Why We've Never Charged Per Seat

Per-user pricing looks reasonable on an invoice and does quiet damage on a corridor. A defense of pricing by the mile, written the week the industry's favorite free tool became a subscription.

Google Earth's professional plans now run $75 to $150 per user, per month. Against enterprise GIS seats that can run several hundred to a couple thousand dollars a year, those numbers aren't outrageous. Per-seat is how nearly all software is sold, and the logic seems fair: the more people who use it, the more you pay.

We think that logic is exactly backwards for project software - and Steel Shire has never priced a seat in fifteen years. This week seems like the right time to explain why, because the industry is about to discover the problem with per-seat pricing the hard way.

Per-seat pricing taxes the behavior projects need most

The moment each login has a price, access becomes a purchasing decision. Procurement asks whether the inspector really needs a seat. Contractors get told to share an account. A field foreman works from a screenshot of the map because a screenshot is free. Every one of these small rationing decisions feels responsible on a budget line - and each one removes a pair of eyes from the live picture of the project.

On a corridor, the person who spots the problem early is rarely the person with the expensive license. It's the agent who notices an easement restriction that contradicts the construction plan. The inspector who flags pipe sitting in the wrong yard. The foreman who sees today's stationing overlap with last Tuesday's. Software de-risks a project in direct proportion to how many of those people are actually inside the system. Per-seat pricing pushes them out; then everyone acts surprised when the system of record doesn't reflect the field.

There's a name for what happens next, because we've all seen it: the data goes back to email. PDFs of dashboards. Screenshots of maps. KMZ attachments. The company bought the platform and still runs the project on exports - because exports don't need a license.

So what should project software cost instead?

Our answer: the project should pay for the project. Steel Shire is priced per mile of linear infrastructure, with rates that step down as projects get longer - because a 300-mile corridor shouldn't pay three hundred times the software economics of a one-mile crossing, and because the mileage is known when the contract is signed. No seat counts, no true-up audits, no awkward mid-project conversation about whether the new inspection contractor gets logins.

Every tier - single product, full suite, or enterprise - includes unlimited users and unlimited contractor logins. That's not generosity; it's self-interest, honestly stated. When access is free, adoption is total. When adoption is total, the data is complete. When the data is complete, the platform actually delivers what it promised - and clients renew for a decade-plus, which is the growth strategy we've held to.

The alignment test

Here's a simple test for any project software contract: when the project adds people, does the vendor make more money? If yes, the vendor's incentives point at your headcount, not your outcome. Per-mile pricing passes the test. Our revenue scales with the infrastructure being built - the same thing our clients' revenue scales with. When your project grows by a spread of contractors, our invoice doesn't move; the only thing that grows is how much of your project is inside the system.

Technology is most powerful when everyone has access to it. We put that sentence on our pricing page, but it's really an operating belief: limiting logins is a good way to guarantee that as few people as possible use the platform, and that's never good for a project.

If you're re-evaluating your geospatial stack this year anyway - and after this month's news, most linear teams are - ask every vendor the alignment question. Then ask us what per-mile pricing looks like on your corridor. It's a 30-minute conversation.

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