You don't talk about money - at least not in concrete terms, and never before the start of a project. This seems to be the motto for many providers of intranet solutions. It is certainly true for one particularly large one: Here is a short overview of those actual license costs.

If you talk to a SharePoint consultant today, he will not be able to tell you immediately what you will have to pay for licensing when you want to introduce SharePoint for, for example, 5,000 employees. And most certainly, he will not be able to tell you what the total cost of an introductory project will be if you want to implement the intranet with x and y specific features.

This is a complete contrast to our Confluence-based social intranet solution Linchpin: You have full transparency for the project process and all costs already in advance. Plus there are no adverse lock-ins or dependencies during the course of the project and beyond the launch.

All license costs are public and transparent

With Linchpin, all costs in the introduction project are on the table right from the beginning. The license costs for the basic Confluence system are public, fixed, and not negotiable.

The analysts at Gartner have strangely presented this as an objection in their recent article about the Magic Quadrant, because this could frighten some organizations. Isn't it much more discouraging when a developer's licensing costs are more or less random, and a customer may pay double or triple compared to a comparable product? There are such scenarios.

With Confluence, no one gets any discounts, nobody pays extra; Atlassian uses the same license price for any commercial customer - regardless of their location - for the same license sizes. This also applies to the extensions (add-ons) with which we extend Confluence to become our Linchpin intranet suite. All prices are available on the Linchpin website, in our Infothek and on the Atlassian Marketplace for the respective add-on. The user numbers in the licenses correspond to those of the Confluence licenses.

As soon as you know which Linchpin add-ons you actually need to meet your intranet requirements, you can calculate the costs for both the initial licensing and the subsequent annual support extensions - which are optional but recommended - in just three minutes on a napkin. You will not be surprised by the costs - you have full planning certainty.

Fixed price for the entire project

And what about the services that come with the project - from conception through to administrator and user training? Within the  introductory project we offer a full service package. All service costs are included at a guaranteed fixed price together with the license costs. This includes the travel expenses of our consultants and any other sundry expenses.

These prices of our services are public too, and you can quickly see which services are needed for the project. We can offer this in this package, because the mature Linchpin technology is highly standardized and can be tailored to meet your needs without significant technical uncertainties. Despite a significantly lower budget, you will not sacrifice quality.

We've detailed an introductory Linchpin project in our knowledge base - from concept to launch - each step and service is explained. Through our process and cost model, we offer customers the greatest possible security up to the intranet launch.

(We do not have any influence on the solutions, costs or billing models that are offered by our Linchpin partners. Read more about our partners below).

No binding commitment to specific software building blocks

Linchpin is modular. This means that you can add and remove functions without having to modify the base system, which would result in considerable costs and require a heavy workload. Of course, Confluence is the basis. If you do not want that, you will have to look for another intranet system. But with this solution, you have the maximum flexibility. You can override or replace individual components of the Linchpin intranet where necessary.

Since the license renewal cycles for the various components from which Linchpin is built are only one year, you are "bound" to this licensing technology for short and limited time periods. (This does not mean that you can not exchange or remove a component in the middle of your support period - you will have only paid for the additional unused support period.)

Chose an external third-party microblogging solution? Then leave out the license for the corresponding Linchpin add-on and uninstall it if you want. Is your company undergoing a significant organizational change, and you now no longer need content release management workflows? Then remove the relevant extension. (This would eliminate some central Linchpin features, but hey, it's your intranet - You should not pay for things your users do not need!)

Perhaps you have found an add-on in the Atlassian Marketplace that addresses your requirements better than one of the Linchpin components? Switch to this alternative! You are also free to develop an alternative and replace a Linchpin add-on with this. With Confluence and Linchpin, you will enjoy great freedom from the start, and continue to have freedom in the future functional composition of your intranet.

Independence from us as a provider

Of course, we would be happy to take you intranet project from A to Z. But you don't have to be dependent on //SEIBERT/MEDIA. It may happen that our employees are at capacity and not yet available, but you want to get started immediately. Or you may prefer to work with an Atlassian partner that you already know from the Atlassian environment. Your head office might be located in another country and a German service provider would not be ideal for such an important company-wide project.

We have experienced Linchpin partners throughout the German-speaking countries (DACH), who officially support the product suite. In addition, you will now find partners in France, the UK and Spain as well as in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. (Here is an overview of all of our partners.) Each of our Linchpin partners has the experience and expertise to carry out a professional introductory project with you and, if necessary, continue to support you beyond the launch.

Since Linchpin is a thoroughly standardized product, the dependency on //SEIBERT/MEDIA as a developer is very low, which opens up many project possibilities: You can implement an introductory project with us, and for later project components or adaptations, go with another partner. Perhaps you would like to design Linchpin and license with us, but for workshops, trainings and support you would rather have a local service provider in your area - not a problem! You are free to run your intranet project completely with other partners without having anything to do with us.

With any Linchpin implementation, you do not have to rely on any one service provider for a lengthy period. You aren't in a dependent relationship (lock-in effect), which would require you to rely on one specific service provider if you change something within your system, repair a bug, or develop extensions.

You can even set up Linchpin completely on your own, without a partner - including customizing it to fit your corporate design. For this, of course, it is better to have someone with a deep understanding of Confluence in your own company, but it really isn't quantum mechanics.

Cost transparency and independence

With Linchpin, we offer you both cost transparency and independence, right from the start. You don't need to endlessly negotiate, you will not experience nasty surprises, and you will always retain the authority over the project decisions. These are appropriate prerequisites for a fair, professional and partnership-based collaboration, where the focus is on what is important: a successful, useful social intranet for your employees.

Further information

Linchpin: Social intranet with Confluence
The Intranet portal in our knowledge base
Intranet Compass: Comparing solutions