The Facility Management industry has spent years digitising operations. Yet one of the most accepted software pricing models may be quietly working against the very businesses it claims to serve.
Imagine this scenario.
An FM company wins one of the largest contracts in its history.
It needs to recruit another 80 engineers, supervisors, helpdesk operators and mobile technicians over the next three months.
Revenue increases.
Operational complexity increases.
Customer expectations increase.
But so does something else.
The software bill.
Not because the company is using the software more intelligently.
Not because it is processing significantly more data.
Not because the vendor is providing substantially more value.
Simply because more employees now need to log in.
For decades, this has been accepted as "how SaaS works."
But should it?
The Hidden Tax on Growth
Most FM software platforms are sold using a per-user or per-seat pricing model.
The maths appears simple.
- £40 per user/month
- 100 users = £4,000/month
- Grow to 250 users = £10,000/month
At first glance, this seems fair.
More users.
Higher price.
Problem solved.
Except Facility Management isn't a typical software business.
FM is a people business.
Every new contract requires more people.
More engineers.
More cleaners.
More maintenance technicians.
More mobile supervisors.
More subcontractors.
Growth in FM is directly linked to workforce expansion.
And that's exactly where the pricing model starts breaking down.
Unlike software companies, where additional employees often generate exponential productivity, FM businesses frequently need proportional increases in labour to deliver contracted services.
Winning more business naturally means employing more people.
Ironically, the very moment an FM company succeeds commercially is the moment many software platforms become significantly more expensive.
That creates a subtle—but very real—growth penalty.
A Strange Incentive Nobody Talks About
Good pricing models should encourage desirable behaviour.
Per-seat pricing does the opposite.
It quietly encourages organisations to ask questions they should never have to ask.
"Do all technicians really need access?"
"Can supervisors share accounts?"
"Should subcontractors work outside the system?"
"Can we delay onboarding another licence until next month?"
"Let's only give access to team leaders."
These decisions are rarely driven by operational excellence.
They're driven by software costs.
And every one of those compromises reduces visibility.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
Software exists to improve operational control.
Yet its pricing model often encourages companies to exclude the very people performing the work.
The Economics Don't Match the Reality of FM
Facility Management is fundamentally different from industries where per-seat pricing originated.
Consider software development.
A company with ten engineers often delivers far less than a company with one hundred engineers.
The software vendor may reasonably argue that the platform is enabling significantly more productive work.
Now compare that with an FM contractor.
A hospital contract requiring 250 engineers doesn't necessarily generate dramatically more digital complexity than one requiring 100 engineers.
The workflows remain similar.
Reactive maintenance.
Planned maintenance.
Asset inspections.
Compliance documentation.
Work orders.
Mobile reporting.
The platform isn't doing twice the work simply because another hundred technicians are logging activities.
The underlying value often comes from managing assets, locations, compliance obligations and service performance—not counting human logins.
Yet pricing rarely reflects this.
The Scaling Penalty
Let's look at two hypothetical businesses.
Company A
- 50 technicians
- 20 buildings
Company B
- 300 technicians
- The same operational processes
- Similar asset types
- Similar compliance workflows
Should Company B pay six times more simply because it employs six times more people?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It depends on what the software is actually costing the vendor to deliver.
Cloud infrastructure certainly grows.
Support requirements may increase.
But not necessarily in direct proportion to headcount.
Many SaaS businesses enjoy enormous economies of scale.
Once the platform exists, serving additional users often costs only a fraction of what those users are charged.
That isn't inherently wrong.
Software companies deserve healthy margins.
The real question is different.
Is headcount the fairest proxy for customer value?
For FM businesses, the answer is increasingly questionable.
The Unintended Operational Consequences
Per-seat pricing rarely appears on operational risk registers.
Perhaps it should.
Because cost pressure changes behaviour.
Some organisations limit mobile access.
Others restrict subcontractor visibility.
Some avoid giving clients direct access.
Some rely on spreadsheets alongside expensive platforms.
