What business software actually costs you, over five years.
Software for your company used to cost a lot more. Now it costs less.
Software sold per user per month looks cheap in the first month and expensive by the fifth year. Every person you hire raises the bill. Here is the arithmetic, and what the same thing costs built once and owned.
The per-seat trap
Per-seat pricing means your software bill grows every time your business does. Ten people become twenty, the bill doubles, and nothing about the software got better. Add three or four subscriptions on top and a growing business is paying for the same tools over and over, forever, and owns none of them at the end.
Rented for five years, against built once
| Software | Rented plan and assumption | Rented, 5 years | Built once |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM | Zoho CRM Professional. ₹1,400 per user per month, billed annually. zoho.com, checked 2026-08-30. | ₹8,40,000 | ₹1,00,000 to ₹3,00,000 |
| MIS dashboards | Power BI Pro. ₹1,165 per user per month, paid yearly. microsoft.com, checked 2026-08-30. | ₹6,99,000 | ₹25,000 to ₹1,00,000 |
| HRMS and attendance | greytHR Growth. ₹4,495 per month covering the first 50 employees, then ₹85 per employee above 50. greythr.com, checked 2026-08-30. | ₹2,69,700 | ₹1,00,000 to ₹3,00,000 |
Field sales software was meant to be a fourth row. FieldAssist and Bizom publish no list price, and BeatRoute's own pricing page did not respond when we checked, so there was no figure we could stand behind. The row is left out rather than estimated.
Work it out for your team
Rented, Zoho CRM Professional, over 5 years
₹8,40,000
₹1,400 per user per month, billed annually
Built once and owned
₹1,00,000 to ₹3,00,000
Custom build, one time
Rented figures use current public list prices. Build figures are typical ranges, and your exact number comes before we start.
Want the real number for your business? That is what the free call is for.