; the category’s worst breaches were reused passwords. Enforce MFA and SSO on day one, on every tier that supports it.
The wrong mode
Attended-only for a server estate; a per-technician support licence bought for 200 staff working from home. Both work in the demo and fail on the invoice or the first after-hours call.
Paying twice
The RMM already bundled Splashtop; a second remote tool was bought for the same sessions. Only audit, approval or vendor access justify the second contract.
Support tool stretched into privileged access
Vendors into production through a generic session: no approval, password shared in chat, recording optional. That is a privileged-access purchase — BeyondTrust’s domain — however the session looks.
Three doors — pick by where you are
Vendor-neutral. No gated content.