You sign your ERP agreement feeling confident. The first-year price looks reasonable. The discount feels generous. And on paper, the system checks all the boxes your business needs to grow.
Then renewal time hits.
Suddenly, your ERP bill jumps, sometimes by 10 percent, 20 percent, or even more. You’re given limited notice, maybe less than 30 days. You’re already running core operations on this platform, and switching providers would be painful, disruptive, and time-consuming. So you renew even though the cost no longer feels fair.
If this situation sounds familiar, you’re not imagining things. Many SaaS and ERP providers rely on aggressive price increases at renewal to drive revenue growth.
The good news is that this pricing model is avoidable. But getting off the ERP pricing rollercoaster requires understanding of how traditional pricing works and what a more predictable alternative looks like. Here’s what we’ll cover in this article so you fully understand your options:
- How Traditional ERP Pricing Really Works
- Why Unpredictable ERP Pricing Hurts Your Business
- What Fair, Predictable ERP Pricing Should Look Like
At Stellar One, we use the more predictable model, and we think everyone else should too.
How Traditional ERP Pricing Really Works
While ERP pricing models vary by provider, most follow four familiar patterns.
1. Big Discounts Up Front With a Payback Later
Many ERP providers lead with a high list price for software and implementation, then apply steep first-year discounts. You’ll often see offers like deeply reduced implementation costs or a significantly discounted first-year subscription.
On paper, it looks like a win. In practice, those discounts often come with a catch.
If a provider cuts pricing dramatically in year one, they still need to recover that revenue over time. The most common ways they do so are through renewal increases, “standardized” pricing after the initial term, or additional fees for support, training, or added functionality.
Heavy up-front discounts are rarely free. They’re usually deferred.
2. Unpredictable Annual Price Increases
Most buyers expect ERP costs to change over time. Platforms evolve, infrastructure costs rise, and businesses grow. The problem is unpredictability.
Many ERP contracts include vague language like “renewal at then-current rates” or “prices subject to change with notice.” That flexibility benefits the provider, not the buyer.
In practice, this can mean modest pricing in year one followed by sharp increases in later years, often revealed only when you’re close enough to renewal that switching platforms isn’t realistic. At that point, many businesses stay put and absorb the increase because the alternative feels worse.
3. Tight Renewal Windows and Limited Flexibility
Even when pricing increases are disclosed, renewal timelines are often compressed. You may have only a few weeks to review a new quote, ask questions, and make a decision.
If you ask to go month-to-month while evaluating alternatives, pricing is likely to jump again. What’s positioned as “flexibility” can feel more like pressure, keeping you locked in while costs rise.
4. Pricing That Becomes Harder to Predict as You Grow
Beyond renewals, many ERP platforms layer in pricing drivers like per-user licenses, transaction tiers, add-on modules, and usage-based fees.
Individually, these models aren’t inherently bad. The risk comes when pricing thresholds aren’t clear or growth triggers sudden cost spikes. A faster-than-expected sales increase or operational expansion can push you into a higher tier and dramatically change your monthly bill with little warning.
How Unpredictable ERP Pricing Hurts Your Business
When ERP prices fluctuate without clear guardrails, the impact can hit beyond your software budget. You’re likely to notice that:
- Budgeting turns into guesswork: If you don’t know what your ERP platform will cost in two or three years, it’s difficult to build reliable multi-year budgets, commit to long-term initiatives, or forecast cash flow accurately. Instead of supporting planning, your ERP solution becomes a variable you’re constantly trying to manage around.
- Time gets spent negotiating instead of improving: Each renewal becomes its own project: reviewing surprise pricing, pushing back on increases, negotiating discounts, or buying time to decide. Meanwhile, the work that actually improves operations gets delayed, including process optimization, automation, and reporting.
- You feel trapped, even when you’re unhappy: Once you’re deeply embedded in an ERP system, switching platforms is hard. Providers know this. As long as price increases stay just below their breaking point, many businesses stay put, even when trust starts to erode.
At Stellar One, we’ve seen business after business go through these challenges and setbacks for decades, and we decided it was time to take on a legacy industry and force change by providing it.
How Stellar One Flips the Script to Extend Fair, Predictable ERP Pricing
Most ERP pricing problems aren’t accidental. Instead, they’re baked into how traditional providers structure their contracts.
“What could be more hypocritical than selling a system that’s supposed to make your business more efficient, then charging you more every year because the people selling it aren’t operating efficiently themselves?
If an ERP partner can’t practice the efficiency they promise, they shouldn’t be surprised when trust erodes.”
—Richard Sellar, Stellar One CEO
At Stellar One, we built our pricing model specifically to remove the uncertainty, pressure, and surprises that make ERP software feel like a financial gamble.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
1. A Five-Year Price Lock You Can Actually Plan Around
Instead of short-term discounts that disappear at renewal, Stellar One offers a clearly defined five-year price lock. Your pricing is defined up front, written into your agreement, and protected from annual surprises during that period.
This approach gives you a stable runway to budget, grow, and invest in your ERP platform without worrying about unexpected increases year after year.
2. Free ERP Deployment Instead of Billed Implementation
Traditional ERP implementations often come with five- or even six-figure price tags before you ever see value. At Stellar One, free deployment is included.
We call it deployment because the goal isn’t just to install software, and it’s certainly not to take six months or a year doing so. It’s to get you live efficiently, with the right structure in place from day one. By removing a separate implementation fee, we enable you to avoid large upfront costs and start seeing value without the financial drag that usually comes with ERP projects.
3. One ERP Subscription That Includes Support
ERP pricing gets messy when software, support, training, and advisory help are billed separately. Every question becomes a potential invoice, and monthly costs fluctuate based on how much help your team needs.
Stellar One takes a different approach. Our subscription model bundles the ERP platform with ongoing support and guidance, so you pay one consistent amount and know exactly what’s included. That alignment matters, because when support is included, our incentive is to help your team succeed quickly, not to prolong billable work.
4. Transparent Pricing From the Start
You shouldn’t have to sit through multiple sales calls just to understand pricing. Stellar One believes buyers deserve clarity early, which is why we’re upfront about how our ERP pricing works, what drives costs, and what’s included.
That transparency makes it easier to evaluate fit, compare options, and decide whether an ERP platform makes sense for your business, without pressure or surprises.
5. Growth-Based Changes That Are Predictable and Intentional
ERP costs shouldn’t rise arbitrarily. At Stellar One, pricing changes are tied to clear, understandable business growth, like adding new entities, expanding operations, or adopting additional capabilities.
When costs change, you’ll know why. And when they don’t need to, they won’t.
6. Cancellation Anytime After Six Months
Long-term contracts are often used to protect providers, not buyers, and we’d rather protect both by managing the relationship right.
After the first six months, you can cancel your subscription at any time. That flexibility keeps the relationship honest. It means we earn your business every month by continuing to deliver value, not by relying on contractual lock-in that’s bound to sour the relationship over time.
Get Your Business off the ERP Pricing Rollercoaster
If you’re already on an ERP platform with unpredictable pricing, you still have options.
Start by reviewing your current contract and renewal terms, paying close attention to language around rate changes and notice periods. Ask your provider to explain their pricing roadmap, like what increases are planned, what caps exist, and how far in advance you’ll be notified.
Next, calculate your five-year total cost of ownership, including software, implementation, support, and expected increases. Then compare that model with ERP partners that offer price locks, all-in subscriptions, and transparent pricing.
If your current provider isn’t willing to add guardrails or clarity, it may be time to consider a model that gives you more control and fewer surprises. Read more about working with Stellar One in our learning center, or click below to calculate your subscription cost.
