What a document management system costs: every published price, with sources

Short answer: A document management system costs a licence or subscription plus set-up, migration, interfaces, training, support and usage-based extras, and the licence is often not the largest item. Of the 36 vendors with a checked data sheet on 3 October 2026, only 15 showed any public price, 2 of them only through a sales partner. Per-user subscriptions published by the vendors themselves ranged from EUR 4.50 to EUR 65 per user and month, and up to USD 1,115 per user and year (October 2026). Everything else needs a quote, which you can only compare if every vendor prices the same scenario over at least three years.

Cost is one of several decisions in a DMS selection; our guide on how to choose a document management system covers the others. Searches for “DMS pricing” or “document management software pricing” mostly lead to vendor pages that say “contact sales” and to old review sites that quote prices nobody can trace. This guide does something simpler. It lists every price that the vendors in our DMS directory publish, each with its source and check date, explains what else ends up on the bill, and shows a three-year calculation you can redo with your own numbers.

All vendor facts come from our checked data sheets, which record each value with a link to the public source. Prices were checked between 1 and 3 October 2026. Prices change, and a list price is not an offer: the quote you receive is what counts. Figures are shown net of VAT where the source says so; where the source does not say, we write “not stated”.

How much does a document management system cost?

A document management system costs a licence or subscription plus services, and per-user subscriptions published by the vendors we checked ran from EUR 4.50 to EUR 65 per user and month, and up to USD 1,115 per user and year (October 2026). A perpetual licence can cost less up front: ecoDMS lists EUR 125 net per concurrent connection, one-off. Over three years, services and usage-based extras often weigh as much as the licence: in the illustrative example in this guide, the subscription is 55% of the total and services 40%.

How many DMS vendors publish prices?

Of the 36 vendors with a checked data sheet on 3 October 2026, 15 showed a public price and only 4 a full price list. We count the 36 vendors whose data sheet has the status “checked”. Each data sheet records whether prices are public (“yes”, “partly”, “no”), the pricing model and every published amount.

4publish a full price list: agorum, Box, Laserfiche, Microsoft (SharePoint in Microsoft 365)

9publish part of their prices, such as one edition, a starter package or managed services

2publish nothing themselves; an authorised sales partner shows a package price (DocuWare, Kendox)

21publish no amount at all; 8 of them describe no pricing model either

Two observations follow. First, a full list price is the exception. Three of the four vendors with a complete price list sell cloud subscriptions in fixed plans (Box, Laserfiche, Microsoft), and the fourth, agorum, publishes a tiered per-user subscription. Second, the “partly” group is mixed: ecoDMS publishes its licence price but not hosting or set-up; M-Files publishes its Essentials edition but not Enterprise; easy publishes prices for managed services but not for software licences. A “yes” or “partly” therefore never means you know the total.

The 8 vendors for which we found neither an amount nor a description of the pricing model are aconso, Esker, ELO, enaio, Hyland, IBM Content Cortex (FileNet), OpenText and windream. Their data sheets list what is public instead, and the vendor page on our site turns the open points into questions for the first sales call.

Every published price from our checked data sheets

Published amounts in our checked data sheets run from free open-source editions to subscriptions of up to USD 1,115 per user and year (Laserfiche Cloud Business), as checked between 1 and 3 October 2026. The table lists every amount recorded in the 36 checked data sheets, in alphabetical order. Partner prices are marked: they come from an authorised sales partner, not from the vendor, and may differ from what another partner offers. “From” prices are minimums. Units differ widely, so do not compare the numbers across rows without reading the unit column.

