Migrating your email archives to Cloud platforms such as Microsoft 365 is often a major project for a business both in terms of time, but also cost and resources. Understandably the topics of price and cash flow needs careful consideration.
In this article we explore two of the most common approaches to paying for your email archive migration. We also look at why your decision on which vendor to choose must consider the outcome they will deliver as well as the cost of the migration.
What are the most common pricing models for email archive migrations?
Fully managed, fixed price, fixed outcome email archive migrations
A fully managed migration is a service offered by vendors such as Transvault, that delivers a fixed price, fixed outcome email archive migration. This is a tried and tested pricing model that gives a commitment to the customer of a successful migration outcome for a set price. This price is typically based on a per Terabyte basis and often allows for staged payments throughout the migration process.
Pay-As-You-Go email archive migrations
Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) is an apparent new method of pricing for your migration. It is based on the premise of flexibility and enabling you to pay for the data moved as its migrated. This may enable you to assign the cost of the migration as an operational expense (Opex) rather than a capital expense (Capex).
Which archive migration payment method is right for your business?
Here at Transvault, we offer fully managed, fixed price, fixed outcome email archive migrations, because this is the preferred method chosen by our clients. After 17 years of experience and over 3200 projects delivered, it’s clear to us that our customers want to plan and be confident of a successful outcome for their complete migration and so they are happy with a pricing model that supports this.
Are PAYG migrations a good idea?
On paper, from a financial perspective, PAYG migrations promise benefits. They offer a smaller initial financial outlay and interim payments. This can enable a business to cover the cost as an operational expense with easier approvals which can mean a migration starts faster.
However, there are some major risks with this approach. You have no idea what the total cost of the migration might be. For the privilege of smaller, trickle payments, you may not know the total cost for your business until it’s too late. The belief that this method is cheaper is unlikely to be true once the total migration is complete. This approach also has the risk of increased administration, complexity and lack of confidence as to when you will see the real business benefits of moving to the Cloud.
Perhaps the biggest risk with this approach is the lack of focus on the actual outcome you want to deliver by completing the migration. PAYG migrations are a financial mechanism and miss the point of how to deliver a successful migration. As outlined in our recent blog, its important you carefully plan your Microsoft 365 migration to deliver the outcome you need for your business.
Here at Transvault we work with our Partners and their clients to define a clear migration outcome and then price the project accordingly. This ensures the project delivers real value for the outcome you want. Payments can then be based on clear milestones aligned to achieving this outcome. This gives the benefit of spreading the cost over the period of the project, whilst remaining totally focused on the agreed outcome.
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