The per seat pricing model punishes you for growing your team

Most software for service businesses charges per user. That means every cleaner you add to the system raises your monthly bill. Think about how backwards that is. You hire more people because the business is growing, and your tools tax you for it. I switched to a CRM that charges a flat rate no matter how many cleaners I add, and it changed how I use the thing. Cleaners actually get their own logins. Jobs get assigned properly instead of me texting addresses around. Nothing lives in my head anymore because there is no penalty for putting the whole team in the system.

7 comments held Reddit says 1 on reddit ↗

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u/YouAsk-IAnswer 1 3 days ago

Cool story bro. Who refers to their employees as "cleaners"?
u/BagAdministrative330 OP 1 3 days ago

The cleaners do. It is their job title, and they are proud of it.
u/getmoremoxie 1 3 days ago

Enjoy that when your CRM goes out of business. Sounds like an unmaintainable business model for the CRM.
u/BagAdministrative330 OP 1 3 days ago

That is the first thing I asked too. The math works because their cost per account barely moves with seats. Storage and compute for a cleaning company with 5 logins costs them almost the same as one with 30. Per seat pricing is mostly about revenue, not cost. The risk is real with any small vendor, which is why I keep my client list exportable. But I would rather manage that risk than pay a headcount tax every month.
u/[deleted] 1 3 days ago

[removed] — already gone when the archive first saw it
u/Mistr_John_Alex 1 3 days ago

That is exactly the behavior problem with per seat pricing that people miss. When every login costs money, owners do not just pay more. They stop adding people. They share one login, or they keep assigning jobs by text, or the office manager enters everything after the fact. The software ends up full of incomplete data because the pricing pushed the team out of it. Flat rate removes that incentive, but the flat rate only works if the company has a real plan. Some vendors underprice to get users then quietly add caps on records or messages later. When I pick a tool now I ask what happens at higher volume before I sign. The pricing model matters less than whether it matches how the business actually operates day to day. If adding a cleaner changes the cost, the tool is fighting you. If it stays the same, the tool can actually become the system.