Last year Google put Gemini into every Google Workspace business plan and raised the price. Business Standard went from $12 to $14 per user per month.
Even when someone on a seat didn't want Gemini, we paid for it.
This year it is everyone's turn. In July Microsoft raised Microsoft 365 E3 from $36 to $39 per user, pointing to new AI, security and management features. Atlassian raises Jira and Confluence prices next week, because "AI is now built into every paid edition".
Zylo found that 79% of IT leaders faced price increases at renewal in the past 12 months.
Now imagine you run a manufacturing company with 300 people. Every tool you rent per seat sends the same letter.
What do you do? Buy fewer seats or ask for a discount. Nobody is happy in the end.
"One size fits all" also means you pay for features most of your people never use.
For decades the rule was simple: buying software that mostly fits is cheaper than building your own. Building meant expensive engineers who had to keep up with languages and tools that kept changing, and months of work. A consultant would tell you to adjust your processes to the software you buy, because changing the software costs more.
I think this rule is breaking.
Today you can get from an idea to a working prototype in days, sometimes in hours. Yesterday I built a simple CRM for one of my projects in half a day, in parallel with other tasks. What matters is knowing which problem you solve and what result is acceptable.
The people who manage the teams usually know that best: which process they need, which forms, how the data connects. The process should define the software, not the other way round.
This does not mean you should build everything. A standard software system has real benefits: people already know the interface, and that saves cognitive energy. In a highly regulated industry, implementing every rule yourself costs a lot. And maintenance does not go away: it is usually the bigger part of a system's lifetime cost.
But the calculation has changed. A manager can build the prototype, and a software team can finish it. For many tools, that may cost less than a multi-year licence. And when AI agents work with your data, keeping it inside your own perimeter is a real argument too.
Before your next renewal, go through your tools one by one.
Your CRM, notetaker, knowledge base, ERP: what would you buy today, and what would you build?
First published on LinkedIn. Discussion on LinkedIn