Fees and commissions
When the cost of the software grows along with your work.
A fee that goes up with every user and every module, or a percentage on every payment taken. The better things go, the more it costs — and it is the only expense in the company built that way.
Tell me what you pay todayHow you notice
- The fee has grown more than the work you do. More users, more modules, more tiers: the figure goes up for reasons that have nothing to do with how much you need. And it never ends, because you are not buying anything — you are renting.
- A percentage on every payment taken. It is the most expensive form of all, because the sum is done on your turnover and not on your use. Every customer you add, you add to them as well.
- They change the rules and the prices, and inform you afterwards. A piece of the way you work rests on decisions you do not take. A change of terms can cost you more than not depending on them would have cost.
- The data is yours, but getting it out is an undertaking. What comes out is what they have decided to let you export. If that format does not fit with the accounts, or with whoever does your books, you put the missing piece back by hand every month.
- There are things you do by hand because in there they cannot be done. It is the cost that appears on no invoice: the hours of whoever straightens out downstream what the tool does not allow for. They have to be counted, because they are usually the heaviest item of all.
How the sum is done
You do not need a consultant to work out which side you are on: you need a sheet of paper and half an hour. You add up the items on the left and the ones on the right, and compare them over three years — not on the quote, which is the comparison that makes any rental look like a bargain.
The two columns below are read for what they do over time: the left one is a line that rises and does not end, the right one is a step and then a line that is nearly flat. Line by line, on the left is what you pay today and on the right what the same thing would cost built.
The items to put on the sheet
| What you pay today | What building it would cost |
|---|---|
| The fee, for a year | The build: once only, and it ends. |
| The commissions on a year of payments taken | Servers and outside services, for a year. These are figures written down beforehand, not once the work is finished. |
| Extra users, modules and seats | Maintenance and changes, for a year: what you will ask for afterwards. |
| The hours somebody spends by hand because in there it cannot be done | The time for the switch: once only. |
| How much all of this goes up if next year you grow by 30% | Nothing, except the servers in the second row, which grow with the work they do and not with what you turn over. And this clearly applies more to a service open to the public: if it is your own people using the program, growing 30% changes nothing for them. |
The point where the two columns cross can be calculated: it is that, and not the opinion of whoever is talking to you, that says what is worth doing.
If the sum says you are better off where you are, I am the one who tells you.
The switch, without stopping
It is the right fear, and it holds more companies still than the price does. The switch is designed the way the rest is designed.
It starts alongside the old system, which stays on until the new one has shown it holds on real days. Nobody wakes up one morning with a different tool and nothing else.
How much of the history can be brought across gets checked beforehand, not afterwards: some platforms give it back whole, others in pieces, and the difference changes the sum. It is one of the first things I look at, because finding it out halfway through the work is the classic way to blow up a quote.
You are not changing masters
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The source code is yours.
Not licensed, not on loan: yours. It is written in the contract, and without that line the rest of this page is worth nothing. There is exactly one way in which it is not, and it is the one where you choose not to pay for the build: then it is held under licence, and I tell you before we start, not after. There is a way out of that too, and it is buying: ownership can be taken later, and what you have already paid counts.
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The data sits in a readable form.
On servers you choose, in a documented structure. Taking it away does not require anybody's permission.
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Whoever maintains it can be changed.
The project document and the source code are there for this too: to put somebody else in a position to carry on. A supplier who keeps you tied by your not knowing how the system is made is the same problem as before, under a different name.
When staying on rent is the better deal instead
It happens. If you pay little and grow slowly, the sum over three years never crosses: building would be money that does not come back.
If what you use already does your trade the way you do it, depending on somebody is still a real cost, but on its own it does not do the sum: it goes in together with what you pay and how fast you grow.
And if what you want is the identical thing you have, with the same features: you spend to end up with the same problem, plus the maintenance. Building makes sense when there is something that today cannot be done, or when the sum says so.
Tell me what you pay today, between fee and commissions, and on what turnover.
The first contact is free, and it is there to work out whether the problem can be addressed. It is not a sales pitch: if this is not the right fit, I say so straight away.
- Email info@azzertech.it
- Phone +39 351 974 7299