Vendor	Product or plan	Published price	Unit, billing and conditions	VAT	Source, checked
agorum	agorum core pro	EUR 32.00	per user and month at 1 user; tiered: EUR 19.20 at 100, EUR 9.90 at 500, EUR 8.96 at 1,000 users; maintenance included, add-on modules extra	net	price page, 2 Oct 2026
agorum	ALBERT AI Suite	from EUR 120	per month, including 1 million output tokens; language model usage billed on top at the model provider’s prices; requires core pro	net	price page, 2 Oct 2026
agorum	NORA 360°	EUR 35.00	per user and month at 1 user, EUR 9.80 at 1,000 users; add-on licence to core pro	net	price page, 2 Oct 2026
agorum	agorum core open	EUR 0	free open-source edition, no time limit	–	product page, 2 Oct 2026
bitfarm-Archiv	GPL version	EUR 0	free download, commercial use allowed; support only via the community forum	–	versions, 3 Oct 2026
bitfarm-Archiv	Enterprise version	from about EUR 2,500	one-off starter package with installation, all modules and plug-ins and one year of support	not stated	costs page, 3 Oct 2026
Box	Business Starter	EUR 4.50	per user and month, billed annually (EUR 6 monthly); 3 to 10 users, 100 GB storage	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
Box	Business	EUR 13.50	per user and month, billed annually (EUR 18 monthly); from 3 users	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
Box	Business Plus	EUR 22.50	per user and month, billed annually (EUR 30 monthly); from 3 users	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
Box	Enterprise	EUR 31.50	per user and month, billed annually (EUR 42 monthly); from 3 users	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
Box	Enterprise Plus	EUR 45.00	per user and month, annual billing only; from 3 users; Enterprise Advanced on request	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
d.velop	documents platform edition Basic (AWS cloud)	EUR 27	per month; the page does not say whether per user or per tenant; Business EUR 39, Ultimate EUR 55; on T Cloud Public EUR 40.50 to EUR 82.50	not stated	price page, 2 Oct 2026
d.velop	invoices, package Small (AWS cloud)	EUR 340	package with 250 invoices a month, 50 GB and 5 accounting users; billing period not stated; extra invoices EUR 0.69 each, extra accounting users EUR 17 a month	not stated	price page, 2 Oct 2026
DATEV DMS	DATEV DMS (item 90366)	from EUR 40.96	entry price per month; number of users not stated; hosting in the DATEV data centre billed separately	net	shop page, 2 Oct 2026
docuvita	Public Cloud, first user with workflow	EUR 49	per month, including 20 GB; each further user EUR 39 a month; 20 GB extra storage EUR 9 a month	net	cloud flyer, 2 Oct 2026
docuvita	invoice and receipt recognition	EUR 0.19	per processed page, billed monthly by volume	net	conditions, 2 Oct 2026
DocuWare (sales partner price)	DocuWare Cloud, 4 users	from EUR 215	per month for 4 users; minimum term 12 months; set-up separate	not stated	partner page (WUD), 1 Oct 2026
easy	Managed Application Hosting, Silver	from EUR 225	per month, base price with one product, in the easy private cloud; surcharges per further product, per user from the 21st and per workflow from the 3rd; licences included or not: not stated	net	managed services, 2 Oct 2026
easy	Managed Application, Silver	from EUR 295	per month, easy operates your own installation; same surcharge logic	net	managed services, 2 Oct 2026
ecoDMS	Business Edition	EUR 125	per concurrent connection, one-off; updates included for 24 or 48 months, chosen at purchase	net	licence page, 1 Oct 2026
Kendox (sales partner price)	Kendox DMS Easy, cloud	CHF 79	per user and month at 1 user, falling with the number of users (CHF 37.33 per user at 6 users); 5 GB per user	not stated	partner page (Allix), 2 Oct 2026
Laserfiche	Cloud Professional	USD 875	per user and year (about USD 73 a month), from 5 users; implementation not included	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
Laserfiche	Cloud Business	USD 1,115	per user and year (about USD 93 a month), from 25 users	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
Laserfiche	Cloud Business+	USD 500	per user and year (about USD 42 a month), from 500 users	not stated	price page, 3 Oct 2026
M-Files	Essentials	EUR 65	per seat and month, usually invoiced annually; Enterprise on request	not stated	editions page, 2 Oct 2026
Microsoft SharePoint	Microsoft 365 Business Basic	EUR 6.07	per user and month, annual subscription with automatic renewal; EUR 7.28 on a monthly subscription; EEA variant without Teams EUR 4.67; up to 300 users	net	plans (Germany), 2 Oct 2026
Microsoft	Microsoft 365 Business Standard	EUR 12.13	per user and month, annual subscription; without Teams EUR 9.34	net	Business Basic page, 2 Oct 2026
Microsoft	Business Premium and Copilot Business	EUR 27.73	per user and month, annual subscription; without Teams EUR 24.94	net	plans (Germany), 2 Oct 2026
Microsoft	Microsoft 365 E3	EUR 37.78	per user and month, annual billing; without Teams EUR 30.36	net	Enterprise plans, 2 Oct 2026
Microsoft	Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (add-on)	EUR 18.20	per user and month, annual billing; shown as an offer from EUR 15.60 on the day of the check	net	plans (Germany), 2 Oct 2026
Starke-DMS	E-invoice archive (starter package)	EUR 2,950	package for 2 concurrent users and one legal entity; billing period not stated; hand-over to accounting software billed by effort	net	package page, 2 Oct 2026
Yooz	Business Edition	from EUR 99	monthly subscription (French price page); included volume not stated	not stated	tarifs, 3 Oct 2026

Microsoft prices are German list prices. Our SharePoint guide shows the Irish prices and explains which Microsoft 365 plans include the retention and records functions an archive needs: Business Basic and Business Standard are not among them.

