How do I stop paying per-user licence fees as my team grows?
Short answer
Move the systems that grow with headcount onto flat-priced or owned software, and keep per-seat licences only for people who genuinely need them. In practice that means auditing who uses each seat, giving occasional users lighter access where your plan allows it, and replacing your most expensive per-user tool with a flat-rate or owned system.
In detail
Start with an audit
- List every tool billed per user and how many seats you pay for
- Check last-login data: unused and rarely used seats are common
- Check whether your plan offers cheaper viewer or guest access for people who only need to look
- Find the tools that overlap, where two subscriptions do the same job
Then change the pricing model
- Flat-rate products
- WorkHoist is $399 per month for up to 20 users and $999 per month for 20 to 75 users, with no per-user fees. Enterprise pricing for 75 or more users is custom.
- Owned software
- A system you own has no licence fee per user at all. WorkHoist Total Ownership is a one-time build priced on scope, with unlimited users.
- Consolidation
- One platform that covers pipeline, projects, scheduling and financials replaces several per-seat subscriptions and the manual work between them.
Per-seat software is not always the wrong choice. For a small, stable team it is often the cheapest option. The problem appears when seats grow every quarter and every new hire adds a line to several invoices.
Related case study
WorkHoist · Construction operations software (SaaS)
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