Happy customers and profitable partners are essential for Odoo's success.
• Partners aren't charging (or charging enough) for maintenance.
• Partners don't know how to charge for maintenance.
• Customers are stuck on old versions.
• Customers are accustomed to issues (and partners have no financial incentive to go the extra mile).
• Most revenue comes from customer implementations and projects.
If most revenue comes from more customer implementations and projects, it's hard to prioritize maintenance. We want to make maintenance another source of revenue, rather than a headache that causes frustration between partners and customers.
Our Solution?
A maintenance contract that covers bug fixes, support, and upgrades. We are proposing a maintenance contract of 18$/lines of code per month.* This would be a monthly expense for the customer that feels manageable, is pre-paid (which helps customer expectations), and makes it easy for partners to quote the technical debt of community apps or projects transferred from another partner.
If a customer knows the cost of development up-front, you'll create a foundation of trust and transparency, which is crucial for long-term satisfaction.
*Price per country Europe: 16€ / 100 lines of code Spain/Eastern Europe: 12 € / 100 lines of code North America: $18 / 100 lines of code Africa/Asia: $6 / 100 lines of code HK/Dubai: $12 / 100 lines of code
Let's Break It Down
We based the below calculations on:
• 19.8 SLOC/ hour of development
• 112 hours billed/month/employee (70% billing rate)
Expected maintenance revenue (based on 16 €/100 LOC pricing):
• 1 developer, 1 year: 4,258 €/month
• 3 developers, 3 years: 38,322 €/month
• 5 developers, 4 years: 85,160 €/month
• 10 developers, 4 years: 170,320 €/month
Taking a look at these projected numbers should help you assess your current revenues. You can also do this calculation to help evaluate:
• Years: for how many years
If your recurring revenue for maintenance is less than dev * years * 5,258 €/month, it's time to contact your account manager to boost your maintenance revenues.
If your customer no longer wants to work with you for any reason, or if you don't want to upgrade your customer, Odoo SA guarantees that the upgrade or bug fix will be provided to the customer (either by Odoo or a partner we choose). We cover you and the customer, so the process is stress-free and risk-free! Odoo will be your safety net, and your customers will love this guarantee because it will build even more trust in your relationship.
We're happy to absorb the risks, because we either support our partners' growth or we gain a direct customer. Everybody wins!
How Does It Work?
The Odoo platform fully automates the process for you. You can retrieve #LOC automatically from the production server (just like users and apps) and control which modules are covered (_manifest_.py).
It's also easily auditable from the server or customer portal. You can activate in just one click when your customer goes into production (or ask your account manager to help you).
By using a maintenance contract, you'll successfully manage customer expectations, alleviate any stress about paying for future development, and create more revenue. We believe this solution will create a more harmonious partnership and help everyone thrive!
