VVendorBenchmark

Methodology guide

How we know what your software should cost.

Every number this platform gives you comes from somewhere. This guide sets out where, how it is built, how your deal is placed against it, and where the method is strong or thin. Read it before you rely on a figure.

Overview Where the data comes from How your number is calculated Questions

The short version

A VendorBenchmark benchmark is a calibrated market reference model. For every vendor we build a curve describing how that vendor actually prices: what discount a buyer of your size, in your region, realistically achieves, and which parts of the deal structure move that number. Your deal is then placed against the slice of that curve that matches you.

It is not an archive of other people's contracts, and we think that is a feature rather than an apology. We explain why on this page.

Vendors covered
456
Publishers and platforms with a live benchmark
Live benchmarks
610
Broken out by product and programme, not one number per vendor
Market coverage
2019–2026
Weighted to recent years, across three regions and 12 industries

The pipeline, end to end

Six stages sit between a vendor's pricing behaviour and the number on your screen. Stages one to three happen before you arrive. Stages four to six happen the moment you enter a deal.

BEFORE YOU ARRIVE WHEN YOU ENTER A DEAL 1 Research The discount curve for one vendor 2 Reference set The curve rendered as comparable deals 3 Calibration Re-cut when the vendor changes tack 4 Your cohort Your deal size band and your region only 5 Placement Where you sit, adjusted for structure 6 The ask The price that would put you in the top quartile of your own cohort, and what the gap is worth per year. Rebuilt continuously Stages 1 to 3 run on our side, per vendor, and are re-cut whenever a vendor changes how it sells.
Stages 1 to 3 are our standing work on each vendor. Stages 4 to 6 run in under a second when you enter a deal.

What it is, and what it is not

What a benchmark is

  • A model of how a specific vendor prices, by deal size, region and industry
  • Built from what our sources and our own negotiation work have observed
  • Adjusted for the structural terms that genuinely move price, such as term length and competitive pressure
  • Labelled with its own confidence, so you know when a number is measured and when it is directional
  • Answerable to one question: what should you be asking for, and what is the gap worth

What it is not

  • A file of other customers' signed contracts
  • A list price scraped from a vendor's website and marked down
  • A single blended number per vendor that ignores which product you are buying
  • A guarantee. It is the market position you should be arguing from, not a price the vendor has agreed to
  • Anything that exposes an identifiable counterparty, deal or organisation

Why we model the curve instead of stockpiling contracts. A benchmark assembled from real contracts is either too small to say anything about a deal your size, or large enough that somebody's confidentiality is paying for it. Modelling the curve and publishing our confidence lets us cover your whole estate, at every deal size, without trading on anyone's paper. It also means we can re-cut a vendor the week its pricing model changes rather than waiting years for enough fresh contracts to arrive.

Why one vendor is many benchmarks

An Oracle ERP Cloud renewal, an Oracle unlimited licence agreement and an Oracle Java subscription are three different negotiations. Different levers, different discount ceilings, different people on the vendor side. Collapsing them into one Oracle number would be worse than useless, so we do not.

That is why 456 vendors produce 610 benchmarks. The vendors we work on hardest are broken down the furthest.

Benchmarks per vendor, the fourteen we break down furthest Oracle 30 Salesforce 18 SAP 18 Microsoft 14 Cisco 11 IBM 11 ServiceNow 11 Adobe 10 Google 9 Atlassian 8 Workday 8 Broadcom 7 Palo Alto 7 CrowdStrike 6
The remaining 442 vendors carry one benchmark each. Breadth of breakdown is the honest signal of where we are deepest.

What to read next

Where the data comes from sets out the three source tiers, what we will and will not disclose about each, and how your own data is treated.

How your number is calculated walks through the cohort, the placement, the structural adjustment, and the point at which we refuse to give you a number at all.

Questions answers the things buyers, procurement teams and security reviewers actually ask us, including the awkward ones.

VendorBenchmark LLC · Private methodology guide · Not for redistribution July 2026