SolarWinds Service Desk Pricing Guide (Mar 2022)

ITQlick Score:	94/100
ITQlick Rating:	(5/5)
Pricing:	4.2/10 - average cost
Category:	Help Desk -> SolarWinds Service Desk -> SolarWinds Service Desk pricing
Ranking:	Ranked 2 out of 209 Help Desk systems
Company:	Samanage
Pricing:	starts at $19 per technician/month
Typical customers:	Start up, Small business, Medium business, Large business
Platforms:	Desktop, Mobile, Cloud
Links:	SolarWinds Service Desk review, SolarWinds Service Desk alternatives

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Shlomi Lavi / Mar 23, 2022

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Is SolarWinds Service Desk expensive?

SolarWinds Service Desk is about the same cost as the industry average.

SolarWinds offers two licensing options: subscription license and perpetual license. The License starts at $19 Per month, per technician, supports unlimited users. (USD) $0.10/month per device.

When comparing SolarWinds Service Desk to their competitors, on a scale between 1 to 10 (10 is the most expensive to implement), SolarWinds Service Desk is rated 4.2. Read the article below in order to calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO), which includes: customization, data migration, training, hardware, maintenance, upgrades, and more.

You can leave your info with us to get a free custom quote with a breakdown of cost for your business needs. You can also find here pricing information from SolarWinds's website.

Help Desk Software Price Range

Most Help Desk software are priced per user/per month, and their price ranges can be broken into three tiers, starting from $4 to $20, $20 to $70, and then $70 to $150. However, the premium and enterprise plans from some vendors may cost more than this. In addition, some products have perpetual licenses that must be purchased with a one-time fee. For example, iSupport pricing starts from $699, LiveZilla pricing from $155, and Re:Desk pricing from $99 per user license.

In addition, the prices for most products are set based on the size of an organization; hence, users can expect different prices for help desk software.

Small-sized companies and startups can expect to pay between $5 and $25 for Help Desk software every month. For example, SolarWinds Service Desk cost price starts from $19 monthly, Jira Service pricing from $10 a month, and atSpoke pricing from around $4 per user per month. Furthermore, some vendors offer free service, especially for small businesses with a tiny workforce. For example, Vision Helpdesk, Live Agent, and Mint Service Desk all have free plans.
Medium-scale businesses can expect to pay prices that fall within $20 to $70 per user monthly for help desk software. For instance, Salesforce Essentials pricing starts at $25 monthly, Teamsupport costs around $50 per-user/monthly, and HappyFox Help Desk from around $24 per user per month.
Large companies can expect to pay between $70 to $150 for Help Desk software per month. For example, Logmeln Rescue cost price starts from around $149 per user monthly, Kustomer pricing from $89 per user monthly, and Atera pricing from around $80 per user per month. Note, however, that onboarding and installation may be needed for some software; hence, extra fee may be charged by the offering vendors.

The pricing for some best of breeds of Help Desk Software are discussed below:

Customer Relationship Management Most customer relation software are priced on a monthly basis per user. Prices fall between the ranges of $0 to $13, $13 to $45, and then $45 and above. For example, Cogmento CRM pricing starts from $2 per user monthly; Agile CRM pricing starts from around $9 per user per month; Dynamics 365 pricing starts from $190 per user monthly.
Call Center Software The pricing for this software category can cost below or above $100 per user monthly; however, some vendors charge on per-usage terms. For example, Five9 pricing goes for $100 per user monthly; VCC Live pricing starts from $44 per user monthly; Zadarma cost price starts from around $5 per user per month.
Compliant Management Software The price points for most Complaint Management Software fall between $5 to $80 per user per month. For example, Consol CM/Compliant cost price starts from $69 per user monthly; NABD pricing starts from $10 per user monthly; UseResponse pricing starts from $15 per user per month.
Issue Tracking Software Most issue tracking Software tools are priced on a per user per month basis. Their price can be broken into three tiers, starting from $3 to $15, $15 to $35, and $35 upwards. For example, Mint Service Desk cost price starts from $4 per user monthly; AzureDesk pricing starts from around $13 per user per month; FocalScope pricing starts from $20 per user monthly.
Live Chat Software Most live chat software products are priced on a per-user, per-month basis, and it can be divided into three tiers, starting from $5 to $17, $17 to $46, and $46 upwards. For example, FreshChat pricing starts from $15 per user monthly; UserLike pricing starts from around $30 per user monthly; HubSpot Service Hub pricing starts from around $50 monthly per user.
Customer Service Software The price for most customer service software solutions fall within $5 to $150 and above. For example, Genesys Cloud pricing starts from around $100 per user monthly.

