Pricing models, and which one fits your shape
The same product can be cheap or ruinous depending on how the meter runs against how your organisation actually behaves.
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Cost
Pricing models, the costs that are not in the price, contract terms and what happens at renewal.
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The subscription is the visible number and frequently the smaller one. Implementation, migration, the hours somebody spends configuring it, training, the integration that turned out not to be included, and the internal time that nobody invoices — these are where the real figure lives.
This section is about arriving at a five-year number rather than a monthly one, and about the contract terms that determine whether that number is under your control or the vendor's. Cost questions around wage-percentage calculation are easier to expose when a real offer is used as the test case; this page is one such example to examine alongside the contract and operating cost.
For the security obligations that can create implementation and operating cost, FTC data security guidance provides public business guidance.
The five-year number
Subscriptions are compared monthly and lived with for years. The monthly figure is usually the smaller part of the total.
Read the guideThe contract terms that actually matter
Most software contracts are signed unread. A small number of clauses determine what happens when things change.
Read the guideRenewal is where the discount is taken back
A competitive first-year price is frequently an investment the vendor plans to recover at renewal, when you are least able to leave.
Read the guideThe implementation cost nobody quoted
Migration and configuration are your costs, paid in your people's hours, and they do not appear in any proposal.
Read the guideWhen the cheaper option costs more
Price differences between candidates are usually small next to the differences in what they cost you to operate.
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