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Services· Cost of AI and software·Where does my budget go furthest?

Vanguard · Guide

Is that license you renew every year still worth what it costs?

We pay for a hundred features and use six.

A verdict on what you pay in licenses against the full cost of building it. If building wins, the code is yours.

Book a call25 minutes. Just one question when you book.

Licensed Software ReplacementSend this page to whoever decides

This sounds like you if

  • The renewal arrived with an increase, and what gets used of the product is a fraction.
  • The customization already costs more than the license underneath it.
  • The vendor changed its licensing model and the numbers stopped adding up.
Who delivers
The founder issues and signs the verdict. The build is carried out by the firm's deployed team, with platform and interface in the hands of team members named in the proposal. The team.
How engagements work
Fixed price, with written acceptance criteria before we start.
Timeline and price
Fixed, in writing, after we assess your case in the 25-minute conversation.

Use this today, without hiring anyone

Four lines you can pull from what you already have, and they change the conversation at the next renewal. Do them before you talk to the vendor:

  1. What you really use. Active users last quarter against paid seats, and features used against features licensed. Pull it from the product's own usage log, not from anyone's memory.
  2. What staying costs. License, customization and the internal hours that hold it up, over three years and with the renewal increase included.
  3. What leaving costs. Data migration, running both systems side by side during the cutover, and whatever the contract charges you to go.
  4. What building costs, and keeps costing. Not only the build: consumption, maintenance and the person who answers for it in year two.

If line two does not clearly exceed lines three and four together, the answer is to stay and renegotiate. That number is also useful at the table with the vendor.

How we solve it

The method, not the promise.

  1. What you use of the license gets measured from the product's own log: users, features, integrations and customization.
  2. The full cost of staying gets compared against the full cost of building, over three years, with the assumptions written down so you can argue them.
  3. The verdict gets issued: stay, renegotiate, replace a part or replace it all. With the complete functional specification, which is yours even if you never build.
  4. If building wins, it gets built in modules with a cut after each one, on open tools and with the code in a repository in your name.
  5. It gets handed over with an operating manual, escalation criteria and a written retirement criterion.

What you receive

  • Real usage of the license against what you pay for it.
  • The three year full cost comparison, with the assumptions open.
  • The written verdict and the complete functional specification, yours even if you never build.
  • If you decide to build: the application in production, with the code in your name and its operating manual.

The proof that applies here

19years on both sides of the enterprise software purchase: selling from the manufacturer and buying from the bank.
700automated agents taken into production on an operation of our own.
  • Two corporate products taken to the Gartner Magic Quadrant, from the side that decides what gets built and what does not.

Before you hire

The verdict is delivered in full when the answer is to keep the license too. Savings get compared, not promised: the license turns into consumption and maintenance, and both are written into the numbers.

The verdict is contracted and paid for before anyone talks about building. The specification that comes out of it is yours, and you can take it to whichever builder you choose. The build, if it comes, is a separate contract you ask for after reading it.

Of what you pay for that license today, how much does your team actually use?

Book a call[email protected]

In the cycle

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Where this service sits

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AI strategyAI governance and complianceAutomation and agentsData and analyticsCybersecurity and resilienceCritical operations and crisisMergers, separation and diligenceCost of AI and softwareInfrastructure and platform
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If the problem is a different one

We were told to bring the budget down and every owner defends their application.

Technology spend rationalization

We have the AI licenses, and my team is busy keeping what already exists running.

Forward Deployed Engineers

We built it with AI in a week, it worked, and now the whole operation uses it.

AI-Built Software Rescue