A licence at 45,000 dirhams looks expensive. A subscription at 300 dirhams a month looks cheap. Yet what counts is not the sticker price but what the software really costs over three years, updates, hosting and support included. Let us do the maths.
Key point
- What a licence hides
- What a subscription contains
- The three-year calculation for a ten-user business
- The three questions to ask before signing a subscription
What a licence hides
The price of a licence is the price of software frozen on the day you bought it. Everything that comes afterwards is extra: installation, the server or computer that hosts it, the backups, the annual maintenance (often 15 to 20% of the price), regulatory updates, and the developer you call when a rate changes or a module blocks.
In Morocco, that last item is the most underestimated. A small business that bought foreign software pays a contractor every time a rule or a format changes. A company that wants to plug in WhatsApp or mobile payment discovers that its software will never do it without a new version, at a price.
What a subscription contains
A monthly subscription per user includes, in principle, the software, its hosting, its backups, its functional and regulatory updates, and support. The vendor has a direct interest in keeping you: it maintains the product for all its customers at once, which makes every improvement far cheaper than if you paid for it alone.
The three-year calculation for a ten-user business
| Item | Licence | Subscription |
|---|---|---|
| Software | 45,000 MAD up front | 10 users × 300 MAD × 36 months = 108,000 MAD |
| Annual maintenance (18%) | 3 × 8,100 = 24,300 MAD | Included |
| Server, backups, security | ≈ 12,000 MAD over 3 years | Included |
| Regulatory updates | 2 to 4 interventions a year × 3,000 MAD ≈ 27,000 MAD | Included |
| New channels (WhatsApp, mobile payment) | New version: 15,000 to 25,000 MAD | Included |
| Support | Package or hourly: ≈ 9,000 MAD | Included |
| Total | ≈ 132,000 to 142,000 MAD | 108,000 MAD |
The result is often a surprise: the subscription, which looked more expensive over three years if you compare 108,000 with 45,000, comes out cheaper as soon as you count everything the licence does not include. And it avoids the trap of keeping software far too long because it was expensive.
The three questions to ask before signing a subscription
- 1Are updates included, including those that follow a change of rule or channel? Ask for a recent example.
- 2Can I export my data in a standard format, at any time, and what happens when I cancel?
- 3Does support answer in my language, in my time zone, with a response time guaranteed by contract?
When a licence still makes sense
There are cases where buying holds up: very specific software with no subscription equivalent, a requirement to run without a permanent connection, or a strict obligation to host on site. They are rare for the selling, customer service or delivery side of a small business. In every other case, the subscription wins on total cost, and above all on risk: the risk of being stuck the day the rules change.
Where Cosensible fits in
Conseilor
is sold on a monthly subscription in dirhams, with no commitment, from 249 MAD excluding tax, with updates included and a human reachable on WhatsApp in Darija, French and English.
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