A few rows need a second look before you use them. d.velop does not say what its EUR 27 refers to, and DATEV does not say for how many users its entry price applies. The easy prices are for operating the software, and the page does not say whether licences are included. Box and Microsoft 365 are content and collaboration platforms rather than DMS products in the narrow sense; we list them because many companies compare them with a DMS.

What makes up the cost of a document management system?

The cost of a document management system consists of the licence or subscription plus hosting and storage, set-up, migration, scanning, interfaces, training and support. A complete offer covers all of these, not only the licence. The cost components below appear in almost every project; which ones are large depends on your documents and systems.

1. Licence or subscriptionper user, concurrent user, seat, legal entity, document volume or content volume
2. Hosting and storageincluded in many cloud plans up to a limit; own servers, backup and administration on-premises
3. Set-up, migration and scanningconfiguration, document classes, data takeover from file shares or the old system, scanning of the paper backlog
4. Interfaces and e-invoice connectorsERP and accounting hand-over, Microsoft 365, Peppol access point or national platform
5. Training, support and changeuser and administrator training, maintenance, support packages, later adjustments, version upgrades

Licences and subscriptions

The licence or subscription is the line vendors publish most often, and it is the easiest to compare once the unit is clear. The models are explained in the next section. Watch for add-on modules that you will need from day one: M-Files names extra storage, Premium Cloud, Outlook Pro and premium support as separate add-ons; Box sells Governance, Zones and Shield at extra cost; Therefore licenses connectors and capture separately; agorum charges for add-on modules, storage and cloud operation on top of the per-user price.

Implementation and set-up

Set-up means installing or provisioning the system, building document classes, metadata, permissions and workflows, and testing them with real documents. Hardly any vendor publishes a price for this. Laserfiche states that its subscription excludes implementation, the DocuWare partner offer lists set-up separately, and Starke-DMS bills the hand-over to accounting software by effort. One of the few public service prices we found is time-limited: windream offered fixed prices for upgrade consulting to version 9, from EUR 1,499 for customers on version 8.x (offer page, checked 2 October 2026). The opposite approach exists too: bitfarm’s Enterprise starter package, from about EUR 2,500, includes installation.

Data migration

Taking over existing documents from file shares, an old DMS, SharePoint or e-mail archives costs time in two places: the technical transfer and the cleaning of metadata. Statutory retention periods do not restart when you move a document, so the migration must keep original files, dates and, for e-invoices, the XML original. Our guide to e-invoice archiving requirements explains why the XML matters. No vendor in our data sheets publishes a migration price; ask for it as a separate line with a fixed scope.

Scanning the paper backlog

Scanning has two cost drivers: the paper backlog and the ongoing inbound mail. For the backlog, what matters is the volume, the state of the paper (stapled, folded or double-sided sheets take longer to prepare) and how much is indexed by hand. Ongoing scanning needs a capture client or service, often licensed separately (Therefore lists capture as an add-on licence). Recognition of invoices and receipts is often charged by volume: docuvita lists EUR 0.19 net per processed page, and Microsoft charges USD 0.001 per page for OCR and USD 0.01 per page for prebuilt document processing such as its invoice model, billed through Azure (Microsoft price list).

Integrations with ERP, accounting and Microsoft 365

Interfaces are where offers differ most. Some vendors build the ERP integration themselves, others leave it to partners, and the price is rarely public. The DATEV DMS data sheet shows a typical structure: the DMS has a monthly fee, and hosting in the DATEV data centre is a separate add-on module. Ask for each interface as its own line: what it transfers (documents only, or posting data too), who maintains it when the ERP is updated, and whether it is a licensed module or project work. The four integration patterns behind these lines are explained in our ERP integration guide.

