A EX LISTED Company Secretary writes...
For those of you who use the Board and Committee software Diligent would any of you be prepared to let me know what you currently pay for it? They have again increased the annual fees by 5% and whilst we are happy with the software (and don’t want to move away from it) I would like to try and negotiate a better deal than what we get at the moment. Our proposed new fees are as follows;-
| Description | Quantity | Rate | Amount |
| Committees | 16 | 77.18 | 1,234.88 |
| Boards Subscription | 1 | 3,307.50 | 3,307.50 |
| Offline User | 34 | 661.50 | 22,491.00 |
| Online User | 31 | 220.50 | 6,835.50 |
| Online Administrator | 11 | 882.00 | 9,702.00 |
| Sub Total | 43,570.88 | ||
| Total + VAT | 52,285.06 |
As a Government owned subsidiary we are meant to get value for money and I’m not sure we are. It used mainly for the Board and its subsidiary committees and it’s a good bit of software, just expensive! As you can see from the above we don’t have many users, with most users having online and offline capabilities. Administrators are used sparingly and are the people who put the meeting packs together. The fees are annual so we could get a better rate if we chose a longer term arrangement, but an annual fee suits us at the moment.
I’d be grateful for any feedback or if you wish to contact me privately then please do so via David Mensley.
I was a staunch supporter of BoardPad (loved it) and unhappy when Diligent tried to force us to change to their platform. They matched the fees but sent us unacceptable T&Cs of a completely ridiculous length. They were arrogant. We asked Board Intelligence to demo their system for us and quote. They came in 20% cheaper, very similar package capability (we really use it as a board portal and little else), more transparency in fees, no set up costs when putting new users on and they have reasonable T&Cs (it is a piece of software with security that you have to rely on … the provider cannot disclaim all liability for everything). BI’s helpline has been much more helpful than Diligent’s (which pass you through the US before you can get to someone who knows the package in the UK). Sorry – bit of a rant – but I really objected to their way of doing business. Given comments on annual increases of 5% when inflation is more like half of this, I am very pleased to have moved.
We were one of those companies that was with BoardPad, who got acquired by the monopolistic Diligent, so we had no choice but to move to Diligent (in the short term, we can of course review in due course). One reason about my being relaxed about Diligent charges is that the deal with them when we moved from BP was that the charges wouldn’t change for a year or so. This means the annual renewal, coming up shortly will be £9235 which is no change from last year. This is for the 9 users that we have licences for, plus a couple of administrators. I asked diligent for a quote to add users and the answer was £750 per year, plus a one off £150 to on board them.
Given the comments made by others, I think I’ll run with Diligent for a year or so then review the whole thing, and in particular see who the challengers are then
We use Boardpad and have 14 users and 2 admin. Annual cost around £11k plus VAT. We’ve also had the 5% increase, and I propose to object.
I am also a director of an NHS Trust which has just moved to electronic board packs. Diligent were in the tender process, but in the end too expensive, so the trust has gone with Admin Control, which is a simple but effective tool, and probably much better if you dont need all the Diligent bells and whistles.
The rates you quote are similar to what we pay but we don’t have so many users. Thanks for the head’s up on the proposed increase. I will keep an eye. The issue with Diligent is that they are becoming monopolistic. Those who remain independent offer more competitive rates but directors prefer to stick with whom they know. They are a bit adverse to change.
Thank you for sharing your rates which is helpful. Diligent are currently trying to apply a 7% increase across all items which I have rejected as being completely unrealistic in the current economic climate and is not acceptable. I am getting very close to the point where, as good as the product is, the high costs are driving us to seriously consider alternatives.
The only item that is directly comparable to us is for the Committees and it looks like we paid the same rate as yourselves in the previous year. Our individual User charge is quite a bit higher than yours and we have no differentiation between online and offline users.
We moved provider from Diligent due to cost. There are highly competitive solutions out there so I would advise you test the market by way of RFP.
The fees you quote seem high.
We recently ran a process to find an effective board portal solution and we have onboarded Board Intelligence who came in cheaper than Diligent (Diligent quoted us £22k (Board and Committees only – no other readers). I understand that BI have government clients so their security needs to be top notch.