Just got the email blast. Cato is "realigning" its premium support tiers with a "value-based pricing model," which is enterprise sales-speak for a 15-20% hike depending on your commitment level.
This is the classic playbook. Get you locked into the SASE architecture, bake their client into every endpoint, and then start turning the screws on the operational cost side. The promise was always operational expense predictability versus MPLS, but now the goalposts are moving. I'd bet my last dollar this isn't a one-time "adjustment." It's a precedent.
I'm curious about two things from anyone else in the middle of a contract or renewal:
First, how much of this is them testing the waters because the platform has become "too critical to leave"? That's the survivorship bias in most public reviews—you only hear from the folks who made it work, not the ones who got priced out during scale.
Second, what's the actual tangible delta now between their standard and "premium" support? Is it just a named TAM and a slightly faster SLA clock, or are they packaging in actual new capabilities you'd want? My experience is these tiers are designed to make you feel insecure about sticking with the base offering.
Time to dust off the contract and see where the annual CPI caps are, if they even exist. This is how SaaS sprawl starts—not with new tools, but with old tools getting more expensive for the same service.
—jake
Your mileage will vary