Read a SaaS invoice by asking one question of each line: what does this scale with. A base plan scales with nothing, seats scale with staff, usage lines scale with how busy you are, and payment processing scales with revenue. Once every line has an answer, you know what the bill will do when the business changes.
The lines, from the top
- Base plan or platform fee. A flat amount for the tier you are on. It changes only when you change tier or the vendor changes the price. Check which tier is named and whether you still need it.
- Seats or users. A price multiplied by a count. Check the count against the people who really log in. Venue teams change between seasons, and a coordinator who left last autumn can still be on the bill.
- Add-on modules. Things like e-signatures, floor plan tools, a client portal or extra reporting, each with its own price. Ask whether anyone uses them.
- Usage and overage. Charges for going past an allowance: events, enquiries, contacts, stored files, text messages sent. These lines move month to month and are worth tracking across a year.
- Additional locations. If you run more than one venue or space, some plans charge per location.
- Taxes. Calculated on the lines above, so they scale with the total.
Payment processing is a different kind of line
If couples pay deposits and balances through the software, there will be a processing charge. It may appear on the invoice, or it may never appear there because it is deducted from each payout instead. Find it either way.
Processing scales with the money you take, and it would exist with any system that accepts cards, so keep it out of the software total. What is worth checking is whether the vendor adds its own percentage on top of the processor's charge. That part is a software fee and belongs in the software total.
Annual or monthly, and the dates
Note the billing period. An annual invoice hides the monthly cost and a monthly one hides the yearly cost, so convert to the same basis before comparing anything.
Note the service dates as well. They tell you when the term ends, which tells you when the renewal and any notice deadline fall. If you added seats mid-term you may see a prorated line covering only part of the period. Next term that line will be charged in full.
Credits and discounts
A credit or discount line lowers this invoice. Ask whether it lowers the next one. Introductory discounts, promotional credits and goodwill credits after an outage are one-off or time-limited, and the underlying price is the figure to plan on. If a discount is tied to an annual commitment, write down what the price becomes without it.
Turn the invoice into a forecast
Put each line in a sheet with a second column for what it scales with and a third for what that driver will be next year: two more coordinators, a second space opening, a busier season.
Suppose the base plan is 150 dollars a month and seats are 35 dollars each for 6 people. That is 150 plus 210, so 360 a month and 4,320 a year. Add two coordinators and the seat line becomes 280, the month 430 and the year 5,160, with no change to what the software does for you. Those numbers are invented for the arithmetic. Our software bill calculator is a free calculator that runs the same sum on your own figures and shows three years.
An invoice that is mostly flat lines is predictable and may be good value. One dominated by lines that climb with staff and bookings is where owning starts to be worth a look, and our guide to when to rent and when to own your software explains when it is and is not. For venues specifically, our page on software for wedding and event venues goes through what is rented. At Hiro we quote only after seeing the bill, so an invoice you can read line by line is the right starting point.