Is anyone actually happy with the FortiCare support renewal pricing?

Welcome to the often unpleasant world of Fortinet renewals. Your experience is unfortunately standard. They've been systematically increasing renewal pricing, particularly on mid-range hardware like the 100F, well beyond any published list price adjustments.

The tactic relies on customer inertia. Your primary leverage is time and the threat of non-renewal. Start the conversation with your account manager or partner at least 90 days before expiration. Explicitly state the price is unacceptable and request a revised quote based on the current list price, not an arbitrary uplift from your previous contract. Be prepared to provide a competitive quote from another vendor for comparable UTM services, even if you don't intend to switch; it changes the dynamic from a simple renewal to a competitive retention scenario.

Don't accept the first "this is the best we can do" response. Escalate through the partner's management and, if needed, to your Fortinet district manager. The discounts exist, but you have to actively push for them. Have you benchmarked this quote against the initial support cost when you purchased the hardware? The percentage increase year-over-year is often the most compelling argument.

Oh wow, that's really good to know. I'm in a similar boat, just starting to handle our vendor renewals and I had no idea this was such a common tactic. Thanks for asking this.

So is the negotiation window really that tight, like 90 days out? Or can you start pushing back even earlier if you get the quote? Asking because our renewal is in about six months and I'm wondering if I should be getting ready now.

Yes, it's become quite normal. The initial support contract is often priced aggressively, but the renewal frequently sees a major step-up in cost. This isn't a slight adjustment for inflation, it's a strategic pricing model.

Based on my own benchmarking with several vendors, Fortinet's renewal increase on mid-range units can be 20-35% above the previous year's contract, which far outpaces list price changes. Your leverage comes from starting the negotiation process very early and being willing to explore alternatives, even internally, to justify a price rollback to something closer to current list. The hardware is solid, but you're correct to question the support cost's value.

The 20-35% figure you've benchmarked aligns with what I've seen in our own cost tracking. The strategic nature of this is clear when you compare it to other recurring cloud costs, where increases are typically tied to published rates.

One caveat: the "price rollback to something closer to current list" strategy has become more difficult recently. Our last negotiation saw them claim the renewal quote *was* based on the new list price, but the list itself had been significantly increased for the support SKU alone. It forced us to evaluate the actual annual support cost against the effective hourly rate of running virtual firewall instances in the cloud, which was an enlightening, if frustrating, exercise.

That internal alternative analysis is crucial. It moves the discussion from accepting the hike to proving its opportunity cost.

Your last sentence is the only thing that matters. "Proving its opportunity cost."

That's what turned our last renewal from a finance headache into an infrastructure project. We ran the numbers for a full year: the renewal quote for our cluster of 200Fs versus the monthly nut for equivalent virtual firewalls in Azure, including reserved instances and the necessary support tier.

The spreadsheet was brutal. The renewal was more expensive than running net-new cloud firewalls. We didn't even need to present a competitor's quote. We just walked our account manager through the math, line by line, and asked him to justify why we shouldn't start migrating one site per quarter.

Suddenly, "standard pricing adjustment" wasn't on the table anymore. They found a promotional bundle that didn't exist the week before. The exercise is miserable, but it's the only language they understand now.

Absolutely, the math is your strongest negotiator. Your experience with the cloud cost comparison is becoming a standard playbook move.

We used a similar tactic, but instead of a pure cloud comparison, we calculated the "effective support cost per protected endpoint" against a newer, competing on-prem appliance's bundled support. It framed the conversation around value, not just price, which cut through a lot of the initial resistance. The moment you shift from "this is expensive" to "this is inefficient," they have to engage differently.

It's tedious work, but you're right - it's the only thing that gets real movement anymore. The phantom promotional bundle appearing at the 11th hour tells you everything.

The shift to a value-based argument using "effective support cost per endpoint" is analytically sound, but I'd add a critical operational caveat. That metric only delivers leverage if your endpoint count is stable or growing. In a scenario with static or shrinking user bases, a vendor can simply counter that the cost-per-endpoint is rising because you're consuming the same service level for a smaller footprint, which they'll frame as your efficiency problem, not theirs.

Your method forces a more substantive discussion, certainly. However, you must preempt that deflection by also benchmarking the cost per unit of throughput or per critical security function. It layers a second, indisputable efficiency metric on top of the first. Without it, you risk the negotiation stalling on debates over what constitutes a "protected endpoint."

Agreed, the per-endpoint metric has that weakness. It's why we always layer in a raw cost-per-Mbps of threat-protected throughput, using the vendor's own spec sheet numbers.

If they argue your footprint shrank, you counter that the hardware's capability, and therefore the support burden, hasn't changed. The throughput cost metric anchors the discussion to the physical asset they sold you.

That second metric is non-negotiable. It removes all subjectivity about what you're protecting.

You're spot on about the "customer inertia" being their main lever. That 90-day window is crucial, but I've found you need to be even more proactive with the escalation path.

The partner often has their hands tied by the initial quote Fortinet provides them. Asking them to "request a revised quote" is the first step, but the real movement only happens when you get the Fortinet regional sales manager directly involved. They have the discretionary pricing authority that the partner channel lacks.

One thing I'd add to your benchmark suggestion: calculate the renewal cost as a percentage of the *current* estimated hardware replacement cost, not just the original purchase price. If your support renewal is approaching 40-50% of what a new device would cost, that's a very compelling argument against the hike.

> calculate the renewal cost as a percentage of the *current* estimated hardware replacement cost

That's a solid metric. It directly addresses the "supporting depreciated gear" argument they might try. I'd just caution that their replacement cost estimate can be as fictional as the initial renewal quote. Pull the current list price for the closest equivalent model from a public distributor site for your baseline.

And yes, escalation past the partner is mandatory. The partner's margin is often baked into that inflated renewal, so they have a vested interest in you just accepting it. Getting the regional manager on a call with your alternative analysis already loaded is the only way to reset the conversation.

Good point on using a public distributor for the replacement cost baseline. That third-party anchor is critical for credibility.

Your comment about the partner's baked-in margin is often the unspoken blocker. I've seen cases where bringing the regional manager into the loop made the partner suddenly "find" a new discount tier they'd previously said didn't apply.

It shifts the dynamic from you versus the partner, to you and Fortinet management discussing a shared problem.

You're absolutely right about the "efficiency problem" deflection. I've seen that exact counter before.

Layering in the cost-per-Mbps metric, like others mentioned, is perfect. Another angle I've used is calculating support cost per critical security subscription, like web filtering or advanced threat protection. It anchors the value to the features we're actually renewing, not just the hardware they sit on.

Getting those two extra data points prepped before the call makes that "your problem" argument fall apart pretty quickly.

That's a clever pivot, but you're still measuring the wrong thing. Anchoring to "the features we're actually renewing" is exactly what they want. You've accepted their pricing model's premise.

The real question is what it costs to get an equivalent security outcome, not an equivalent subscription list. Your web filtering renewal isn't competing with last year's Fortinet price, it's competing with a DNS filtering service, or a different firewall's bundled license, or even a change in architecture that makes the function obsolete. If you only benchmark within their own product suite, you'll always lose. The math has to be agnostic.