E-invoice and Peppol connectors

E-invoicing adds a cost line many DMS budgets from earlier years did not have. Belgium requires Peppol e-invoices between businesses since 1 January 2026, Germany requires businesses to be able to receive e-invoices since 2025, and other countries follow; the e-invoicing tracker lists every date with its legal source. Who receives the invoice decides who you pay:

• The DMS or AP vendor is the access point. According to our data sheets, ARXivar (Able Tech), Medius, OpenText, Siav and Yooz are Peppol access points themselves. ELO’s invoice module takes invoices from any access point, the customer’s own or a service provider’s.
• A separate access point provider. Several publish prices. On 3 October 2026 Peppol Box charged from EUR 5 a month (100 documents a year, annual payment) to EUR 50 a month (3,600 documents a year), excluding taxes. Recommand had a free plan with 25 documents a month and paid plans from EUR 29 (200 documents) to EUR 349 a month (5,000 documents), excluding VAT, with fees per extra document. Qvalia listed EUR 9 to EUR 899 a month for 25 to 30,000 messages, without a VAT note.
• The ERP does it. Then the DMS only needs to store and display the XML; check whether that is included.

Invoice processing modules are often priced by volume rather than by user: d.velop’s invoices package Small covers 250 invoices a month for EUR 340, with EUR 0.69 per extra invoice; Yooz charges by document volume with unlimited users according to its US price page; Basware prices InvoiceReady by transactions.

Training, maintenance and upgrades

Training is usually a service line (days for key users and administrators). Maintenance is part of the subscription in cloud models, as agorum states for its per-user price. With perpetual licences it is a separate contract: ecoDMS includes updates for 24 or 48 months and sells support as separate packages; bitfarm charges for support and updates in its Enterprise version, with support costs depending on the number of users. Major version changes can cost money: DOCUframe requires a licence adjustment for the move from version 5.x to 6.x, while the update from 6.0 to 6.1 is free of licence charges.

Storage and hosting

Cloud plans include a storage allowance, and growth beyond it is charged. Examples from the data sheets: Box Business Starter includes 100 GB, Kendox’s partner package 5 GB per user, docuvita 20 GB with EUR 9 per further 20 GB, d.velop’s invoices package 50 GB, and the ecoDMS hosted service, sold by resellers, 10 GB per concurrent connection. Microsoft charges USD 0.20 per GB and month for SharePoint storage above the tenant quota. On your own servers, storage is cheaper per gigabyte, but you pay for hardware, backup, monitoring and the people who run it.

DMS pricing models compared

DMS vendors charge per named user, per concurrent user, through a perpetual licence with maintenance, in editions or packages, by volume or per legal entity. The data sheets show these six ways vendors charge. Many combine two or three of them.

Model	How it works	Examples from checked data sheets
Subscription per named user	monthly or annual price per person with access	Box, Laserfiche, Microsoft 365, agorum (tiered), Kendox (partner)
Concurrent users or connections	price per user logged in at the same time, not per person	ecoDMS (per concurrent connection, one-off), docuvita Public Cloud, Starke-DMS, nscale, Amagno (named or concurrent)
Perpetual licence plus maintenance	one-off licence, then annual maintenance or update periods	ecoDMS, Therefore on-premises, nscale, LogicalDOC Business and Enterprise, Doxis, forcont
Editions and packages	bundles of users, processes or modules at fixed steps	JobRouter (Starter, Advanced, Premium), d.velop (Basic, Business, Ultimate), Starke-DMS, easy managed services
Volume-based	price by documents, invoices, pages, content volume or transactions; users often unlimited	Yooz, Basware InvoiceReady, ARXivar, Siav Archiflow NOVA, d.velop invoices, JobMind (JobRouter)
Per legal entity	packages defined by the number of companies	Medius (AP Essentials with 1 entity, AP 360 with 3 entities, unlimited users), Siav Connect (entities and content volume)

Which model is cheaper depends on how you work. Concurrent licensing suits shift work or occasional users, because 50 employees may never be logged in at the same time. Volume-based pricing suits accounts payable, where five people may process thousands of invoices. Per-user subscriptions are easy to budget but grow with every new colleague. Free open-source editions exist, as the next section shows; with them the licence line disappears, and operation, updates and compliance evidence stay with you.

Are there free or open-source document management systems?

Yes: several DMS products have free open-source editions, so the licence line can be zero, but operation, updates, support and compliance evidence stay with you. In our directory, as checked between 1 and 3 October 2026:

• Free editions of vendors with a checked data sheet: agorum core open (open source, no time limit), the GPL version of bitfarm-Archiv (support only through the community forum), the LogicalDOC Community Edition (LGPL v3, no vendor support) and the OpenKM Community Edition (GPL-2.0, without workflow, file plan and AI functions; help only through the public forum).
• Open-source projects listed without a checked data sheet: paperless-ngx and Mayan EDMS, both run on your own servers. We have not checked their functions against our criteria.

