WMS without per-user fees: what you pay instead

Why per-user pricing gets expensive

Per-seat pricing charges for access, not for work done. Everyone who needs to look at an order, approve a gate pass or check a count becomes a line on the invoice. Operations teams feel this first: the people closest to the floor (receivers, pickers, dispatchers, customer service) are usually the most numerous and the lowest paid, and a plan prices them all the same.

What you pay instead

With an owned system the software price is settled up front: the build is priced by scope, and after 3 months of free support your IT team is trained, or you take 24/7 support for a fixed monthly fee, quoted with the build. There are no per-truck, per-dispatch or per-client fees, and no per-seat charge. The running cost you take on instead is the server and the person who looks after it, both of which stay roughly flat as headcount grows.

Questions to ask any pricing page

• What exactly counts as a billable user? Contractors, customers and read-only viewers included?
• What happens to the invoice when you double the team in a peak season?
• Are integrations, API calls or storage metered separately?
• If you leave, can you export everything, and is there a fee for it?