Pricing
Price on the unit the buyer already budgets in: a site for single-site operators, a banded company plan for everyone else. Never per seat. The numbers below were set against twenty competitors' published prices and the one ceiling that matters: Microsoft F1 plus Viva at £3.84 per user per monthS13.
Everything is included on every tier: translation into any language, video with captions, confirmed reach, chase lists, exports, hazard reporting, join cards, unlimited managers. The only metered item is SMS delivery of posts (8p a message, ≈2× cost), and push is the default so most customers never pay it.
The pilot: "60-day proof of reach"
| Element | Specification |
|---|---|
| Price | £2,500 + VAT, fixed, invoiced on signature. Sized so a divisional budget holder can approve it on a purchase order, and structured so their procurement team can run in parallel: the supplier pack (Chapter 12) goes to them the same day. Whether £2,500 sits inside a division's delegated authority is an assumption you confirm on the first call, never something you say to the customer. |
| Credit | 100% creditable against year one of an annual contract signed within 30 days of the pilot ending. |
| Scope | One region or division: up to 3 sites and 250 enrolled workers. |
| Duration | 60 days from launch day (not signature), day-30 formal review, day-60 decision meeting. Keeps the decision inside one budget quarter and out of the 18 Dec – 4 Jan shutdown. |
| Success criteria, agreed in writing before start | 1. ≥70% of enrolled workers logged in within 14 days. 2. ≥85% confirmed receipt on mandatory posts within 72 hours. 3. ≥2 posts per site per week sustained. 4. A briefing record export accepted by the HSEQ lead as their record of who confirmed each briefing. |
| Exit | If criteria 1 and 2 are both missed, the £2,500 is refunded. If either is met, it is not. Exclusions, written into the pilot agreement: if more than 10% of the supplied phone numbers fail validation, criterion 1 is measured against the deliverable list; sites where the customer has not published two posts a week, or has not completed the launch actions, are excluded; workers added in the final 14 days are excluded. Say the refund out loud; it converts the meeting. |
| Paper | 3-page pilot agreement with the year-one price printed on it, DPA attached. No portal. |
Why paid: a free pilot has no internal owner, budget line or deadline, so it drifts and dies at the first site manager's holiday. Jason Lemkin's rule of thumb at SaaStr, which is opinion from experience rather than a dataset, is that paid pilots convert at 60–90% and unpaid ones are a false milestone about 95% of the timeS21. Do not offer open-ended trials, unlimited-site pilots, pilots without written criteria, or pilots without the conversion price on the paper.
Why per site and per company, not per user: the case
TeamTalk has been quoted per user so far. This guide recommends switching. Here is the argument, because you will have to believe it before a customer does.
1. It matches how the money is held
A site manager has a site budget; a division has a divisional budget. Nobody has a "per head software" line, and per-user pricing forces the buyer to count subcontractors they do not employ, which is exactly the conversation that stalls a deal.
2. Site labour churns 30–50% a year
Per user, every renewal is an audit of who is "active", and every audit is a discount request. Per site or per band, the number changes only at renewal, when they open sites or grow, which they are proud to tell you.
3. It removes the objection to adding people
The value rises with everyone on it, including the agency bricklayer here for three weeks. Per user, the manager hesitates to add him. Per site, adding him is free, so activation and confirmed reach go up, so the renewal is safe.
4. Your costs are per event, not per seat
You pay about 7.8p when someone verifies a phone and fractions of a penny per translationS1, S4. A worker who never logs in costs nothing. Per-seat pricing charges for exactly the people who cost you nothing.
5. The sector already buys this way
Procore markets "we'll never charge you for adding more users"; HammerTech prices on volume and active sites with subcontractors free; Ocasta defaults to per site; YOOBIC prices per storeS13. It is per-seat that needs explaining here.
6. It makes expansion the natural next sentence
"That's one site. Your division has 25." Growth is a count everybody can see, not a spreadsheet argument.
When there is no site: driving and distributed workforces
Couriers, delivery drivers, field engineers, mobile cleaning and security rounds do not have a site; roughly one in five of the 100 targets is like this. The Company tier is the answer: unlimited "sites" means the customer can organise by depot, hub, round or supervisor, and the price is set by enrolled workers in bands, re-banded only at renewal. Bands, not a per-head rate, so a busy month never produces a surprise invoice and a quiet one never produces a discount request. Lead with the Site number for anyone with places of work; lead with the Company band for anyone without.
Where the tiers sit against the market
How to quote it
A site (one Barratt site)
"£180 a month per site on an annual plan, everyone on the site, however many languages, with the records. That's £2,160 for the year; monthly is 15% more."
A small company (Fernham, ~220 workers over the year)
"The Company plan at £550 a month covers all your sites and up to 250 workers: £6,600 a year, everything included. We re-band at renewal if you've grown."
A caterer with 8 kitchens and ~300 staff (Menu Partners)
"£950 a month, every kitchen, every language: £11,400 a year. Recall notices with proof of receipt across the estate."
A division (Barratt London; confirm the enrolled count on the first call)
"Start with the £2,500 60-day pilot on three sites. If it works, the division takes the band its enrolled workers fall in: 1,001–2,000 is £2,600 a month with the pilot credited; above 2,000 it is Enterprise from £3,600 if you need SSO and a security review."
Rules you do not break
- Never free. A paid pilot has an owner.
- Quote the band that matches expected enrolment 12 months out, and re-band only at renewal. Never mid-term.
- Never let the quoted effective rate exceed about £3.84 a worker. That is an internal sanity check against Microsoft F1 plus Viva (£2.30 + £1.54 a user a month, annual, ex VAT, before Microsoft's July 2026 rise), not a line to say to a customer, and it is where per-head objections start rather than where deals die. The rule it produces: below about 145 enrolled workers, quote the Site plan (£180 a site), not the £550 Company band; the band only beats the Site rate once a company has three or more sites or 145+ workers. Customer-facing material anchors against paper and WhatsApp, never against Microsoft.
- Discount for a reference, never for a signature. Up to 20% in year one for a named, quotable reference, in writing, expiring at renewal. Observed norms: 10–15% for annual prepay, 15–25% for a public case studyS22.
- Annual by default, invoiced by Bacs. Standard UK cards cost 1.5% + 20p and premium UK cards (which include consumer rewards cards) 2.8% + 20p; Bacs Direct Debit is 1%, capped at £4S19. On a £19,200 invoice that is £534 saved.
- Implementation is £0, always. Staffbase charges $15k–$75k; saying "free" is worth more than the £2,500 you might have charged.
- Price rises at renewal: 5–8%, notified 90 days before renewal in its own message (never inside the renewal reminder), published pricing. Internal policy; it does not appear on the customer price sheet.
- Do not price per worker, even when asked. Answer with the site or band number, then the effective per-worker number, in that order. Never put a per-user rate on an order form.
What "enrolled worker" and "site" mean, precisely
An enrolled worker is a person with an active login who has not passed their leaving date. A site is a place of work, or a team, under one manager. Head-office admins do not count. Subcontractors and agency staff count, and that is the point: it is their comprehension the regulations ask aboutS24.