5 Signs Your ERP Vendor Has You Trapped
Most companies don't realize they're trapped until it's too late. The ERP vendor doesn't announce "we're raising prices 40% next year." They do it gradually, through tactics designed to make leaving economically impossible. Here are the five warning signs, and what they mean.
1. The "Platform Tax" Keeps Rising
Your contract says €X per user per month. But over three years, the real cost has doubled. "Optional" modules became mandatory. "Basic" support got downgraded. New "security features" appeared as paid add-ons. This isn't inflation, it's strategic price extraction from a captive customer.
The real cost: A 50-person company paying €50/user/month for a "cloud ERP" is actually spending €30,000/year. Over 5 years, that's €150,000, for software you don't own and can't take with you.
2. Your Data Is Held Hostage
Want to leave? That'll be €20,000-€40,000 for "data extraction services." Oh, and the data comes in a proprietary format that requires their tools to read. Your own company's history, purchase orders, customer relationships, inventory records, belongs to you legally but not practically.
3. "Upgrades" Are Forced and Expensive
SAP ends support for S/4HANA 2021. Your choice: pay €200,000-€500,000 for the "upgrade project" or lose security patches and compliance certifications. This isn't a choice. It's a protection racket dressed in enterprise software clothing.
The kicker? The "upgrade" rarely delivers new value. It's mostly compatibility patches so you can keep paying maintenance on the same system you've had for years.
4. Customizations Lock You In Deeper
Every custom workflow, every report, every integration you built on their platform is another chain. Moving means rebuilding everything. The vendor knows this, they encourage "customization" because it's the most effective lock-in mechanism ever invented.
Your €2 million "implementation" becomes a €2 million reason you can never leave.
5. The Compliance Threat
"You need our latest version for GDPR compliance." "SOC 2 requires our enterprise security module." Vendors have learned that compliance anxiety is the perfect sales weapon. Never mind that open source software can be audited by anyone, while proprietary code is a black box.
The Escape Route
There is a category of software designed to prevent exactly these traps:
- Open source license (EUPL-1.2), no vendor can change terms
- Git-based data, your company is a repository you can clone anywhere
- Browser-based, no servers to maintain, no infrastructure to pay for
- Zero cost, the software is free. Forever. No subscriptions, no tiers, no tricks.
NeoDonkey is built on these principles. Not because they're idealistic, because they're the only way to build software that truly belongs to the user.