Flat fee or per file: how should a file portal charge you?

The monthly price at the top of a page rarely tells you what a portal will cost you over a year. Before comparing numbers, it is worth knowing how each model behaves when your business changes.

What are the three models?

Many portals mix these: a monthly fee with a number of files included, and a price per file over that.

How do you compare them fairly?

Take a real month from your history, or an honest guess. Work out the cost at that volume, then at double, then at half. A portal that looks low-priced at thirty files can be expensive at three hundred, and the reverse is just as true. Include what is sold as an extra: staff seats, storage, white label, connections to tools, and moving your data in.

Which extras usually catch people out?

• Staff sign-ins, once you hire a second tuner.
• Storage, because every job keeps several files for ever.
• Tool connections, sometimes sold monthly.
• Taking your name off the emails and invoices.
• Payment fees, if the money passes through the supplier.
• Moving in and moving out. Ask what it costs to leave.

Work it out at double your volume. That is the portal you are really choosing.

How does TunerEngine charge?

You can see all of it on the pricing page, with every plan and add-on and its price. In short: Start has no monthly fee, and you pay 20% of what your customers pay you, before tax, for your first 2 months, then the package that fits. The packages run from Solo at £29.99 a month, with 30 files included, to Master at £399 a month, with 3,000 files included. Files over that cost a small price each, and that price falls as the package grows. Payments land in your own account.

You can build your portal line by line and see the month before you pay anything.

How often should you check that you are on the right plan?

Whenever your volume changes for more than a month or two. A plan that was right when you started may be wrong after you have grown, and the same is true after a quiet season. Moving up or down should be simple, so ask how it works before you sign up.

What matters more than price?

What the portal saves you. If paying first ends your chasing, if a repeat file goes out by itself, or if a customer orders at midnight rather than going elsewhere, then the price difference between two portals is usually much smaller than the cost of a poor one. The compare page shows how the different models line up.