Why companies overpay
Auto-renewal
The invoice arrives by itself. Nobody decides to renew - they just never cancel.
The stack hasn't been reviewed in 5-10 years
The choice was made at different prices, different volumes and a different open-source market.
The vendor raised the price
Perpetual licences became subscriptions, and subscriptions gained 8-15% annual indexation.
60-80% of features go unused
You pay for the full enterprise bundle while three modules out of twenty do the work.
Whoever chose it has left
Nobody inside can explain why this product, or why at this price.
What happens to the budget over 5 years
- Paid licences
- After migration
$5.2M saved over 5 years
For the first ~10 months migration costs more than the licences - that is the investment. After that the cost curve is nearly flat: only support and infrastructure remain.
Show the numbers
| Year | Paid licences | After migration | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0.25 | 0.3 | 0.4 | -0.1 |
| 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.7 | -0.1 |
| 0.75 | 0.9 | 1.0 | -0.1 |
| 1 | 1.2 | 1.0 | +0.2 |
| 2 | 2.5 | 1.2 | +1.3 |
| 3 | 3.9 | 1.4 | +2.5 |
| 4 | 5.4 | 1.6 | +3.8 |
| 5 | 7.0 | 1.8 | +5.2 |
An illustrative model, not client data: an enterprise with a $1.2M annual licence budget and 8% annual indexation. Figures are cumulative and rounded. Five-year saving - $5.2M.
How the replacement runs
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01
Stack and licence audit
We build the real inventory: software, payments, renewal dates, and who actually uses what.
-
02
Shortlisting alternatives, checking licences
We find mature open-source options and vet the licence, the community, the release cadence and the legal position.
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03
Extending it to your requirements
We close the feature gap: integrations, reports, roles, data migration. The code stays yours.
-
04
Migration, training, support
We switch over in stages, without stopping the business. We train your team and take on support.
Where this works
Licence money usually sits here:
- BI and reporting
- Databases
- ETL and integrations
- CRM and ERP
- Document management
- Design and CAD
- Monitoring
- CI/CD
- Office suite
- VPN and networking
About licences - briefly, and without illusions
- ✓ We only take permissive licences: MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, MPL-2.0.
- ✓ No copyleft obligations: you never have to open your own code.
- ✓ No vendor lock-in: if you decide to leave, you leave with the code.
- ✓ The extensions, and the rights to them, stay with you.
- ✓ We take on support and updates under an SLA.
For every component we issue a licence opinion: what is allowed, what is not, and which obligations apply.
- 40-70% cut in software spend
- 10-14 mo. typical payback
- 0 licence payments
- 100% code and rights yours