What is the cost for Help Desk implementation?

When it comes to selecting Help Desk system, buyers are primarily concerned about the cost. In fact, it is the cost that determines whether a potential buyer would go with the product. True, there is no one-size-fits-all formula to determine the “worth” of a business application, but as a software buyer, you want to make sure you get the best value for your money, without having to dig a big hole in your pocket.

Understanding the exact price of a Help Desk system isn't easy as the overall cost of software includes the cost of a license, subscription fees, training, customization, hardware, maintenance, support, and other related services. It's essential to take into account all of these costs to gain an understanding of the system's "total cost of ownership."

What are the typical Help Desk pricing models?

There are primarily three common pricing models – Perpetual License, Subscription, and Commercial Open Source.

Subscription/Software-As-A-Service: - Relevant for SolarWinds Service Desk
Under this pricing model, the system is accessed over the internet, as opposed to installed on-premises. The payment is made either on a per user basis or subscription basis. Ideally, customers are required to pay a recurring monthly fee until a specific period for using the tool. Subscription pricing model is more common with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps.
Upfront cost for customization and integration is less compared to perpetual license cost because there is not much flexibility with SaaS systems in this area.
Recurring cost is greater as customers are required to make monthly payments as a subscription fee. Additionally customers using premium support services must pay an extra fee.
All in all, the total cost of ownership in the both cases is almost the same and may span over a period of 7-10 years, though you may have to pay a higher perpetual license fee upfront. The total cost may vary from starter to mid range to enterprise level apps in both cases.
Perpetual license: - Not relevant for SolarWinds Service Desk
A common pricing model for on-premise applications, perpetual license requires a customer to pay an upfront sum to own the tool or other intellectual property on-premises for a fixed term.
Upfront cost involves the fee for installation, customization, and integration with existing systems, besides perpetual license fee.
Recurring cost is low in this pricing model and may include the cost for updates, maintenance, upgrades, and patches. Some vendors do offer premium support services, which come for an extra price.
Commercial open source: Not relevant for SolarWinds Service Desk
The customer can acquire the system free of cost without having to incur any upfront license fee. As a customer, you’re solely responsible for the ongoing maintenance, upgrading, customization, and troubleshooting of the application to meet your specific needs. You are on your own for providing end-user support, since you are not locked in with a vendor-supplied system solution.

How much would it cost to customize SolarWinds Service Desk? (and is it relevant)

If you need specific features in your system catering to your specific business requirements, the vendor will charge customization cost, depending on your needs and feature requirement. Ideally customization cost is more complex to calculate compared to licensing cost.

Some apps allow you to easily combine data from multiple sources, without any complicated query requirements, while some others can be embedded into different applications to provide enhanced reporting. If you seek products that support customizable dashboards and predictive analysis to identity possible trends and facilitate decision making, you may have to pay higher for all the customization features.

Additionally, the following factors may affect the cost of customization:

User interface changes
Configurable dashboards
Data elements required for tracking
Forms to collect additional data
Dashboard, management and operational reports that are needed.
Workflows and how complex they are
Forms to collect additional data

Here are some questions to answer: How much customization is needed? How many systems do you want to integrate to? Does your company work like industry standards or does it have its own customized processes? What kind of special reports are needed?

In order to calculate the cost of customization you can use the following estimates:

Minimal customization - integrate with 1-2 systems: $2,500
Standard customization - integrate with 3-5 systems: $10,000
Fully customized system - integrate with more than 5 systems: $25,000

What is the data migration cost of SolarWinds Service Desk? Relevant for SolarWinds Service Desk

Most companies opt for data migration services from a vendor, which raises the cost of product ownership. If you choose to transfer data on your own, you can avoid paying the cost of data migration.
Data migration cost depends on the amount of data to be transferred, your current software, availability of migration tools, complexity of data, and gaps between the existing system and the new system.

If your data is stored in Excel spreadsheets, then it may incur you a lot of time and money to migrate data from Excel.
By involving a business services provider in data migration, you are asking them to offer additional services, for which you may have to pay extra.

