Forget Beer, Let’s Talk Pricing

Perhaps the most common question about CiviCRM (and maybe open source software in general) is ‘how much does it cost?’. What seems to be a relatively simple question often leads to a great deal of confusion, at least for the average user.

For whatever reason, somebody, somewhere at some time tried to answer this question by saying it’s “free as in beer”. Things have spiraled downhill ever since, leaving users as confused as ever about how much CiviCRM costs.

Let’s forget about the “free as in beer” response and pretend it was never said. It’s simply too painful to try to explain and too confusing to understand compared to other, dead simple pricing models. And really, since when is beer free, right? ^{1, 2, 3}

Instead, let’s get to the nuts and bolts of pricing relative to CiviCRM.

The first thing to understand is that life-long lesson that my momma once taught me… there is no such thing as a free lunch.

You need to take this to heart right now.

The second thing to understand is that CiviCRM pricing varies based on how you implement and use it. Pricing largely coincides with the 4 pathways to get started with CiviCRM: Do It Yourself (DIY), CiviCRM Spark, CiviCRM in the Cloud and working with a Partner.

So, let’s talk about pricing relative to each of these. Generally speaking, we can break pricing down into two main categories:

CiviCRM is software that you, or anybody, can download free of charge. Simply visit https://civicrm.org/download and download the zip file. There, it’s free!

But, now you have to install it on a web server (which has a cost), configure it so that it functions how you want and is secure (that takes your time), and periodically run updates (that also takes your time).

Time is money, right? (Not really, but for the sake of this post, we’ll treat it thusly.)

You’re going to spend some time setting everything up and maintaining it properly, and configuring it so that it does exactly what you want it to.

If you have some technical expertise, like being able to install WordPress comfortably and understanding how to run backups and recovery, then you can probably manage this. If “able to install WordPress” isn’t quite the right metric, check out this installation or this installation of CiviCRM Standalone. If these make sense to you, then you’ll probably be fine.

Proper configuration is a different story. Out of the box, CiviCRM is super flexible, but it makes no assumptions about your organization, its workflows or how it collects and manages data. You will have to configure the system to meet these requirements, and that can take time. In fact, this is probably the most time intensive aspect of CiviCRM for many organizations. It’s also probably where organizations go wrong the most.

In any event, the end result here is that you’ll get exactly what you want, it will be under your full control, and you will have spent some money on hosting (here’s a list of hosts that specialize in CiviCRM for you DIY’ers) and you will have invested some of your time.

CiviCRM Spark is a lightweight, cloud-based version of CiviCRM. You subscribe and the system auto-provisions an account for you. All technical hosting, upgrades, mail processing, etc. is managed for you and is included in the monthly subscription.

Your organization’s specific configuration, however, is on you. That’s to say that it’s up to you to determine which components to use and how to adapt them to your needs.

Pricing for Spark is dead simple; there are three tiers that offer different capabilities (specifics can be found here). The prices are:

One final note, Spark includes “community support”. This means that all of the resources available to the community at large, including voluntary responses from community members themselves, is available to Spark users just as it’s available to any user of CiviCRM.

The pricing for Spark does NOT include paid support. For that, you will want to connect with a suitable partner.

CiviCRM in the Cloud is like Spark, only on steroids. What I mean is that you typically get a more full featured system. For example, it could include ALL of CiviCRM (Spark doesn’t), a website, a different suite of extensions, dedicated support, etc.

The fundamental offering is the same in the sense that you subscribe and all of the technical legwork… the installation, security, upgrades and maintenance… it’s taken care of. You pay a monthly subscription. You log in and use the system. It’s that simple.

However, keep in mind that CiviCRM is very flexible and out of the box requires some degree of configuration such that it fits your own organization’s workflows. While you can almost certainly engage with your cloud provider to assist you, there is likely going to be some configuration that you’ll need to spend some time on.

That said, the base subscription probably doesn’t include direct engagement with the provider should you want their assistance in configuring your instance of CiviCRM. 

Pricing varies from provider to provider, however it’s going to range from $35 to $350 (+/-) per month based on what is publicly available on their websites. You’ll want to click through the list of CiviCRM’s cloud providers to see what the exact ranges for each cloud provider look like.

Working with a partner is a fantastic way to get started with CiviCRM. Why? Because you have somebody with proven experience working directly with you to set up, configure and maintain your CRM. This can save you a lot of time and heartache.

Likewise it can provide you access to other capabilities that you may require. For example, perhaps you have complex imports, or need integration with other systems, or have customizations to make in your CRM. Partners can help with these, and much more.

At the same time, partners can open up new possibilities for you and can offer solutions in CiviCRM to your requirements that expose new potential features or functionality that you had not previously considered.

Pricing here depends heavily on your exact requirements, so unlike Spark and CiviCRM in the Cloud, it’s very hard to nail this down up front.

A typical engagement might look like:

Oftentimes, organizations view pricing as this thing that they need to pay and once they do, life will be good. The system will do what they want and they can get on solving whatever issue they’re currently working on.

In reality, pricing typically behaves more like a life cycle. There’s a period of initial incubation, a burst of growth, and then things start to mature and slow down, assuming all goes well.

Pricing for CiviCRM often follows this path. The trick is to get to the part where the system is mature and working for you. At that point, you are able to leverage CiviCRM while keeping your maintenance costs down. Over time, this is where you see real cost savings in your CRM.

If, on the other hand, you invest up front and then abandon your CRM (yes, this applies to any CRM) only to switch to another, then you’ll be constantly in this “ramp up phase” where you’re paying the maximum but never really reaching a point where your systems, well, just run smoothly.

CRM’s are complex. Your organization’s operations probably are as well. It’s just the nature of things. In order to use a CRM proficiently, you and your team have to commit to it. You have be in it often. You have to test it, tweak it, and use it.

Not doing so is like expecting to be able to drive a car proficiently while actually having rarely practiced doing so. If you think I’m kidding, go ride in a car with a 15 year old that’s just learning to drive. It’s amazing how difficult they make it look to those with experience driving.

The point here is that practice makes perfect. If you don’t practice using your CRM, you’ll abandon it. And then it’s going to feel expensive to you.

These days, we are so accustomed to buying or licensing something that mostly meets our needs that the thought of being able to adapt it to match exactly what we’re looking doesn’t register for most.

Seriously. It’s common, and often rather funny, to hear about how an organization has patched together all of the different systems that, individually, meet a specific need, but that are in no way shape or form connected such that they can offer any real operational efficiencies.

At the same time, these same organizations will often entirely discount CiviCRM as an option because it’s missing one particular feature, but checks all the other boxes.

Why is that funny?

Because, organizations can, and in our minds should, invest in their technology and help develop it to do what they and likely many other organizations need. If it’s missing something, then add it!

There’s nothing stopping an organization from funding a new feature or developing an integration or pushing CiviCRM to do something new. How cool is that, right? You can actually help develop CiviCRM and make it do exactly what you want!

Seems scary, I know. But here’s a list of partners that have loads of extension development experience and that could easily help you adapt CiviCRM to your needs.

CiviCRM is incredibly flexible software due to its open source nature. As a result, pricing it out is also somewhat flexible and depends largely on how you plan to implement it and how much you want or need to adapt it to your operational requirements.

If it ever starts to feel overwhelming, don’t let it. Perhaps the most significant feature of CiviCRM is its community. Reach out to us any time to learn more about CiviCRM and to get a better understanding of the various costs to implement for your organization.