vCOPS has never been free. In fact it's one of the most expensive products VMware offers, depending on your configuration. Specifically, the change from Standard to Advanced for my organization costs more than our entire IT budget. Don't get me started!
It's a great product though, and I highly recommend it (along with Log Insight, which is very affordable!).
I run all of my datacenters using vCOPS Standard (from the vCloud Suite Std.), and I unlock the Custom Dashboard feature (normally requires vCOPS Advanced) by using EMC Storage Analytics (ESA). Couldn't live without it honestly. The downside is that it locks out reporting for 3 of the 4 core resources (unacceptable VMware!), and only allows me to see disk metrics. Hopefully this will change soon now they have opened up 3rd party dashboards for vCOPS Standard users running VSAN.
Anyway, just be aware that the licensing model is very complex and changes over time. I have been aggressively trying to get from Std to Adv. at the last few jobs I have worked at and have never been successful in getting it bought. It doesn't help that VMware sales reps are poorly trained on the licensing topics that are so critical to the admins running this stuff. Also notable the people that blog and write books on the topic also never address licensing. You will have to defend yourself.
Anyway, that's my story on the high end of the enterprise stuff. If you are just looking to get a foot in the door, try the entry level packages:
vSphere with Operations Management (vSOM) Pricing
[UPDATE] See my post later in the thread for an amazing update related to Dashboard availability in vRO 7.