For a company, the questions are the same as for a paid product, only the answers are yours: who installs updates and security patches, who restores a backup, who documents the archive procedure for a tax audit, and whether the free edition lacks a function you need, such as workflows or retention rules, that only the paid edition offers.

A worked three-year cost example

In this illustrative example, 25 cloud users cost EUR 64,880 net over three years, of which the subscription is 55% and services 40%. This example is illustrative. It shows how the cost components add up and how much of the total sits outside the licence. It is not a quote, not a benchmark and not a recommendation for the vendors whose list prices we use. The service days and the day rate are placeholders chosen to make the arithmetic visible; we have no verified market average for them, and you should replace them with the figures in your offers.

Assumptions:

• A company with 25 DMS users, cloud operation, all prices net of VAT.
• Licence: docuvita Public Cloud list prices (EUR 49 for the first user, EUR 39 for each further user per month, 20 GB included). We price 25 licences; under docuvita’s concurrent-user model fewer may be enough, which would lower this line.
• Storage: one extra 20 GB pack at EUR 9 a month for the full period.
• Inbound invoices: 300 a month. 150 arrive as paper or PDF with two pages on average and go through recognition at EUR 0.19 per page. 150 arrive via Peppol through a separate access point on Recommand’s Growth plan (EUR 29 a month, 200 documents included).
• Services, placeholder: 20 days in year one (8 for set-up, 4 for migration, 5 for the accounting interface, 3 for training) and 2 days a year for changes and support, all at a placeholder rate of EUR 1,000 a day.
• Not priced: internal staff time, scanning of the paper backlog (assumed in-house), hardware, price increases.

Cost item	Calculation	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Three years
Subscription, 25 users	(49 + 24 × 39) × 12	11,820	11,820	11,820	35,460
Extra storage	9 × 12	108	108	108	324
Invoice recognition	300 pages × 0.19 × 12	684	684	684	2,052
Peppol access point	29 × 12	348	348	348	1,044
Set-up, migration, interface, training (placeholder)	20 days × 1,000	20,000	–	–	20,000
Changes and support (placeholder)	2 days × 1,000	2,000	2,000	2,000	6,000
Total (EUR, net)		34,960	14,960	14,960	64,880

Three things stand out. The subscription is 55% of the three-year total; services are 40%, and that share depends entirely on the two placeholder figures. The total works out at about EUR 72 per user and month, against a list price of EUR 39 for each further user. And year one costs more than years two and three together (EUR 34,960 against EUR 29,920), so a budget built on the monthly subscription alone misses the set-up costs.

Change the assumptions and the picture moves quickly. If the services in year one take 40 days instead of 20, the total rises to EUR 84,880. If the day rate is EUR 1,500 instead of EUR 1,000, services cost EUR 39,000 and the total is EUR 77,880. If the same company used a perpetual licence instead, the licence line could shrink dramatically: ten concurrent ecoDMS connections cost EUR 1,250 net, one-off, with updates for the period chosen at purchase. Server, backup, support packages, administration and the same project services would still be needed, so the total would not fall in proportion.

How do you compare DMS offers?

DMS offers become comparable only when every vendor prices the same scenario over the same period. Most comparisons go wrong because each vendor prices a different scenario. Fix the scenario first, then ask for numbers.

1. Write one scenario for all vendorsNumber of users by role (full, occasional, read-only), legal entities, documents and invoices per month, storage today and in five years, ERP and Microsoft 365 integration, countries with e-invoice obligations.
2. Ask for the same cost structureLicence or subscription, each add-on module, storage, hosting, set-up, migration, each interface, training, support, usage-based charges, one table per year.
3. Normalise the unitsConvert named, concurrent, seat, entity and volume prices into one total for your scenario. State net or gross and the currency for every line.
4. Compare at least three yearsFive is better for on-premises licences. Put year one and the following years side by side.
5. Read the contract termsMinimum term, renewal, notice period, price adjustment clause, data export at the end, and whether services are fixed price or capped.
6. Test before you signA trial or pilot with your own documents shows how much configuration the vendor's offer really assumes.

Minimum quantities and terms matter more than they seem. In the data sheets, Box requires at least 3 users, Laserfiche at least 5, 25 or 500 users depending on the plan, Amagno at least 5 users for direct purchase, and the DocuWare partner package a 12-month minimum term. Microsoft’s annual subscriptions renew automatically, and its monthly subscription costs more (EUR 7.28 instead of EUR 6.07 for Business Basic).

