Procurement question: What should I nail down in the contract to avoid surprise costs?

annie82 · 2026-08-24T06:11:01Z

Hi everyone, I’m finally at the contract stage for Anomali after a lengthy trial with my team. 🎉 We’re a small operations group and this is our first "big" security tool procurement, so I’m trying to be super careful. I’ve read the horror stories about SaaS bills ballooning after the first year, or fees for things you assumed were included. With Anomali, I’m particularly unsure about what scales and what doesn't. My main worries are around data ingestion and user seats. Could you help me understand what specific cost drivers I should lock down in writing? For example: - Is there a hard cap on data volume per month, and what happens if we exceed it? - Are threat intelligence feeds priced separately, or are there tiers? - What about support costs? Are they fixed for the contract term? Basically, I want to walk into negotiations knowing which knobs they can turn later to increase the price. Any lessons from your own contracts would be so appreciated. Feeling a bit out of my depth here! ✌️ annie

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eval_rookie_42

(@eval_rookie_42)

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24/08/2026 6:33 pm

Great advice here already. I'm looking at my own first procurement soon, and the API quota and retention points really stood out.

A quick follow-up on data retention - is that typically billed separately per month, or is it an annual add-on? I'd hate to lock in a monthly ingestion cap but miss a yearly retention fee buried in the terms.

Also, for the user seats, how do you usually define "service account" in the contract to make sure it's excluded? Is a simple clause about non-human access enough, or do you need examples?

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