What will it actually cost?
Six line items decide total cost. Most evaluations miss two of them.
For whoever signs off the budget, and whoever has to defend the total later.
Published by CloudFiles. The six-line structure is drawn from what we've seen evaluations actually miss; use it against whichever vendors you're comparing.
The six lines
- Salesforce storage overage, if you stay partly on native storage
- External storage costs at the provider (SharePoint, OneDrive, or similar)
- User licenses for whatever third-party app you choose
- Automation build, if native Files Connect can't do what you need
- Migration, one-off, sized to your existing corpus
- Ongoing support, whether bundled or separate
Most evaluations we've seen total two or three of these and stop. The two most often missed are automation build and migration, both of which can exceed the license cost itself.
Five of the six are yours to measure, or are public regardless of which vendor you pick. Only the license line depends on a specific vendor's own number, so get that in writing before totaling the rest.
What to ask any vendor
- A total across all six lines for your actual scope, not just the license line.
- Whether support is included or billed separately, and at what response time.
- Whether the migration estimate is a fixed quote or time-and-materials.
What your answer means
Total your own six lines before any vendor call. Compare that total, not a subscription price in isolation, against the two exit costs priced in price both exits elsewhere in this guide.
Where this stops
This page settles the cost framework only. What you need from any vendor, and what happens at your volume, are separate questions in the guide.
Check my working
Most readers won't need this. If your total doesn't add up cleanly, say what's in the way.
- Report: written assessment, two to three working days.
- Reader: a person. Not a bot, not an auto-reply.
- Call: only if you ask. We won't ask twice.
- Fields: four. No phone, no company size, no mailing list.
That's with a person now.
You'll get a written assessment within two to three working days. No call unless you ask for one.