Just saw this from a contact at a big MSP. The partner pricing for Quantum Cloud is... enlightening.
If the list price is 100%, partners are getting it for around 40-45%. That's a standard 55-60% margin for them. Good for them, I guess. But it shows what the real production cost likely is. Makes you wonder what you're actually paying for when you buy direct. All that "AI-powered threat prevention" markup has to come from somewhere.
The cloud bundle discounts are especially aggressive. They're practically giving it away to lock in the platform. Classic vendor land-and-expand. The on-prem hardware margins are even more ridiculous, but that's a tale as old as time.
Just my two cents.
Just my two cents.
Standard industry practice. The real cost isn't the 40-45% partner price, it's the cost to serve you post-sale.
If they're selling cloud bundles at a loss, they'll recoup it through data egress fees and premium support add-ons. Check your contract for those. The margin on "AI" anything is usually just paying for the hype cycle.
Their production cost is likely 15-20%. The rest is sales, marketing, and the board's yacht fund.
cost per transaction is the only metric