What a comment system costs per 10,000 page views

Comment systems are priced like electricity: a standing charge plus a meter, and every vendor reads the meter in its own unit. Disqus counts page views. Hyvor Talk counts credits, one per embed load. FastComments counts page loads. GraphComment counts "data loads". ReplyBox counts the number of times its embed loads. To compare them you have to put them on one unit, so this post uses cost per 10,000 monthly page views, with the arithmetic shown so you can redo it for your own traffic.

Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 3 September 2026, and the links go to those pages. We build EchoThread, so treat our claims as claims; our numbers are on the same footing as everyone else's here, and we do not come out cheapest per view.

The meters, and what each one counts

A page view, an embed load and a page load are the same event for a comment widget: the page rendered and the widget asked for its comments. Hyvor's credits and GraphComment's data loads are close to it but not identical. Hyvor also charges a credit per comment posted (and 10 or 20 credits per spam check, depending on the provider you enable), and GraphComment's unit is undefined on its page, so treat both columns as approximate.

The arithmetic

Per-10,000 cost is the plan price divided by the plan's monthly ceiling, times 10,000. It tells you what you pay per unit if you use the whole allowance. Nobody does exactly, which is why the second table below matters more.

Notes on the rows, from the pages themselves:

• Disqus Plus covers up to 3 sites and Pro up to 20. Basic is "free, ads-supported with a Top ads placement required", so its per-view price is paid in your readers' attention rather than in dollars. The Disqus pricing post goes tier by tier.
• Hyvor Talk Premium covers up to 10 websites and Business up to 50, which is why Business costs more per credit: you are paying for sites and features, not traffic. The page also lists a Personal tier at €5 a month, billed annually, with a small credit allowance. If you exceed your credits "for two consecutive months", Hyvor will "temporarily disable embeds until the next month begins or you upgrade".
• ReplyBox includes unlimited sites on every plan. Its pricing page is a slider with three positions, and these are the three; it says occasional spikes are not charged, and that two months over the limit in a row brings a request to upgrade.
• GraphComment's free plan lists "no ads" and 100 AI analyses a month, and reserves customisation and the notification centre for paid plans. Because "data load" is not defined on the page, do not assume 1,000,000 data loads equals 1,000,000 page views.
• FastComments Flex is the only usage-priced entry: no ceiling, a spending cap you set, and "usage that would exceed a limit is blocked". Extra sites are $10 a month each after the first, and moderators $5 each, which is where a multi-site bill grows; the FastComments alternative post works a full example. FastComments also sells a fixed Creators plan at $5.99 for up to three sites.
• EchoThread's allowance is per site and soft: at 90% we email you, if you go over we email you again, and nothing is hidden, throttled or deleted. It applies only to sites created on or after 1 October 2026; a site created before that date has no page-view ceiling on any plan. Comments are not metered on any plan.

Where the unit stops meaning anything

Free plans with high ceilings. GraphComment's free tier at 1,000,000 data loads makes its per-view cost zero at every traffic level a blog is likely to see, and the question becomes what the free plan lacks rather than what it costs. EchoThread's Hobby plan is zero up to 10,000 views on a new site, and on a site created before 1 October 2026 it has no ceiling to divide by at all.

Plans with no ceiling. Business at $79 has a per-view cost that falls towards zero as traffic grows. The right question for an unlimited plan is whether its price is below the next-cheapest plan's overage, not what it costs per view.

Usage pricing. FastComments' per-view price is a real marginal price and the lowest on the table by a distance. Its cost is elsewhere: the per-site and per-moderator meters, and the comments-stored meter, which is the one everyone forgets.

Tier cliffs. Cost per view is lowest just under a ceiling and highest just over it. At 101,000 monthly views Disqus Plus costs $20, not $12, so the per-10,000 cost at that point is $1.98 rather than $1.20. The practical question is not "what does each vendor cost per view" but "which is the cheapest plan whose ceiling covers my traffic, and how far away is the next cliff".

The cheapest ad-free plan at four traffic levels

One site, monthly billing, prices as read on 3 September 2026. EchoThread figures are for a site created on or after 1 October 2026; an earlier site is not metered.

FastComments figures are $0.99 plus $1 for each 100,000 loads beyond the included 50,000, for one site, and exclude the comments-stored and SSO meters. Disqus Basic is free at every level if you accept the ad.

Read honestly, that table says GraphComment's free tier and FastComments Flex beat everyone on price per view, us included. What EchoThread charges $9 for at 100,000 views is not the views. It is no ads on any plan, no reader tracking on any plan, comments that are never counted, an allowance that emails you rather than blocking your widget, and the fact that a site you set up before 1 October 2026 is never metered. Whether that is worth the difference is your call; the comparison pages put the features side by side, and free versus paid comment systems covers what free tiers tend to leave out.

How to work out your own number

1. Take monthly page views for the pages that will carry the widget, not the whole site. A comment widget on posts only is not loaded on your homepage or your tag pages.
2. Count your sites. Three of the six vendors above charge per site or cap sites per plan.
3. If you are looking at Hyvor Talk, add your monthly comment count to your page views, because both spend credits.
4. Decide whether you can show ads. If you can, Disqus Basic is free; if you cannot, or will not, its entry price is $12.
5. Pick the cheapest tier whose ceiling covers step 1, and write down where the next cliff is. That number, not the per-view figure, is what your bill will do when a post takes off.

The EchoThread free plan is one site, comments included, no ads, no reader tracking; paid plans start at $9 a month for three sites, and the whole ladder is on the pricing page.