Is This Software Price Increase Worth Paying?

You're halfway through your morning when the email lands. Renewal notice. You open it, scan for the number, and stop.

That can't be right.

You pull up last year's invoice. Do the math. Do it again. It's not a typo. The price went up, and not by a little.

Sometimes it's a steep jump after a discounted first year or two. Sometimes it's a vendor adjusting their pricing model across the board. Either way, you weren't expecting this, and now you're doing math you didn't plan to do today.

If this feels familiar, you're not alone. A March 2026 Small Business Expo survey found that 41% of owners say their software costs are rising. That renewal notice catching you off guard? It's happening in a lot of inboxes right now.

The question is what to do next.

 

What's actually going on

Software vendors update their pricing more often than most people realize. Sometimes gradually, sometimes sharply, sometimes with plenty of notice, sometimes not.

It's easy to take it personally, but there's usually a pattern behind it. Vendors face their own cost pressures:

• Security. Keeping systems protected gets more expensive every year, not less.
• Servers and infrastructure. Whether they're running their own data centers or paying for cloud hosting, those costs move.
• Ongoing maintenance and support. The people who answer your calls and fix your bugs need to be paid.
• Improvements. New features, integrations, compliance updates — development isn't free.

But not all price increases are the same, and it's worth knowing the difference.

Gradual increases tied to costs. Some vendors raise prices modestly over time, maybe 8% every couple of years. It's not fun, but it's predictable. You can plan for it.

The discount cliff. Others discount heavily in year one or two to win your business, then snap back to full price at renewal. The software didn't change. The deal did.

Strategic repositioning. And then there's the vendor who decides they've been underpriced compared to competitors. Sometimes competitors whose software doesn't really compare to theirs. So they institute 15% this year, another 15% six months later, and then jump pricing 100% or more. By the time you've absorbed the first hit, the next one is already coming.

The harder question isn't why they raised prices. It's whether this is a cost increase you can plan around, or a signal that the economics of this relationship have fundamentally changed.

 

The real questions before deciding anything

Before you start shopping for alternatives or resigning yourself to the increase, slow down. There are a few questions worth answering first.

What does this really cost over three to five years?

That renewal invoice is one number. But what's the total spend over the next three to five years, including implementation, training, customization, and the inevitable surprises?

ERP projects in manufacturing environments often run multiple years from kickoff to full deployment. This isn't a quick quarter or two. When you're comparing "stay" versus "go," you're comparing multi-year investments, not line items.

But cost isn't always dollars. I recently met with a prospect who is on QuickBooks Online. She had no idea what her inventory actually was. She buys raw materials, sends them out to a manufacturer, then sells the finished goods. QBO can't turn raw materials into finished goods until the sale happens. Her inventory numbers were fuzzy, and she knew it.

But her comfort with QBO was so strong that she chose to stay with unreliable inventory over the learning curve of a real ERP. That's a cost too. It just doesn't show up on an invoice.

What happens to your data and history if you move?

Data conversion is its own project with its own cost and risk. Your chart of accounts, your customer history, your open transactions: all of it needs to land somewhere. Some of it converts cleanly. Some of it doesn't. And some of it requires decisions you didn't know you'd have to make.

I took over an implementation that had stalled. We weren't even bringing over history, so it should have been simple: export from the old system, clean the spreadsheets, import customers, vendors, and item numbers into the new one. Revamp the chart of accounts, since the old system had placeholder accounts that were no longer needed.

I came in late, so I don't know exactly where it went off the rails. But the client told me they were very glad they'd started with their smaller company. There was no way they could have stayed in business if that kind of operational halt had happened at their larger one.

This isn't an afterthought. It's a workstream.

What's the actual disruption to day-to-day operations?

Rushed or under-resourced projects strain the people doing the work: sales, warehouse, accounting. The ones who still have to ship orders and close the books while also learning a new system.

Better outcomes come from realistic planning.

One client did this well. He was migrating from Business Vision to Spire, which meant Spire's tools could bring the data over directly. We did a quick, rough conversion first and used it as a sandbox. That gave him time to figure out how much historical data he could archive before the real migration. His staff trained on the sandbox with familiar data. We built out the customizations for invoices, purchase orders, and reports before go-live, not after.

By the time we flipped the switch, nobody was learning the system under pressure. They already knew it.

Are you deciding under pressure?

This one deserves the most attention.

Once a system is in place, habit and sunk cost create a pull toward staying put, even when you know the current option isn't working. According to an article in MIS Quarterly, researchers call this inertia, and it shows up even when people can clearly see that something better exists.

The inverse is also true. A sudden price increase can push you toward a fast decision just to make the discomfort stop. Neither impulse leads to good outcomes.

I try not to put pressure on anyone. If there's something on the horizon that might cause a panic, I bring it to their attention early. But I've seen what happens when that conversation doesn't happen. Someone is still running a legacy program that was sunset seven or eight years ago. It's one Windows update away from not working. And when it breaks, they're making decisions in crisis mode instead of planning mode.

One thing that helps: decisions feel easier when they feel reversible. Structuring an evaluation with a clear exit ramp, a pilot phase, a phased rollout, a defined "go/no-go" checkpoint, takes pressure off the room.

 

If you decide to look around

So the invoice is sitting on your desk. You've asked the hard questions. And you're starting to think it might be time to see what else is out there.

Before you start scheduling demos, a few things will save you time and frustration.

Know what problem you're actually solving. Is it just the cost? Or has this price increase surfaced other frustrations you've been tolerating? Be honest about whether you're looking for cheaper, or looking for better. They aren't always the same thing.

Map your workflows before you shop. Not the ones in your head. The ones your team actually follows. Where does data get entered twice? Where do people work around the system instead of through it? A new system won't fix a broken process. It will just move the mess somewhere else.

Test reporting early. The flashiest demo means nothing if you can't get the numbers you need at month-end. Before you fall in love with a new system, make sure it can answer the questions your current one can't.

Get real about timeline. You're not going to implement a new system in 30 days because your renewal is due. If you're seriously considering a move, you may need to pay the increase for one more cycle while you do this right. That's not a failure. That's planning.

The goal isn't to react to the invoice. It's to make a decision you can defend in two years.

 

Where we fit

When a vendor changes the deal on you, the pressure to do something can be intense. Pay the increase and resent it. Rush into a replacement you haven't fully vetted. Or freeze and hope it all works out.

We help companies slow down enough to make a real decision. What does staying actually cost over the next few years? What would leaving involve? Is this the right time, or just an urgent one?

Yes, we resell software. But we only recommend what fits. There's no point putting you in a system that doesn't work for your business. That just creates a different problem six months from now. Our job is to help you find the right answer, whether that's moving to something new or deciding the increase is worth absorbing while you plan your next step.

Next step

If you're staring at a renewal notice that doesn't look right, let's talk. No pressure, no pitch. Just an honest look at what you're facing and what your options are.