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Enterprise CMS TCO Calculator: Stay or Switch

Compare the five-year cost of staying on your proprietary CMS with switching to open-source Drupal, using your own contract and quote figures. The calculator prices every line for both options, including the lines that favor staying, and shows how much of each side one vendor prices.

Built for digital transformation leads in enterprises, government, universities, and nonprofits taking a platform decision to their CFO.

How It Works

  1. Enter your figures. Start with your sector, your current annual license, and your implementation quote. Every other field refines the model, and every default is marked as an assumption.
  2. Read the results. See each option's five-year total, the difference, the break-even year, and the share priced by a single vendor. Turn on present value to discount future costs at your own rate.
  3. Take it to finance. Download a PDF summary or a CSV of the year-by-year table, or copy a link that holds your inputs.
See What’s Inside

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What the Model Covers

  • Staying: your license and renewal increases, any contract cap, usage overage, hosting, support, staff time, vendor add-ons, and any forced upgrade.
  • Switching: implementation, content migration, training, exit fees from your current vendor, months running both platforms, hosting, support, staff time, add-on licenses, and major Drupal upgrades.
  • Optional: a cost to leave each platform in year 5.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Does the calculator include vendor prices? No. You enter every price. Defaults cover only timing and rates, such as a 5% renewal increase, and each is labeled as an assumption.
  • Why five years? Over shorter windows, one-time switching costs dominate. Longer windows become speculation. Five years covers several renewals and Drupal's major-version cadence.
  • Is the result financial advice? No. Results are estimates for planning, not financial, accounting, or legal advice. Check every figure with your finance team.
  • Can I share my model? Yes. Copy share link stores your inputs in the link itself, so anyone with the link sees your model.

Want a Second Reviewer Before the CFO Meeting?

Vardot's five-year cost review goes through your model line by line, including the lines that favor staying.

Book a five-year cost review

Read the guide: The True Cost of Proprietary CMS

Vardot builds on open-source Drupal, so read these results knowing which side we work on.