Tool profile
Mend.io: cost, fit and limits
Mend.io is an application security vendor (legal entity White Source Ltd.) whose Mend SCA product scans open source dependencies for vulnerabilities, licenses and malicious packages, with reachability analysis and SBOM output for engineering and security teams.
What to know first
Mend sells by contributing developer, and its pricing page prints maximums rather than tiers: up to $1,000 per developer per year for AppSec, $300 for Mend AI and $250 for Renovate Enterprise. The page states no per-GB fees and no limits on scans, code size or applications. That helps budgeting, but there is no free plan and exact tier prices still go through a demo.
Mend.io at a glance
| Maker | Mend.io (White Source Ltd.), Israel |
|---|---|
| Free plan | No |
| Entry price | Up to $1,000 per developer per year (Mend AppSec) |
| API access | Yes |
| Category | Best AI Software Composition Analysis Tools in 2026, rank 6 of 10 |
| Website | mend.io |
Who Mend.io is best for
Mid-size and large engineering orgs
Per-developer ceilings with no per-scan or per-application fees suit organizations with many services and a stable headcount. The ceiling is printed on the pricing page, so finance can set a budget before a demo.
Teams on several source hosts
The SCA page lists GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps along with IDEs, registries and CI/CD, so mixed environments are supported.
Teams that want automated updates
Renovate Enterprise can be bought alone at up to $250 per developer a year for dependency updates without the rest of AppSec.
Mend.io plans and pricing
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Mend AppSec | Up to $1,000 per developer per year | Mend SAST, Mend SCA, AI-generated code security, AI-powered fix suggestions and automated dependency updates. Hosting and services can add extra charges. |
| Mend AI | Up to $300 per developer per year | AI-BOM and Shadow AI discovery, system prompt hardening, automated red teaming, runtime guardrails and governance. Add-on or standalone. |
| Mend Renovate Enterprise | Up to $250 per developer per year | Automated dependency management, Merge Confidence ratings and workflows and dedicated support, available standalone. Merge Confidence ratings help reviewers decide whether an update is safe to merge. |
Checked October 2026.
What Mend.io does
- Reachability analysis
- Mend traces whether code calls vulnerable functions in direct and transitive dependencies, so reachable issues rise above those that exist in the tree but never run.
- Risk scoring
- Prioritization uses CVSS 4.0 severity together with EPSS exploitability data, which helps a team defend why one finding was fixed before another. Scoring this way gives engineers a stated reason for the order they fix things in.
- License policy and SBOMs
- Detection of licenses with policy enforcement, SBOM generation in SPDX and CycloneDX, third-party SBOM import and VEX data cover audit paperwork. These outputs help when a customer or regulator asks for a bill of materials.
- Malicious package detection
- Typosquats and dependency-confusion attacks are flagged, and builds can be gated on policy through the Mend CLI in common CI systems. Policy gates stop a flagged package at build time, before it ships.
How Mend.io handles your data
The privacy policy names White Source Ltd. in Givatayim, Israel as controller, with WhiteSource Software, Inc. handling requests from Boston. It says personal data may be processed in the U.S., Israel, the UK and the EU, and that customer data may be hosted in third-party facilities in the U.S. or the EU depending on the customer's location and preference. Contributing developers are counted from pseudonymized email addresses. The policy states it does not sell personal information. Whether customer code trains AI models was not checked.
Where Mend.io falls short in practice
- Only ceilings are printed. The pricing page shows maximums per developer, not tiers, so a buyer cannot tell the actual price without a demo and a count of contributing developers.
- No free way to try it. The pages checked list no free plan, so evaluation depends on a trial arranged through sales instead of self-serve signup on a small repository. A hands-on proof of concept therefore needs sales involvement.
Works with
Alternatives to Mend.io
Mend.io: common questions
Who counts as a contributing developer at Mend?
The pricing page defines it as an employee or contractor who uses the web UI or writes or modifies scanned code. Someone counted in two roles is counted once. Confirm how bots and occasional contributors are treated in your contract.
Does Mend charge per scan or by code size?
No. The pricing page says there are no per-GB fees and that pricing does not limit code size, the number of scans or the number of applications. It adds that expansion options and hosting or services may carry additional charges.
Can Mend host my data in the EU?
The privacy policy says customer data may be hosted in third-party facilities in the U.S. or the EU depending on the customer's location and preference. Ask for the region in writing when you sign, as the SCA page does not name hosting options.
Can I buy Mend Renovate without the rest?
Yes. Renovate Enterprise is listed at up to $250 per developer per year and can be purchased standalone. It covers automated dependency management, Merge Confidence ratings and workflows and dedicated support. Ask which features the standalone price excludes. Confirm that update workflows fit your repositories.
Does Mend cover AI components?
The SCA page says Mend covers AI components and frameworks, and a separate AI-BOM product lists them. Mend AI, up to $300 per developer a year, adds Shadow AI discovery and red teaming. The depth of detection was not tested here.