Ask most geosteering software vendors for a price and you will be asked for a call first. That makes it hard to budget for a drilling programme, and harder to compare products. This guide explains how geosteering software is priced, what drives the total cost beyond the licence, the prices that are published, and how to get a quote you can compare.
The Three Ways Geosteering Software Is Sold
Perpetual licence plus maintenance
You buy a licence per user once, then pay a yearly maintenance fee for updates and support, often a percentage of the licence price. It suits an operator with a steady drilling programme and a long horizon. The upfront cost is high, and the licence is usually tied to one computer or one named user.
Rental or subscription per seat
You pay per user per month or per year. Costs scale with the team, updates are included, and you can stop when the programme stops. Most newer, cloud-based products are sold this way.
Per well or per service
Some vendors sell the software together with a geosteering service, priced per well or per day. You are paying for people as well as software, which can make sense if you have no geosteerers of your own.
Published Prices
Few vendors publish their prices. Here is what we found stated publicly, as of November 2026. Check the vendors' own sites for current figures.
| Product | Model | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| SES (Stoner Engineering) | Rental or purchase, per licence | Rental 1,400 a month; purchase 4,800 a year maintenance |
| StarSteer (ROGII) | Not published | Contact the vendor |
| ZoneVu (Ubiterra) | Not published | Contact the vendor |
| GeoMaster | Subscription per plan | Free; then £299, £799 or £1,999 a month billed annually, excl. VAT |
Our comparison pages for StarSteer, ZoneVu and SES set out the differences feature by feature, using only what each vendor states publicly.
What Drives the Total Cost
The licence is rarely the whole bill. When you compare products, count these too.
- Seats for everyone who needs to look. The geosteerer needs full access, but the client representative, the operations geologist and the directional driller usually only need to see the picture. If each viewer needs a paid seat, the cost multiplies quickly.
- Real-time data. Connecting to the rig's WITSML server can be a separate module or charged by volume. Ask how pulls are counted and what happens when you exceed an allowance.
- Installation and IT. Desktop software needs computers that can run it, licence management and someone to install updates. Browser-based software moves that cost to the vendor.
- Training. A product the team cannot use without a week-long course has a cost that never appears on the invoice.
- Idle months. An annual licence is paid in the months you do not drill. Monthly billing lets you pay for the months you do.
- Getting out. If you change vendor, can you export your interpretations and data in standard formats? A product that locks your history in has a cost that appears later.
Questions to Ask for a Real Quote
- What is the price per user, and is there a minimum number of users?
- Do people who only view a project need a paid seat?
- Is real-time WITSML included, and how is usage counted?
- Are updates, support and training included, or extra?
- Is there a free plan or trial on my own data, not just a demo?
- What is the minimum commitment, and can I pay monthly?
- What happens to my projects if I stop paying?
Ask for the answers in writing. They make products comparable even when the list prices are not public.
A Worked Example
Say a small operator drills six laterals a year. One geosteerer steers them; a client representative and a directional driller need to see each well.
- With a perpetual licence for the geosteerer and paid seats for viewers, the cost is fixed whether six wells are drilled or two, and the viewers add to it.
- With a subscription that includes unlimited viewers and monthly billing, the operator pays for one seat in the months it drills, and the viewers cost nothing.
The second is not always cheaper over five years of continuous drilling. But for an uneven programme, the ability to stop paying, and not pay for people who only look, often matters more than the list price.
What GeoMaster Costs
GeoMaster®, registered in the United Kingdom (UK00004424070), publishes every plan and limit on its pricing page. Prices below are billed annually and exclude VAT.
| Plan | Price a month | Projects | Who can use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | 1, plus projects shared with you | You |
| Basic | £299 | 5 | 1 user |
| Pro | £799 | 20 | 1 named collaborator, unlimited viewers |
| Enterprise | £1,999 | Unlimited | Unlimited users and collaborators |
Monthly billing is available on every paid plan. Every plan includes GeoEngine, the AI assistant in each project, with a monthly query allowance, and WITSML credits for pulling data from a WITSML 1.4.1.1 server; you can see what your pull schedule would use with the free WITSML credit estimator. There is nothing to install, so there is no IT cost on your side.
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Frequently asked questions
Written by the GeoMaster team at Greenstone Energy Ltd
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