When planning out a data migration, you might think the biggest obstacle will be figuring out how to make your existing data work in a new platform with different restrictions and requirements. And when you’re not sing a data migration tool like Movebot, that’s a common issue.
But another one is juggling required licenses.
The tool might have the ability to do the job, but finding out which license you actually need can add needless complications to your migration. Get licenses that don’t cover everything and you can’t complete the job, get ones that cover extra and you’re paying for services you don’t need.
Movebot doesn’t have tiers of licenses to sort through for your migration. Instead, you simply get full access to the tool and only pay for what you move with simple per GB pricing. Simple, easy, and predictable. But what about migrations with a more complicated pricing structure?
One common way that data migration tools sell usage is through licenses. Typically, the license will be for a single feature, like 1 user migration from Google Workspace to Office 365. Seems simple enough, right? The problem is when what you need is a bit nebulous. Do you need to move personal drives along with mailboxes? That might take a different license. Or a separate one for the mailbox and the files. And what about data caps? Having a 50GB limit but a 51GB mailbox means two licenses.
As you can see, finding out which licenses you need and how many can get complicated fast, and we'll show you some common issues you might run up against with this model.
While it might seem straightforward at first glance, deciding which licenses you’ll need isn’t always simple. Some data migration tools that use the licensing model add new licenses as they add new features and integrations, which can make it challenging to know which ones are appropriate for your use.
For instance, there might be a license that covers moving a user’s mailbox. When you’re doing a mail migration, that might be just what you need. But not so fast. Another, more expensive license (Say 50% more for simplicity) covers both mailboxes and each user’s personal drives, up to 10GB (to keep things simple, we'll imagine each user's drive is 10GB or under, although many are often larger). Some users definitely need their personal drives migrated, others might be practically empty or were never used at all. Is it worth paying 50% more for all users just to make sure? Is it worth paying 50% more to cover completely empty user drives?
Maybe you’re thinking you can start with the lower licenses and upgrade or change out the license if you find out you have the wrong one. Unfortunately, a lot of companies that use this pricing model don’t let you swap out or get refunds for licenses, even if they are unused. There are several instances of customers getting refused a refund after unknowingly purchasing the wrong type of license, without being given the option to put that cost towards the correct license when their migration fails to run. This means the user is stuck with a license that won’t apply to their migration and they’ll need to purchase additional ones if they want to continue the project.
Figuring out licensing isn’t only about costs, but as mentioned above, doing it wrong can limit performance or stop migrations from running completely. However, even when you can figure out what kind of license you need, knowing how many you need might be a different story.
For example, suppose you want to move 10 users, their individual drives, and 2 shared drives. You might need 10 user licenses and 10 licenses for the individual drives. Simple enough so far. But what about the shared drives? What if they’re different sizes? Suppose one shared drive is 10GB and the other is 230 GB. If the Shared Drives licenses are per 10GB, then instead of two licenses–one for each drive–you’d actually need 24 licenses. That brings your grand total up to 10+10+24, or 44 licenses.
The issues with tiered license models are compounded if the organization uses shared drives as a common way to organize files, especially since platforms like Google allow for thousands of Shared Drives. If an organization used a new drive for each project and had a thousand projects, having a total storage use of 5TB, how much would it cost? Supposing each shared drive requires one license, that’s 1000 shared drive licenses at minimum with this model, even if some only had a few MB worth of data. At $10 per license, that would be a minimum of $10k, making it $2000/TB for the migration.
The same kind of license math applies if you exceed the license limit. Go beyond the limitations and a “good” system will charge you for the overage automatically (often double as a completely separate license). The bad ones? The operation simply won’t work until you figure out what the problem is: not having enough required licenses.
You might be thinking that it’s not a big deal, because surely the company will let you know how many of each license you need, right? Right? Not necessarily.
Sometimes in this model, you’re meant to figure out how much of each license you need ahead of time, then request a quote for that number of licenses (which is likely not disclosed so the price can change on the fly). Hopefully, that number is right, or else you’ll have to purchase more down the line, and possibly not at the original rate.
If that sounds annoying, there’s still more to come: calculating compute costs.
Not all data migrations follow Movebot’s all-in-one SaaS approach.
Some require you to download and run the software yourself, using something like Google Cloud Compute Engine to power the migration tool. If you aren’t familiar with setting up VMs and calculating compute, this can feel a lot like the license math above with a lot of variables to sort through in order to get the right amount.
Of course, this is an additional cost on top of the licenses you’re already paying for, and it’s not uncommon for all these little costs to quickly spiral out of control. These small things not only make the migration more expensive, but more complicated at the same time.
Depending on the vendor, using the product may or may not entitle you to Support. At a minimum, you’ll be able to browse the publically available knowledge base and documentation. But what about if you have an emergency or need to fit a tight timeframe?
If your licenses don’t cover Support, you might be out of luck. You’ll likely still be able to email for Support, but with no guarantee of response (or a timely but unhelpful response like “we’ve received your request and are looking into it” to meet SLAs), it’s risky to rely on shaky Support in an emergency.
A higher tier of Support may be available in some cases, but may be reserved for Enterprise customers. Sometimes it can be purchased as an additional add-on but it may not be possible mid-project or come with an even higher cost.
Movebot aims to be the easiest data migration tool on the market, from the tool itself to the way we handle pricing. And, there’s no license juggling required. In fact, you can drive migrations without a license at all.
Movebot has a single option for pricing: you only pay for what you use. Pricing starts at $0.75 per GB, and the more you move the more you save.
It doesn’t matter what kind of data you’re moving–files, emails, contacts, or calendars–it’s the same. There are no per-user costs or other fees. Data migrations are simple and straightforward with Movebot.
This extends to the infrastructure as well. Movebot is a true SaaS data migration tool, meaning you don’t have to set up and configure virtual machines, download software, none of that. Movebot handles all of that for you with no data stored at any point. The per GB price is what you pay, which includes all security features and access to our top-tier support team.
When it comes to licenses and email migrations, the typical model is to charge per user up to a certain data cap. Above that means purchasing an additional license.
At Movebot, we flipped that model by giving each user’s mailbox a maximum cost. While there is still a minimum cost–1GB, which is a maximum of 75 cents–there’s also a cost cap so you don’t pay too much for a single user. With other data migration tools, you’d buy a license per user, and if that user had a large mailbox, you might have to buy multiple licenses in order to migrate their data.
We took the opposite approach instead. After 10GB, the rest of the data belonging to that user is free to move, which means you’ll never pay more than $7.50 for a single user regardless of how much data they have in their mailbox.
We know how crucial it is to be able to get help in an emergency, which is why our Support team is an in-house team of product experts who provide personalized help and support. If you run into an issue you can contact our team in multiple ways: by email support@movebot.io, online product chat, Movebot Discord, or setting up a call. We’re here to help whether you have a general inquiry or have an emergency with a tight deadline.
We’re confident that Movebot is the fastest and easiest data migration tool out there. And it’s easy to find out for yourself. Every new sign-up gets 50GB of free data to move. You don’t need to add a credit card or go through an onboarding session either; simply sign up and go and try using Movebot’s intuitive web interface and see how easy it is to drive migrations without a license. Register for an account now to get started.