Network Switches: What Each Port Really Costs in 2026

What “price per port” actually measures

Every switch in the catalogue is sold as a whole box, so the only way to compare an 8-port unit with a 24-port one is to divide: price ÷ physical RJ45 ports. Where a model mixes PoE and uplink ports, we count the ports the product title declares and note the PoE budget separately in the notes below the table.

What this number does not measure is capability: switching capacity, whether the ports are gigabit or fast Ethernet, whether the switch is managed, whether it fits a 19-inch rack, or how much power it can push down a cable. Those are separate lines in the table for a reason — a port that costs €1.37 and a port that costs €40.44 can both carry a camera, but only one of them will power it. Everything below is read from the live catalogue: product titles exactly as they appear on the product page, real variant price and real stock. Draft listings are excluded.

Twelve switches and what a port costs

Selection of published switches, ordered from the cheapest port to the most expensive. Uplink and SFP ports are not counted as RJ45 ports.

Price divided by the RJ45 ports declared in the product title. The Hikvision 8 Ports PoE model carries 8 PoE ports plus 2 gigabit uplinks, so its cost is €17.75 per PoE port. Prices and stock are the main variant in the OnlineStore24 EU catalogue.

Browse the 1,692 PoE switches in the catalogue →

PoE is where the price per port jumps

Compare like with like and the pattern is unmistakable. A five-port unmanaged switch costs €1.40 a port; add Power over Ethernet and the six-port Esperanza moves to €3.83, the eight-port Ruijie to €6.25 and the eight-port Hikvision to €17.75. PoE means a power supply, injector circuitry and thermal headroom inside the same box — 96 W to 135 W of budget in the units listed here — and that is what you are paying for, not the port count.

The second jump comes from management and industrial build. A managed five-port unit costs €3.20 a port against €1.40 for the unmanaged version of the same size; the FortiSwitch, a Layer 2 managed device with 48 PoE ports and four SFP uplinks, reaches €77.19 a port — 56 times the cheapest port in this table.

Where the price per port breaks down usefully

Bigger is often cheaper per port, but only inside the same product family. The Zyxel 16-port PoE switch lands at €10.06 a port, comfortably below the eight-port Hikvision PoE at €17.75 — if you have sixteen cable runs to feed, that is the better buy per port. The 16-port Devolo gigabit switch, with no PoE at all, sits at €7.12 a port.

The exception is the professional tier: the Hikvision DS-3E0520HP 16-port PoE switch at €646.99 works out to €40.44 a port. Nothing in that price is decorative — it is rated for permanent installation workloads. Reading the table as “expensive equals bad” would be a mistake: each row buys a different job.

Checklist before you buy a switch

• Count the runs you actually need and add two spare ports. The €/port curve improves with size inside a family, but only if you will use the ports.
• Decide on PoE before comparing prices. If cameras or access points need power over the cable, non-PoE rows are irrelevant to you — the same eight ports cost €5.87–€17.75 with PoE against €1.37 without.
• Check the speed class. The cheapest port here is fast Ethernet; gigabit models start slightly higher.
• Check stock, not just price. The best €/port rows have 2 to 6 units left.
• Leave room for uplinks. SFP or uplink ports are not counted as device ports; a switch sold as “9-port” may only switch eight devices.

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Frequently asked questions

How is the price per port calculated?

Product price divided by the number of RJ45 ports the title declares. The current range in the catalogue is €1.37 (unmanaged 8-port at €10.99) to €77.19 (managed 48-port PoE FortiSwitch at €3,704.99).

Why does PoE cost so much more per port?

Because the switch has to inject power, not just pass packets. The same eight-port chassis moves from €1.37 per port without PoE to between €5.87 and €17.75 with it, which covers the internal power supply and the PoE budget (96 W to 135 W in the units listed).

Is a bigger switch always cheaper per port?

Within the same family, usually yes: the 16-port Zyxel PoE switch costs €10.06 per port against €17.75 for the 8-port Hikvision PoE. It breaks down in the professional tier, where a 16-port hardened switch at €646.99 reaches €40.44 per port.

Do the prices include VAT?

Prices shown are the OnlineStore24 EU catalogue prices in EUR. The final amount with taxes and shipping is calculated at checkout based on the delivery country.

Can I power cameras from a non-PoE switch?

Not directly. Cameras need either a PoE switch or separate injectors; adding injectors per camera usually costs more than the difference between a PoE and a non-PoE switch of the same size.

Compare every switch port-by-port in the catalogue →