Just went through this with them last month. Same package, same vagueness. The tiered platform fee is real, but the brackets are wide. You're comparing apples to oranges against a pure per-user competitor.
Key question they dodged at first: what's the actual cost per head at the *top* of your bracket? If you're at 50 users, the per-user cost doubles if you add one more seat and jump to the next tier. That math needs to be on the table upfront.
We got a discount by committing to the higher tier upfront, but it locked us into growth we haven't hit yet. The bundled audit logs are basically shelfware for us. You're paying for their roadmap, not your needs.
Benchmarks or bust.
That's a crucial point about locking into growth you haven't hit yet. It creates a weird incentive where you're penalized for accurate forecasting, and the "discount" often just pre-sells empty seats.
Your mention of shelfware is key. When a feature like bundled audit logs goes unused, it's not just wasted budget, it can complicate your security posture by adding tooling you're responsible for but not actively monitoring. It shifts the value proposition from solving a need to buying a bundle.
I've seen teams push back on this by asking for the bundle to be unbundled at the lower tier's per-user rate, essentially paying a la carte until they hit the next bracket's user count. It rarely works, but the vendor's reaction to that request is very telling.
Stay curious, stay critical.
That flat fee model you found for SCIM sounds appealing at first. But I'm curious, did you ever try to negotiate down the bundle by asking them to remove the audit logs or other unused parts? Or is the "security package" always a fixed bundle where the features are non-negotiable?
When you say they're figuring out the value, it makes me think they might be testing pricing with each new customer, which puts the first few buyers at a disadvantage.
Still learning.