Every buyer wants a number, and every honest supplier answers with a question. The cost of an Odoo project depends on the scope, the state of your data, the number of integrations, how much you customise and how much of the work your own team can carry. This whitepaper does not give you a number. It gives you the structure to build one, and the questions to ask when comparing proposals.
The eight components
An ERP budget has eight parts. Proposals that show fewer than eight are leaving some out, and you will pay for them anyway.
1. Software licence
Enterprise is priced per user per year. Community has no licence fee. The variables are the number of named users, the plan, and any paid services such as document digitisation. Occasional users and portal users are usually not counted, which matters for businesses with many light users.
2. Hosting
Odoo Online is included with the Enterprise licence for standard use. Odoo.sh is priced by workers, storage and staging environments. Self hosting costs servers, backups, monitoring and the people to run them. Hosting is a recurring cost for the life of the system.
3. Implementation services
Consulting, configuration, testing and go live support. This is the largest one off cost in most projects and the one that varies most between suppliers. It is driven by the number of apps, the number of processes, the number of companies and countries, and the quality of your preparation.
4. Customisation and integration
Custom developments and connections to other systems. Each has a build cost and a maintenance cost at every upgrade. Proposals should list each item separately with its justification.
5. Data migration
Extraction, cleaning, mapping, loading and reconciliation. The cost depends far more on the state of your data than on its volume. Clean data with consistent codes migrates cheaply; a decade of duplicates does not.
6. Training and change management
Workshops, role based training, documentation and communication. Often underestimated because it is seen as soft. It determines whether the system is used properly, which determines whether any of the other spending was worthwhile.
7. Internal time
The hours your own staff spend in workshops, testing, cleaning data and learning. This is the cost most budgets omit entirely. For a mid sized implementation it can equal the external implementation fee.
8. Support and upgrades
Post go live support, maintenance of custom code and periodic version upgrades. Recurring for as long as you run the system. Ask every supplier what the first upgrade will cost.
What moves the numbers
Scope. Each additional app adds workshops, configuration, testing and training. The relationship is not linear; the fifth app costs less than the first because the master data and the team are already in place, but the twentieth app is a second project.
Company structure. Each legal entity brings its own chart of accounts, tax rules, statutory reports and often its own way of working. Multi company projects cost more than the number of companies would suggest, because intercompany processes have to be designed as well.
Process fit. A business willing to adopt standard Odoo processes pays for configuration. A business that must keep its existing processes pays for customisation and then pays again at each upgrade.
Data quality. See component five. If you want to lower the price of a proposal, clean your data before you ask for it.
Integrations. Each integration is a small project with its own discovery, build, test and maintenance. Two integrations are cheap. Twelve are a programme.
Your team. A client team that can give the project time, make decisions quickly and test thoroughly saves money on every component. A client team that cannot will push cost into the supplier's fee or into delay.
Costs that proposals leave out
- Internal time, almost always
- The first version upgrade, which for a heavily customised system can approach the original implementation cost
- Hardware: scanners, printers, tills, tablets
- Third party subscriptions the design relies on: payment providers, shipping services, bank feeds, e signature volumes
- Data archiving for history that does not migrate
- Contingency, which for an ERP project should be planned rather than hoped for
- Support in the months after hypercare ends, when the questions are still frequent
How to compare proposals
Ask each supplier to break their proposal into the eight components. Ask what is fixed price, what is estimated, and what assumptions the estimate rests on. Ask for the list of customisations they expect to build and why each one is needed. Ask how many hours they expect from your team, per role, per phase. Ask what the first upgrade will cost and when it will be needed.
A proposal that answers all of these is comparable with another that does the same. A proposal that gives a single figure is not comparable with anything, however attractive the figure.
Reducing the cost without reducing the outcome
The levers that lower cost without weakening the project are these: start with fewer apps and phase the rest; adopt standard processes wherever the difference does not matter to customers; clean data before the project; free up your key users properly; and decide quickly. Each of these is within your control, and each is worth more than negotiating the day rate.
Getting a number for your business
The way to get a real figure is a short scoping exercise: a few hours of workshops, a list of apps and processes, a look at your data and your integrations. We do this as the first part of our ERP consulting service, and the first conversation about it is free.
Frequently asked questions
Where are you based and where do you work?
We are a remote consultancy with consultants working across the United Kingdom, India, the Gulf and Singapore time zones. We deliver projects for clients in those regions and beyond, and we match workshops and support to your working hours. Where a project genuinely benefits from a visit, such as a warehouse go live, we arrange one.
How does a first conversation work?
You book a free call of around thirty minutes. You describe how your business runs, what systems you use and what is not working. We tell you honestly whether Odoo is likely to fit, what a sensible first project would be, and what it would involve on your side. There is no obligation and no sales presentation.
How do you price your work?
Consulting and implementation phases are quoted as a fixed price against a written scope wherever the scope is clear enough to allow it. Where it is not, we estimate with a stated range and a cap, and we report time weekly. Managed services are a monthly retainer with an agreed allowance of hours. Any change to scope is estimated and approved before work starts, so you never learn about a cost from an invoice.
Do you only work with large companies?
No. Our clients range from companies with a dozen users to groups with several legal entities. The method is the same at every size; the number of phases and the depth of governance change with the scale.
Who owns the work you produce?
You do. Documentation, configuration, custom code and training material produced for your project belong to you and are handed over at the end of each phase.
Can you work alongside our existing Odoo partner or internal team?
Yes. We often provide consulting, project management or a second opinion while another team does the build. The roles are agreed in writing at the start so that responsibilities are clear.