The true cost of owning a software system

The price in the quotation is a deposit, not the price.

Anyone who buys a car understands this: the purchase price is not the cost of ownership. There is fuel, servicing, tax, and insurance. Software works the same way — except nobody mentions it in the quotation.

As a result, many companies feel finished once the system goes live, then are shocked in year two when there is nobody who can fix the system that broke.

What actually bills you every year

The list below is not theory. All of it appears once a system is in use, and all of it can be budgeted from the start if the vendor names it.

• Server and storage. Six hundred thousand to three million rupiah per month, depending on data size and number of users.
• Security certificates and the domain name. Under a million rupiah a year — but if you forget to renew, your site shows a warning to every visitor.
• Security updates. The most neglected and most expensive to skip. The libraries your system uses keep being updated; if your system does not follow, security holes accumulate.
• Fixes when something breaks. One day something will break — after a browser version change, after a tax rule changes, or after a third-party service changes its interface.
• Small adjustments. Your business rules change: new rates, new approval flows, new reports. Not a large project, but it needs the time of someone who understands the system.

Reasonable numbers, and suspicious ones

As a general guide, reasonable annual maintenance sits between ten and twenty percent of the build cost. Systems with many third-party integrations sit at the top of that range, because integration is what changes most often.

If a vendor quotes far below that — two percent, say — ask what is covered. The answer is usually only "we answer the phone", with no obligation to fix anything.

If a vendor names no figure at all, that is not an oversight. It is a choice, and you will carry the consequence.

What happens when maintenance is postponed

Postponing maintenance feels like saving. In reality the cost moves rather than disappears — and it grows.

A system without security updates for two years usually cannot simply be updated once a problem appears. The libraries have changed too much, and updating means reworking part of the system. Work that would have cost one or two million a year can become an emergency repair in the tens of millions, done in haste, under pressure because the system is down.

More expensive still: lost data. A backup that has never been tested is not a backup — it is a hope.

Three things to ask for before signing

• A written breakdown of annual costs: server, maintenance, and support — each with its own figure, not one vague combined number.
• What maintenance covers and what is billed separately. How many hours per month, and what happens when they run out.
• The backup plan, and whether it has ever been tested. "Of course we have one" with no test is not an answer.

Ask for all three in the agreement, not in conversation. Things that were only spoken disappear when the person who spoke them changes jobs.

How we state it

We put annual costs in the same quotation as the build cost — not in a separate document that appears later. The figures are ranges, because they depend on data size and number of integrations, but the range is there from the start so you can weigh it as part of the decision.

We also name the costs that do not go to us: server, domain, certificates, and third-party services. You pay those directly, and you hold the accounts. If one day you decide to stop working with us, your system keeps running.

That reduces our revenue in the short term. But a client who feels locked in leaves eventually — usually while telling other people about it.

The next step

If you are assessing a quotation and cannot find an annual cost figure in it, send it to us. We will show you which parts need asking about, at no charge and with no obligation.

And if you have no system yet, start from the annual budget, not the build budget. That is the figure you will carry every year after the project ends and everyone has stopped talking about it.