Others create shared accounts that undermine accountability.
Every workaround exists because somebody, somewhere, looked at another licence invoice and tried to save money.
The result?
Fragmented data.
Lower adoption.
Reduced transparency.
Poorer reporting.
Ironically, everyone loses.
The FM company.
The client.
The software vendor.
The AI Era Changes Everything
Artificial Intelligence introduces an entirely new dimension.
Modern FM platforms are evolving beyond digital job sheets.
They are becoming operational intelligence systems.
They analyse trends.
Predict failures.
Recommend actions.
Surface hidden risks.
Identify compliance gaps.
Optimise maintenance schedules.
The value increasingly comes from intelligence—not user accounts.
Imagine two organisations.
One has 80 users.
The other has 800.
If both benefit from the same AI engine identifying critical compliance risks before they become contract failures, should the larger company pay ten times more simply because more people log in?
Or should pricing reflect the operational value created?
This is where traditional SaaS pricing starts looking increasingly outdated.
The Counterargument
To be fair, software vendors have legitimate reasons for charging per user.
More users can mean:
- Higher support costs.
- More training.
- Increased security management.
- Greater infrastructure usage.
- Larger customer success teams.
These are real costs.
No serious discussion should ignore them.
But acknowledging those realities doesn't automatically justify linear pricing forever.
Industries evolve.
Business models evolve.
Customer expectations evolve.
Pricing models should evolve too.
The question isn't whether vendors deserve to be paid.
Of course they do.
The question is whether pricing should scale primarily with people—or with value.
What Could Better Look Like?
The future probably won't belong to a single pricing model.
Instead, we may see combinations such as:
- Platform pricing
- Site-based pricing
- Asset-based pricing
- Usage-based pricing
- Contract-value pricing
- AI consumption pricing
- Outcome-based pricing
Each has strengths and weaknesses.
But they share one important characteristic.
They align software cost more closely with business value than with employee count.
That alignment matters.
Because software should accelerate growth—not quietly tax it.
The Strategic Question Every FM Leader Should Ask
When evaluating technology, many organisations compare features.
Some compare implementation costs.
Others compare integrations.
All important.
But perhaps one question deserves far more attention.
Will this pricing model still make sense if we double in size?
Winning business should feel exciting.
Hiring new engineers should feel exciting.
Expanding nationally should feel exciting.
None of those milestones should trigger anxiety about software licensing.
Technology should reward ambition.
Not penalise it.
A Different Philosophy
At RaptorFM, we've spent countless hours speaking with people across the Facility Management industry.
One theme appears repeatedly.
FM businesses don't want software that simply digitises operations.
They want technology that scales with their success.
They want platforms that encourage every engineer, technician, supervisor and client to participate—not pricing models that force difficult compromises.
As artificial intelligence reshapes Facility Management over the coming decade, we believe the conversation should shift from "How many users do you have?" to "How much value is your platform creating?"
That distinction may seem subtle today.
We believe it will become one of the defining conversations of the next generation of FM technology.
The Industry Needs a Better Conversation
Per-seat pricing isn't evil.
It helped build the modern SaaS industry.
But every successful model eventually reaches a point where it deserves re-examination.
Facility Management has changed dramatically.
Labour shortages.
Increasing compliance requirements.
Growing ESG obligations.
AI-driven operations.
Remote asset monitoring.
Predictive maintenance.
Client expectations for real-time transparency.
The software supporting this industry should evolve alongside it.
Perhaps the next breakthrough in FM technology won't be another dashboard.
Perhaps it will be a business model that finally aligns software success with customer success.
Because the fastest-growing FM companies shouldn't be punished for growing.
They should be empowered to do it even faster.
What do you think?
If you're leading an FM business, I'd genuinely like to hear your perspective.
Has per-seat pricing ever influenced hiring decisions, software adoption, or operational workflows in your organisation?
Or do you believe it's still the fairest way for FM software to be priced?
Let's start that conversation.