How much does a PIM implementation cost? Eight factors

What this episode covers

The third episode of PIM Academy takes on the most frequent question and does not dodge the numbers. Karolina walks through eight factors that drive the cost of an implementation, each with its budget consequence, and closes with figures drawn from the team’s experience.

Key takeaways

• A basic implementation without integrations runs from PLN 50,000 to 150,000. A large organisation with migration, several integrations and training starts at PLN 300,000.
• A PIM licence costs from a few to several tens of thousands of zloty a year. An open source edition trades the licence for server cost.
• Integrations are the most expensive part, and what drives the price is not their number but how many transformations the data needs.
• Involving your own team lowers the cost. The partner knows the system; only your team knows your products and your industry.
• Doing it alone can cost more than working with a partner: an audit years later often concludes that the data needs restructuring from scratch.

Portfolio complexity

The rule is simple: the larger and more varied the portfolio, the more complex the data structure, so the higher the cost and the longer the timeline.

Take a company with a rich assortment where every product has several variants and dozens of attributes, plus documentation, manuals, images, icons and video. For the customer that product page is a real advantage, because it supports comparison and filtering. For the implementation it means a longer analysis phase to settle the data structure, the workflows and the scope of integrations.

The other half of that relationship matters too: large organisations feel the benefit of clean data most, so despite the higher spend they see results sooner.

Integrations

This is the biggest cost driver. A PIM system on its own gives you an excellent internal knowledge base, but the value for customers appears when data leaves it.

You integrate with e-commerce and websites, it is worth considering an ERP system as the source of some attributes, and marketplace publishing tools as well as catalogue tools such as Adobe InDesign often join in.

Cost depends on the method: API exchange, a data bus, or flat files. But the strongest driver is something else: the number of transformations. If data from an ERP has to be reshaped to fit the format in the PIM system, the integration becomes advanced and more expensive. Done well it pays back through shorter time to market and the removal of manual data entry, and therefore of errors.

Scope of functionality and the licence

Several systems are available, among them Akeneo and Pimcore. Each will store and structure data, so all of them cover the basic role. The differences start in the details, and some features only appear once you buy a licence.

Hence the question to settle early: does the free open source edition meet your requirements, or is it worth investing in a licence and the full potential of the tool. Open source means server cost and possibly partner support. A licence costs from a few to several tens of thousands of zloty per year.

Data migration

After modelling, the system stands empty. You have to import data for products currently on sale, and often archival ones too.

The cost here depends on the starting point. Data scattered across the organisation has to be gathered in one place and arranged into an import file that meets the system’s requirements, following a specific template. Every element needs preparing, which stretches the process and, with a large catalogue, turns it into a project of its own.

Training and team involvement

Training is not a formality. It is the moment the system is handed to the people who will use it, and it involves persuading them to abandon familiar spreadsheets and work in the new tool. It is worth repeating for new hires.

Team involvement works the opposite way to intuition: the more of it, the lower the project cost. The partner brings knowledge of the system and best practice, but does not know your products, your industry or the details only your people know. Their part in organising and importing data shortens the project, and a shorter project is cheaper.

Maintenance after go-live

After launch new tasks appear: keeping the system healthy, watching the integrations, handling errors, supporting changes, extending the model with new attributes, families and rules.

A PIM system starts living in the organisation: users ask questions, new employees need training, unforeseen situations come up. That is why a maintenance phase with ongoing contact with the partner who knows this particular implementation is recommended.

Alone or with a partner

The last factor is the hardest to price up front. Doing it yourself carries the risk of mistakes in the data template and in the logic of how data is organised, and those are hard to fix later: they reduce the system’s effectiveness, discourage users and complicate integrations.

We know companies that managed on their own and found, after a few years of growth, that the system no longer served them. The audit concluded that the data needed restructuring from scratch. The apparent saving at the start turns into a double cost.

What it costs

The answer is individual, but the ranges from the team’s experience look like this:

• basic implementation without integrations: PLN 50,000 to 150,000
• large organisation, with data import, integrations with several systems and training: from PLN 300,000 upwards

Before asking for a quote, it is worth answering five questions: how large is the portfolio, which data do you want to hold in the system, how many systems need integrating, what are the functional requirements, and do you have a team to support organising the data.

For an estimate matched to your situation, get in touch. Our offer is described on the PIM systems page.