Hosting location and audit evidence are not price items, but they can make a cheaper offer unusable. The DMS finder lets you filter the vendors with a checked data sheet by hosting, ERP, e-invoice formats and archive audits before you ask for prices, so you only request offers from vendors that can meet your requirements.

Hidden costs of a document management system

The hidden costs of a document management system are the items a list price leaves out: services, storage growth, usage-based charges, add-on modules, upgrades and the exit. Most of them have no public price; the examples below come from the checked data sheets and the price pages linked above.

Hidden cost	What we found in the sources	What to ask
Implementation and set-up	Laserfiche states that its subscription excludes implementation; the DocuWare partner package lists set-up separately	A fixed price or a cap for set-up
Interfaces billed by effort	Starke-DMS bills the hand-over to accounting software by effort in its starter package	Each interface as its own line, with who maintains it after ERP updates
Storage beyond the allowance	docuvita charges EUR 9 per further 20 GB a month; Microsoft charges USD 0.20 per GB and month above the SharePoint tenant quota	Price per GB for your volume in five years
Usage-based recognition and AI	docuvita EUR 0.19 per page for invoice recognition, Microsoft USD 0.001 per page for OCR and USD 0.01 for prebuilt processing; agorum bills language model usage on top	A monthly cap or alert
Add-on modules	M-Files names extra storage, Premium Cloud, Outlook Pro and premium support as add-ons; Box sells Governance, Zones and Shield separately; Therefore licenses connectors and capture separately	Which modules your scenario needs from day one
Hosting billed separately	DATEV bills hosting in its data centre as a separate module	Whether the quoted price includes operation
Support and updates	ecoDMS sells support as separate packages; bitfarm charges for support and updates in its Enterprise version	What maintenance covers, including the next major version
Version upgrades	DOCUframe requires a licence adjustment for the move from 5.x to 6.x	Upgrade terms for the contract period
Licence uplift in Microsoft 365	Records functions for a SharePoint archive need Microsoft 365 E5 or a Purview add-on; on Microsoft’s Irish price page, E3 to E5 was EUR 20.35 more per user and month (SharePoint guide)	Which users need which plan
E-invoice connection	A separate Peppol access point adds its own fee, for example EUR 29 a month on Recommand’s Growth plan (see above)	Who receives, validates and archives e-invoices, at what price
Internal time and exit	No vendor in our data sheets prices internal effort or the export of documents and metadata at the end of the contract	Your own project time, and export format and cost at the end

None of these lines is unusual, but together they explain why the worked example below costs about EUR 72 per user and month against a list price of EUR 39.

Red flags in DMS offers and price pages

These patterns appeared in the sources we checked or are typical gaps in offers. None of them is a reason to reject a vendor by itself, but each needs a written answer.

• "From" prices without the conditions behind them. Many published amounts are minimums (DocuWare partner package, DATEV, easy, Yooz). Ask what your scenario costs.
• No unit. If a price does not say per user, per tenant or per month, as on the d.velop and DATEV pages, you cannot compare it.
• No VAT statement. 15 of the 32 amounts in our table do not say whether VAT is included. Ask for net prices in writing.
• Services "by effort" with no ceiling. Ask for a fixed price or a cap for set-up, migration and each interface.
• Open-ended usage charges. AI and recognition are often billed by tokens, pages or documents. agorum, for example, bills language model usage on top at the model provider's prices. Ask for a monthly cap or alert.
• Essential functions as add-ons. Check whether e-mail filing, the ERP connector, governance or extra storage are in the price or separate modules.
• Paid version upgrades. Ask whether the next major version is covered by maintenance.
• Promotional prices. Microsoft showed Copilot Business as an offer from EUR 15.60 instead of EUR 18.20 on the day of our check. Ask what applies after the offer ends.
• No exit terms. Ask how you get all documents, metadata and audit trails out at the end of the contract, in which format and at what cost.

Where to go from here

The cheapest list price rarely gives the lowest total, so start with your requirements, not with the price. A system that lacks your ERP interface or a compliant archive becomes expensive once you add the missing parts. Use the DMS finder to narrow the field, read the pricing section of each vendor data sheet, and ask your shortlist for the same scenario over three to five years. If SharePoint is already part of your Microsoft 365 plan, read where SharePoint works as a DMS and where it falls short before you add a second licence. Groups with German subsidiaries should check the German e-invoicing rules for foreign companies, because receiving and archiving e-invoices is often what puts a DMS on the budget in the first place.