Studio Manager Prices

What it Costs to Buy Studio Manager 9

Studio Manager 9 requires FileMaker Pro 9

Low Risk Startup Option

Many of our prospective customers ask to buy a single seat of Studio Manager so they can try it out and customize it a bit to suit their needs. They then want to be able to apply the $895 they paid to a larger number of seats when they've decided to move forward. To help with this, we give you a 90-day period when you can add seats and apply your full initial purchase price to the package you decide on. You may ultimately decide, for example, to buy the 10-user license for $2495. As long as you make that purchase within 90 days, your additional cost will be $1600 ($2495 less your initial $895 purchase price).

Our customers often roll out Studio Manager in phases, starting with a single knowledgeable and committed user cracking open the user manual and getting things started. Buying a single-user copy of Studio Manager and a single copy of FileMaker Pro can be a great starting point. You get the full functionality of the product at a very reasonable price. You don't need a dedicated server. You only need a single copy of FileMaker Pro. Of course, all this is up to you. We just want to provide this low risk option to those who like the gradual approach.

You Need FileMaker Pro 9.0

The list price for a single seat of FileMaker Pro 9 is $295. The product is discounted and sold cheaper when purchased in larger quantities. You'll need to check out the FileMaker website to get a break down of their latest deals.

We recommend FileMaker Server as a wonderful investment in your infrastructure. It offers automated backup and excellent database management features. You'll have to have FileMaker Server if you need to serve 10 or more users. The list price for FileMaker Server is $995. If your server machine is not on OS X Leopard, you may be able to get by with FileMaker Server 8.

What do you charge for support and training?

By popular demand, we do not bundle support services into the price of Studio Manager and we don't have a monthly or annual maintenance fee. We've been consulting with creative services firms for 20 years and have seen way too many differences from one firm to another. We provide customization, training and support on request. Our rates range from $80/ hour for basic questions that can be answered by our admin staff to $150/hour for the full-strength kinds of questions that Janet, Studio Manager's architect, needs to answer.

We provide one hour of free support to answer any quick questions you have as you are getting started. Janet provides the bulk of our tech support in chunks of 10 minutes for $25 each. By judiciously using those 10 minute increments, our customers keep their support costs to a minimum.

We find that the more value a customer gets from Studio Manager, the more they choose to spend on customization. Nevertheless, the average Studio Manager customer spends less than $1,000 with us on support, training and customization. We've spent a great deal of care designing the product and writing our user manual so that your support requirements will be minimized.