Why Free ERP Cost Calculators Are Dangerously Misleading

A slick free ERP cost calculator showed up in my feed this week.

Three minutes. No email. Promises to tell you what your broken software is really costing you.

So I ran it. Here’s the magic trick.

No matter what you put in, the math walks you to the same door: build something custom. Anchors it around $150–250K like it’s a bargain next to the big off-the-shelf names.

Funny what it leaves out. Every mid-market platform that’d actually fit a $20M shop.

The tool isn’t dumb. Just the opposite — it’s a sales funnel wearing a lab coat. It’s free because you’re not the customer. You’re the lead.

And the thing it’s quietly selling is the riskiest option on the board.

Custom ERP runs great. Right up until the shop that built it folds, or you outgrow them, or the one developer who understood the thing takes another job. Now you own software nobody can support — the exact legacy risk these outfits love to warn you about. Except this time you paid to build it yourself.

I’ve seen this movie. I know how it ends. Usually with a six-figure write-down and a slow crawl back to duct tape and prayer.

Here’s what a checkbox can’t do: the real assessment isn’t the form. It’s the conversation. The question that makes you go well, that’s just how we’ve always done it — that’s the one costing you fifty grand a year. A calculator can’t hear that. Somebody who’s stood on your floor can.

If a tool is free, ask what it’s actually selling.

If an assessment costs money, ask whether that’s because someone’s finally sitting on your side of the table.