There are many myths around iPaaS pricing. So, we have decided that we want to clarify this subject for once and for all.
The presumption is that iPaaS is expensive. True, integration has been traditionally high-priced.
Why the high price tag? Integration projects have usually been taking way too long to execute (and unfortunately, today, the project execution will still last for a lot longer than you would anticipate if you choose your integration platform vendor carefully) and providers have been charging customers by the hour.
Nevertheless, expensive doesn’t have to be the first thing that comes to your mind when you consider including an iPaaS as part of your integration strategy. By the end of the article, you will look at integration costs as a smart investment rather than money falling through a black hole.
The iPaaS market is growing – your costs don’t need to
From the very beginning, our goal has been to change the perception that everyone has about integrations price-wise. As integration is vital for digitalization and globalization, the need for iPaaS is yet to grow. Nothing proves it better than that Gartner forecasts that it will be a 4 billion dollars’ market by 2022. That’s huge, as the market is currently accounted at 1 billion dollars.
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We realized early that one shouldn’t pay too much for iPaaS, especially now that the demand is increasing and connectivity and data management are like commodities for firms.
Instead of integrations would be skyrocketing your overhead costs, we made it our mission to help you reduce them.
How is that possible?
By merely offering better and faster integrations as a managed service with extreme agility. After all, having a smart integration strategy executed right should generate outstanding results and shouldn’t leave a negative mark on your balance sheet.
To offer lower prices, we had to create an integration platform that is suitable for complex integration scenarios, works as a hybrid integration platform, and makes developing and deploying integrations easier.
We also need to mention here our R&D, Professional Services, and Support teams who are always there to support the customers.
iPaaS equals competitiveness
One of the coolest benefits of iPaaS is that it can make your life operations more efficient. This happens just by digitalizing manual processes, automating operations, connecting trading partners, or transmitting and harmonizing information in real-time. All these will help you to accelerate your digital transformation and help you become more efficient by automation and more profitable by reducing costs and improving customer experience. Integrations implemented well (and rapidly, for a fraction of the traditional prices) can give your business a serious competitive edge.
Do you want to learn how iPaaS can enhance your competitiveness? Find a detailed eBook here.
iPaaS is a strategic asset to boost your profitability
Yes, by selling you integration solutions, we intend to keep your costs as low as possible. As integration is an essential middleware for most enterprises, it is somewhat difficult to avoid investing in one. Putting money into an iPaaS should to be a smart investment: you should be able to calculate the return on investment already in the very beginning. If integrations are done right and complying with your schedule, they can have a serious impact on your profitability.
Big differences between vendors
You are researching the price of other products you are buying. You should do the same when you intend to purchase integrations as a service, too. You would be surprised at how significant the differences can be between market leaders and challengers.
iPaaS saving example
One of our customers previously paid for integrations €995 000 in 5 years while the forecast for Youredi iPaaS has been €218 900. This can slightly change, as they may need additional connections and the event volumes are likely to grow, but you get the idea. It’s a 78% saving which is enormous.
The difference wasn’t only in the price tag, though. While the previous vendor was also able to deliver complex integrations, however, the execution took a lot longer for them, setting back our customer’s capability of connecting with their trading partners significantly. This was partly the reason why they needed to look for an alternative: it was strategically crucial that connections would be deployed rapidly according to the agreed timeline. Additionally, our customer did not want to have a dedicated team for integrations, so they were ready to switch for a turnkey fully managed to eliminate the need for training and new hires.
Another crucial point was that although data volumes are steadily increasing, this wouldn’t affect the final invoices negatively.
What has made iPaaS traditionally expensive?
Several factors have adverse effects on your iPaaS invoices. Unfortunately, choosing well-known iPaaS vendors from the Gartner Magic Quadrant of Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service often results in paying a lot more than you should pay or you anticipated in the beginning.
We have gathered a list of components that can quickly make your integration bills to skyrocket:
Extended timeline of the project
If you have ever dealt with integration projects, you are probably familiar with this case. At the beginning of the story, you expect that the project will last for six months. However, you will soon realize that the timeline probably will be extended by two months. In the end, you may have waited for 12 months, and nothing has quite happened as you predicted and most of your connections haven’t even been deployed yet.
Professional Services
You are not only falling behind your competition in terms of executing your digitalization strategy and providing your customers with better services but all this time while the execution of your project kept taking longer, you were paying for Professional Services work. Some vendors charge you closer to 200 US dollars an hour. You do the math. This probably doesn’t include support work, so you are charged for that separately.
Training and hiring new resources
If the iPaaS vendor that you have chosen doesn’t provide a managed service, you are in trouble. It means that your IT team will have to learn to use an iPaaS and you will pay for their training, and you will probably need to hire new resources with knowledge of developing integrations.
Complex integration scenarios
Sadly, most integration platforms are not suitable for developing and deploying complex integration solutions. If you need complex integrations, citizen integrators are not for you.
We know that it’s challenging to understand what each vendor is doing, who can deliver complex business-to-business integrations quickly and cost-effectively. To evaluate whom to include in your RFP process, we have gathered a list of iPaaS vendors with details on their strengths and the solutions they provide to their customers.
How can we provide lower iPaaS pricing?
In our opinion, if your goal is to start using an iPaaS without the typical pain and expenses of integration, you should choose a vendor that is offering managed services. This means that they will handle all the development, testing, deployment, and support work on your behalf, so you will do not need to pay for training or dedicate a team for building integration solutions with an iPaaS. All you need is one person from your organization who supports the integration architects when they have questions about protocols, formats, or other specifications.
What should you take into consideration regarding pricing to reduce your integration costs?
Find a vendor that can deliver the solution the fastest.
Integration projects don’t need to take long months or even years. Choose a vendor that can deliver the first connections in just days or at the top in two weeks. Most of the times, before you would proceed further with any vendors, you can pilot the solution, so the vendor will have the chance to prove to you how quickly they can deploy the first connections.
For the record, one of our architects deployed an extremely challenging connection in precisely two weeks while another vendor has been working on it for eight months. It’s pretty cool – and not just price-wise.
Development and deployment
The speed of deployment has a substantial effect on the final price tag. Here, at Youredi, we are proud of our capability of rapidly developing and deploying solutions. Simple connections between systems and applications can be designed and implemented within hours, while more complex connections usually take anywhere between days to the maximum of two weeks. We typically cap the costs for deployments. Our customers have seen 26-78% decrease in integration costs once they have started to use our iPaaS. It’s important to emphasize that the benefits are often realized in the longer run.
Service subscription
At Youredi, we base the service subscription pricing on the event volumes or the number of connections. We always propose the most favorable pricing option for our customers, ensuring that they do not pay too much for their integrations. The more data you are transferring through the connections built on top of Youredi iPaaS, the more favorable the pricing gets. Cost-efficiency and attractive service scaling are guaranteed. The platform and product upgrades are included, you won't be charged for updates.
Support work
Just as we developed and deployed your solution, we will also take care of them once they have been moved to production. Depending on the complexity of your solutions, we offer different support plans.
How much will iPaaS cost in your case?
This is typically very difficult to estimate without knowing the exact scope of the project and having a few technical discussions. Once you have provided us with details, our teams will evaluate the solution they need to create and shortly get back to you with an offer.
If you are wondering whether Youredi’s capabilities and prices are the right ones for you, we encourage you to come and chat with us.
Do you want to learn more about iPaaS? You should get your copy of our iPaaS ebook:
