What Are Questions To Ask Before Negotiating or Signing a SaaS Contract Agreement with a Vendor. It’s better to know upfront what’s negotiable or not with a Software as Service Cloud Vendor. Typically, SaaS providers accept little to no liability in an agreement with customers.
Contract negotiation is an opportunity to engage with your cloud or SaaS vendor and provider in a comprehensive dialogue about the terms and language contained in the Agreement, the level of service, and support you expect for your company. Terms in the contract that you believe would be fair and beneficial to all parties might not be seen that way by a SaaS provider. The key here to get the best deal is to do some due diligence on your target SaaS Vendor to see if you can gain a competitive advantage in contract negotiations.
What are some contracts terms which are critical to negotiate? Here are just a few. If the level of service or software is not working out for your company you should be able to terminate the contract. Before signing, read the fine print and make sure that if you terminate with let’s say seven months to go that the SaaS Provider is not going to require your company to pay for each month left remaining in the Agreement.
No matter how hot a SaaS application is if it’s a pain to integrate or most of the vendor’s clients require major customization work to make the application really effective the net effect is that a potential new customer if it is aware of these issues might have leverage in terms of getting the SaaS Vendor to pay for the integration and customization work. One advantage smaller companies have is that they don’t have the IT resources or dollars to devote to integration and customization and if the SaaS Vendor is motivated to make the sale it will probably eat these costs.
Competition will bring down the cost of the Application. Let’s say you are using a certain SaaS Application and your vendor is starting to bug your company to renew the contract and a competitor has cropped up that you have been hearing good things about. Chances are your vendor has known about the competitor way before you found out. You now have some serious leverage with your SaaS Provider and you can probably name your price or contract terms.
What is a Service Level Agreement or better known as an SLA? This is a guarantee from the SaaS provider that the services will be up and running for a minimum amount of time say 99.9% of the time. Some SaaS providers do not give a copy of their SLA’s to customers but rather maintain them internally. As a customer, you should insist on getting a copy of your SaaS provider’s Service Level Agreement.
This article has been written and provided solely for information purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. If you would like to discuss any of the issues contained in the article, please call SaaS Lawyer Andrew S. Bosin for a free legal consultation at 201-446-9643.
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Andrew S. Bosin is located in New Jersey just outside of New York City and has a nationwide SaaS Software Licensing Law Firm serving clients in New Jersey, New York, Buffalo, Queens, Manhattan, New York City, Westchester County, Islip, Oyster Bay, Rochester, Utica, New Rochelle, Tonawanda, White Plains, Binghamton, Saratoga Springs, Rockland County, Brooklyn, Long Island, Albany, Syracuse, Suffolk County, Nassau County, Bronx, Staten Island, Allentown, Scranton, Lancaster, Harrisburg, State College, College Station, Boston, Hartford, Providence, Connecticut, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas, Florida, Ohio, California, Austin, Texas, Maryland, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, San Antonio, Austin, San Diego, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Houston, Salt Lake City, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Provo, Portland, San Jose, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Broward County, Dade County, Newark, Delaware, College Park, MD, Cook County, Phoenix, Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins, Nashville, Memphis, Kansas City, Raleigh, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Boise, Eugene, Manchester, Burlington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, Boca Raton, Arlington, Virginia, Alexandria, Virginia, Reston, McLean, Cambridge, Quincy, Riverside, San Bernadino, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland, Columbus, Baltimore, Sacramento, Cincinnati, Orlando, Las Vegas, Round Rock, San Marcos, Louisville, Richmond, Tempe, Southbend, Bloomington, Knoxville, Oxford, Tuscon, Long Beach, Ames, Ft. Collins, Lawrence, Blacksburg, Charlottesville, Champaign, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, Salt Lake City, Baltimore, Mobile, Alabama, Utah, Washington, Seattle, Oregon, Portland, Eugene, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Wake County, King County, Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue, San Mateo County, Contra Costa County, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Mecklenburg County, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Boynton Beach, Orange County, Palo Alto, Harris County, Waco, Columbia, Missouri, Tarrant County, Bucks County, Lehigh County, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Burlington, Portland, Maine, Manchester, Concord, Nashua, Cambridge, London, Paris, UK, England, Dublin, Scotland, Edinborough, Amsterdam, Germany, Munich, Berlin, Madrid, EU, European Union, Spain, Austria, Vienna, Geneva.