The cost of saas accounting
July 23, 2008
One of the key benefits put forward by the SaaS operators is the reduction in total cost of ownership because the saas vendors offer a rental model and the service is accessible via a web browser.
Without commenting on feature/functions or relative bang per buck, I’ve set out the monthly per user cost from some of the major accounting players I’ve found on the ‘net. I’ve created a Google spreadsheet that you can view here. The spreadsheet lists a dozen players. I’m sure there are more. I’ll endeavour to keep it updated but if there are others you know about, companies I’ve forgotten or whatnot then leave a comment and I’ll update.
What’s interesting is the variety of pricing models out there. Variations depend on the add-ons, number of users and feature set required. Who said that selecting software was easy??
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Hey Dennis
We haven’t spoken in a while! To add to your list;
Pearl Office, which includes full integrated Accounting with CRM, time billing, tasks jobs stock control, quotes etc etc £35 per licence per month.
Chris
As you would no doubt point out yourself - cost comparisons are interesting but relatively meaningless unless we know that we’re comparing apples with apples and not Wagu beef.
A full blown accounting package is very different from an invoicing solution which is different again from a third solution - maybe some analyst somewhere needs to go through and do a thorough feature and cost comparison to make some meaningful assessments.
Hi Dennis
We’re finding that the software is incidental. You assume that most of the solutions get the job done but we hear (and I’m sure the other vendors as well) that what customers really love about SaaS is they can have a relationship with us everyday and can ask a question at any time. It’s an ongoing relationship they are buying, not a bit of software.
If they get stuck their advisor or even a member of our team can login from anywhere and help them.
It’s a cliche but we hear that it really is all about the service. A big part of a SaaS vendors investment will be in that service engine so you can be responsive and not drop the ball.
The challenge with pricing for any SaaS vendor is quantifying how much time you can save from the disconnected desktop model.
We certainly haven’t seen price as major issue. All of the solutions look to deliver great ROI compared with traditional, disconnected, desktop software. There is so much variation in features, quality, support, vision, verticals that it’s hard to draw too many conclusions about price levels for SaaS yet. The market is still so young.
Interested to hear what others think.
Rod
(Xero)
Dennis, you might want to add SaaSu to the list - http://www.saasu.com. It seems to be gaining some traction here in Australia.
Cheers,
Devan
[...] other week, I started compiling a spreadsheet that shows the relative pricing for SaaS accounting style applications. It’s not meant to be [...]