Last updated at Thu, 15 Mar 2018 19:17:27 GMT

Pricing Evolves

Bike pedals pumping, climbing up that last hill, the sun just starting to creep over the Atlantic ocean peeking out over my right shoulder, there was only one thing left before heading home and devouring a warm breakfast; deliver that last newspaper to the house on the top of the hill.

Paper routes were once the only source of income for many of us pre-internet kids. Paid per delivery, the job was also about being your own salesperson, securing subscriptions, and more importantly, providing a fantastic service to keep your customer happy. The pitch was easy: pay me a weekly amount and get the news as fast as possible. Don’t like what I’m providing? Cancel your subscription or move it to a competitor.

Things have changed in the ensuing years as technology has enriched our lives. One fascinating change has been the evolution of pricing technology, especially software. Once the realm of the ‘Perpetual License,’ customers started realizing that moving to subscription, just like the bygone days of newspapers, provided them with more purchasing convenience and a recurring price that made budgeting more manageable and a requirement that the person or company providing a service continue to deliver value.

Rapid7 Subscription Pricing

Rapid7 has been moving down the subscription pricing path at a calculated rate. Calculated because it was timed with what we were hearing from our customers. It started a few years ago when we launched InsightIDR, our SaaS SIEM, because customers in the market wanted more control over how they paid for a solution that traditionally was priced on a perpetual license, required months to set up, and locked them into a 20-30% yearly ‘maintenance fee.’

Our evolution of subscription pricing continued in 2017 with the launch of InsightVM (the next-generation of Nexpose, our vulnerability management solution), followed by InsightAppSec (the next-generation of AppSpider, our application security testing solution). By the end of 2017, most of our major solutions had a subscription pricing option for you to use, and as we looked back at the year, it became clear what our customers preferred.

Starting today, Rapid7 has moved all of our pricing to subscription. We are excited about how this can help you more quickly adopt and scale Rapid7 solutions since it allows for:

  • Lower cost. Subscription makes it easier for you to get started by reducing the up-front investment needed for a solution.
  • Flexibility to scale. Subscription provides more flexibility for you to scale as your needs change.
  • Simple planning and budgeting. Subscription pricing takes the guesswork out of your annual planning and budgeting, allowing you to accurately project annual costs based on a regularly recurring price.
  • Easier hybrid deployments. Subscription pricing makes it simpler for you to support both cloud and on-prem hybrid deployments, since annual costs leverage the same subscription pricing model.

What does it mean for you?

If you’re a customer today on perpetual licensing, no worries. You can continue to renew your perpetual license without any change. If you make additional purchases in the future, those will be available via subscription, and our team will be available to walk you through your options.

If you’re in the process of looking at a Rapid7 product, talk with your Rapid7 rep. We are all ready to talk you through your options.

If you’re starting to look at Rapid7 products contact us and we’ll walk you through all your options for each of our solutions and services.

As I always do after the opportunity to talk to our community of customers, partners, and contributors; I would like to thank you. The Rapid7 journey has been exciting and continues to evolve, because of your guidance and input. Please leave a comment below or email me with any questions, comments, or concerns.