As a rule of thumb the cost of data migration depends on how many records you want to migrate. Records can include the number of customers, invoices, financial transactions, products, versions, etc. Here is a list you can use as a rule of thumb:

1,000 records: $500
10,000 records: $2,500
100,000 records: $10,000
1,000,000+ records: $25,000

What is SolarWinds Service Desk's cost of training? Relevant for SolarWinds Service Desk

As a buyer, you are required to pay extra for in-person training, though some vendors offer web-based solutions as part of the package. The cost may involve end-user training, video/self, group, department, and training the super users.

The cost is mainly derived from the approach that you select for your organization:

End-user training
Group/Department
Video /self
Train the trainer/super user

Here are some questions to answer: How many groups (different departments, usages, type of users) are needed?

In order to calculate the cost you can use the following estimates:

1-2 Sessions: $500
3-4 Sessions: $1,500
5-7 Sessions: $2,500
8-10 Sessions: $5,000

How SolarWinds Service Desk pricing compares to alternative Help Desk solution?

When comparing SolarWinds Service Desk to alternative systems, on a scale between 1 to 10 SolarWinds Service Desk is rated 4.2

SolarWinds compete with other VoIP systems like PRTG Network Monitor, LogicMonitor, and Cacti. We will compare these VoIP systems in some specific aspects below.

Functionality: SolarWinds offers features like Call Detail Record Analysis, Network Jitter, Packet Loss, Cisco Call Manager Support, IP SLA Monitor, WAN Monitor, VoIP Statistics, Avaya VoIP Troubleshooting, VoIP Troubleshooting, VoIP Monitor, Network Jitter Monitor, Call Quality, etc. Compared to its alternatives, PRTG Network Monitor offers unique features (and little similarities with SolarWinds) like Integrated Technologies, Maps, dashboards, Alerting, Multiple User Interfaces and Cluster failover solutions and Distributed Monitoring. LogicMonitor also offers unique features with many similar features to PRGT Network Monitor. Such features include Infrastructure Monitoring, Log Analysis, Network, Cloud, Servers, Websites (lacking in SolarWinds and PRTG Network Monitor), Containers, Remote Monitoring, Application Performance Monitoring, Storage, and Database Monitoring.
Customers/Industries: SolarWinds targets IT professionals in help desk, service desk, operations, etc., who are trying to bridge the gap between VoIP infrastructure management, and network transport infrastructure. Compared to its alternatives, PRTG Network Monitor targets healthcare, Buildings, industrial, Education, Finance, and government industries. Customers like 7eleven, Virginia Tech, National Theater, and Rexroth (a Bosch Company) use PRTG Network Monitor. LogicMonitor targets ITOps teams, service providers, and DevOps teams. Teams using LogicMonitor can be found in companies like Accruent, Rehrig Pacific Company, etc.
Cost: The license cost information for SolarWinds is unavailable on its official website. According to ITQlick expert cost research, SolarWinds is cost-rated at 2.1/5, which means it is a low-cost VoIP software. The rating system considers this software rated 1-2 as low-cost and 4-5 as high cost. The license cost information for LogicMonitor, PRGT Network Monitor, and Cacti is unavailable on their respective official websites.
Cloud-based/On-premise: SolarWinds and its alternatives are cloud-based. PRGT Network Monitor offers On-premise for windows.
Popularity: SolarWinds (1999) is publicly-traded on the NYSE under the SWI symbol. SolarWinds has 300,000+ customers in 190 countries, including 498 of the Fortune 500. When compared to its alternatives, PRTG Network Monitor (1997) is privately held and trusted by 500,000 companies worldwide. LogicMonitor (2008) is privately held and trusted by over 2000 global enterprises.
Scalability: PRTG Network Monitor can accommodate small, medium, and large infrastructures. LogicMonitor can accommodate Managed service providers and enterprises.
Support: SolarWinds and its alternatives share similar support channels like FAQs/forums. SolarWinds, PRTG Network Monitor, and LogicMonitor offer email/help desk, a knowledge base, and Chat. SolarWinds and LogicMonitor offer Phone support and 24/7 live rep.

How can the team at ITQlick help?

The science of TCO (total cost of ownership) may not be easy to calculate. If you seek to get detailed info about the TCO, get in touch with ITQlick experts. Contact us today and get up to date, detailed quotes.

Author

Shlomi Lavi

Shlomi holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Information System Engineering from Ben Gurion University in Israel. Shlomi brings 15 years of global IT and IS management experience as a consultant, and implementation expert for small, medium and large size (global) companies.