Cheap Maintenance Management Software | Compare Costs and Options
Maintenance management software is specialized software utilized by companies that have larger facilities, fleets, or other assets that need regular inspections and maintenance. The size of the company and its pool of assets that need to be managed will be the most important determining factor in considering the pricing you can expect to face when purchasing maintenance management software.
For a small company, there are solutions that are as affordable as $1000 or less. However, companies with more than one location or international operations can easily need to invest six figures into maintenance management systems. Contemporary SaaS options are available on monthly subscriptions costing around $150 per user per month and yield benefits like:
- Keep Assets Functioning
- Manages People and Processes
- Manages Expenses
- Tracks Incidents
- Extends Asset Life
- Boost Worker Productivity
Support and upgrades can also cause the price of your maintenance management software to go up, and this is an important issue to always look into beforehand. When looking for the low-priced option, consider the price of the software over the course of your ownership, not simply by comparing the initial price tags of two different products. The user licensing fees, upgrades, support contracts, and other, similar add-ons need to be considered when trying to decide which software offers you the best bargain.
What is Maintenance Management Software?
Maintenance management software is, at its core, the most efficient way to ensure that the valuable assets such as buildings, vehicles, or hardware that your company has invested in don’t depreciate or become damaged due to neglected maintenance.
For instance, if vehicles in a fleet aren’t receiving oil changes, tune-ups, or tire rotations when they are supposed to, that neglect could lead to:
- Voided Warranties
- More extensive and expensive vehicular damage
- Accidents
- Loss of cargo due to an accident
- Human injury or death
Of course, affordable maintenance management software is available that covers a much wider range of assets than just vehicles. Some software is specialized to meet the needs of facilities management within certain industries, while other options provide some flexibility so they can be adapted to fit the particulars of a given situation. Other types of assets that might benefit from proper maintenance management include:
- Buildings
- Heating and cooling systems
- Refrigeration units
- Computer hardware
- Computer software
- Tools
- Industrial construction equipment
These possibilities are still only scratching the surface of what you might use your maintenance management software to track, and yet in each case, proper application of the software can extend the life of your asset while also preventing liability and loss throughout its lifespan.
The software provides other benefits as well. It provides a comprehensive means of tracking the maintenance and upkeep costs of your assets, which can be useful for deciding when or if to upgrade or sell various pieces of equipment. It can also be important for meeting regulatory and certification requirements. Finally, insurers may require certain maintenance thresholds to be met, and this type of software gives you the reporting features needed to prove that your company is taking proper care of its assets.
What to Look for in Low-Cost Maintenance Management Software?
The first decision to make when shopping for inexpensive maintenance management software is whether you’re prepared to host the software internally, or if you would prefer a Software as a Service (SaaS) 
solution. Today, the vast majority of purchasers are opting for SaaS options, where the company you purchase the software from hosts and manages the software. The SaaS model means that you don’t need costly server infrastructure to host the program, that you will receive dedicated support, and that the program up-time is nearly perfect. Another upside is that cloud-based solutions like this get updated automatically without requiring a time or cost investment from your side.
Another reason to consider the SaaS model strongly is that it is usually a bargain compared to the much pricier options that you could host in-house. The flip side to this though is that you will be paying a licensing fee regularly for as long as you use the software. So, theoretically, an in-house solution could be more inexpensive if measuring the cost over the course of several years.
When shopping for the best-discounted maintenance management software, demos are going to be your greatest ally. Most providers of this type of software will have an option where you can either try a free demo on your own, or they can have a sales rep put together a custom demo for you based on your business. This will help you evaluate key factors that should influence your decision including:
- How easy is the software to use?
- How straight forward is the interface?
- How well does it run on your system?
- Are there practical internal help functions within the program?
- Does it include the features you need?
Bargain Maintenance Management Software Companies with Discounted Prices?
Emaint: eMaint is an economical, highly modifiable piece of maintenance management software that is available at inexpensive rates. The interface uses very familiar drag and drop and search mechanisms that should be easy to learn for people unfamiliar with this type of software. There is also an accompanying mobile app that makes the solution extremely simple to use wherever you might be located during the workday. The most basic packages start at $33 per user per month.
Fiix: Fiix is a low-priced solution that offers potential users a free tour of the software to see if it will be a good fit for their organization. Also cloud-based, Fiix is a highly scalable solution that is suitable for clients of all sizes, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.
These providers are just two examples of the types of SaaS solutions that are available for maintenance management software. If you require in-house hosted maintenance software, you will need to work with a specialty vendor to find a solution that will work well with your current technology infrastructure.