Key takeaways
  • Headline per-user prices understate the real cost, because the count that matters is everyone who must complete a step, not everyone who manages the work.
  • Price the process, not the tool: participants, managers, sites and the year-two number after the pilot expands.
  • RakuOps charges only for people who log in: Free for 5, $99 for 10, $299 for 50, $599 unlimited, with participants free and unlimited on every plan.
How to price it before any demo
Participants x sites, then managers x sites

Write both numbers down first. Under per-seat pricing the first number is the bill; under participant-free pricing only the second one is. That single distinction usually changes the total by an order of magnitude on a frontline rollout.

The four cost models you will meet

  • Per user, per month. The most common. Fine for desk teams, punishing when hundreds of people each complete one check a day.
  • Per site or per location. Predictable for multi-site retail and hospitality, and expensive if some sites are tiny.
  • Per submission or per form. Cheap in a pilot, unpredictable once adoption succeeds, which punishes exactly the outcome you wanted.
  • Per administrator, participants free. You pay for people who log in and manage work; everyone completing a task is free. This is the RakuOps model.

The costs that are not on the pricing page

  • Implementation and template building, sometimes a separate fee, often several weeks of someone's time.
  • Training, which scales with how much the tool demands of frontline staff. Anything requiring an install and a login costs more here than a link does.
  • Devices. Shared tablets are often bought to avoid per-seat costs, then undermine attribution and need replacing.
  • Year two. Pilots are priced for one site and one process. Expansion is where per-seat models bite.
  • Exit. Getting your records out in a usable form if you leave.

A worked example

A manufacturer with three sites, 180 operators and 9 supervisors and quality staff. Under per-seat pricing at a typical rate, covering everyone who completes a daily check runs into thousands a month, so most buyers licence only the supervisors and leave the operators on paper. Under participant-free pricing the same rollout is priced on 9 people, and everyone on the floor is covered from day one.

Questions to ask any vendor

  • Does every person completing a task need a paid licence?
  • What happens to the price when we double the number of people completing checks?
  • Is any feature gated to a higher tier, or is the difference only how many people log in?
  • What is the implementation fee, and is template building included?
  • Can we export every run, answer, photo and timestamp ourselves?

What RakuOps costs

Free for up to 5 people who log in, Starter $99 a month for up to 10, Growth $299 for up to 50, Pro $599 for unlimited. Annual billing gives two months free. Every plan includes every feature: unlimited workflows, scheduling, automations, forms, approvals, dashboards, integrations, API and AI. Anyone completing a task from a link is free and never counted.