Webroot Essentials
OpenText
Almost weightless protection for aging hardware.
Webroot Essentials costs $4.37/mo for the Essentials (first year) plan.
Price
From $4.37/mo
Last checked
September 2026
Best for
Old or low-power PCs
Category
Specialists
About Webroot Essentials
Webroot does antivirus differently. The analysis happens in the cloud, so the local client stays tiny (the installer is around 5 MB) and scans finish in seconds. On an aging laptop where Norton would be a burden, Webroot is barely noticeable. The flip side is that it participates in fewer independent lab tests than the major brands, so protection claims are harder to verify, and the feature set is thin. As lightweight protection for a secondary or older machine, it fills a real niche.
Webroot Essentials pricing
Webroot Essentials costs $4.37 per month, or $52.49 per year on the Essentials (first year) plan. List prices on annual billing, checked on 8 September 2026; paying monthly usually costs more.
Every plan Webroot Essentials sells, with the yearly price next to the monthly one.
Essentials (first year)
- 3 devices
- Cloud-based scanning
- Renewal price not published (checked 8 September 2026)
What Webroot Essentials costs after the first year
Webroot Essentials costs $52.49 for the first year on the Essentials 3 Device plan, read on webroot.com on September 8, 2026. Webroot does not publish a renewal price: the pages we read say the subscription renews at the price in force at that time, without an amount. Auto-renewal can be switched off in your Webroot account; the vendor’s own instructions are on its support page.
Vendors without a printed renewal amount are listed as such in our Renewal Price Index, next to the 9 that do print one; the first-year price sits beside every other suite in the Price Index.
Source: https://www.webroot.com/products/pricing/, read . Amounts in the currency the vendor bills in.
Independent lab results
Webroot Essentials was not in the AV-TEST home-user rounds we read on September 8, 2026, so there is no AV-TEST score to show. The participant list of the round is linked below.
Who was tested at AV-TEST, May-June 2026 (Windows 11)“The featherweight. A cloud-based scanner that installs in seconds and uses almost no disk or memory. Perfect for old laptops and minimalists. Independent labs test it less often than the big names, which keeps our score modest.”Editorial team, via AntivirusShortlist
Where to get it
From $4.37/mo
Sign up directly with the provider.
Prices last checked on
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Questions about Webroot Essentials
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Who is behind Webroot Essentials?
Webroot Essentials is run by OpenText. That is the name on your invoice, in the terms and in the company register, while the website itself shows only the brand. If you searched for the company name and landed here, you are in the right place.
Some links on this site are affiliate links; a purchase through one of them can earn us a small commission and never adds to the price you pay. Prices and plans can change at any time; always check current pricing with the provider.