The Next Tier Up

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The tier you are evaluating is the one you will be on for about a year. The comparison that matters is the one above it, and almost nobody makes it. For a related operational perspective, Monitask also publishes a reference on the 7-minute rule for payroll.

Reviewed August 9, 2026.

What moves you up

Headcount. The commonest trigger, and the one you can forecast.

Record or storage limits. Contacts, projects, documents, tickets. These accumulate and are almost never cleaned up, so the limit arrives earlier than a growth projection suggests.

A feature you did not know was gated. Single sign-on, audit logs, role permissions, export API, custom fields, integrations — the items most likely to become requirements when a tool moves from a team to an organisation.

For broader context, see SourceForge.

And an external requirement. A client asking about access controls, an auditor asking for logs, a data protection officer asking who can see what. These arrive from outside and do not care which tier you budgeted for.

The four items to check

What is the price per user on the tier above? Frequently a step rather than a slope — a fifty per cent increase is common between a team tier and a business one.

Which of my current requirements are already on the higher tier? Ask the question in that form, because "does it have X" and "on which tier is X" get different answers from a salesperson.

What are the numeric limits on my tier, in records, storage, integrations and API calls?

And what is the process for moving up mid-term — pro-rated, or a new term starting?

The pattern worth naming

Essential-for-organisations features sit one tier above essential-for-teams.

Single sign-on is the clearest example: a team of eight does not need it, and an organisation of eighty is required to have it. The tier boundary is placed at the point where a tool stops being a team purchase, which is a rational commercial design and is not disclosed as such.

The consequence: a pilot succeeds on the team tier, the tool spreads, and the real price is discovered after adoption — at the point of least leverage.

The number to compare

Annual cost at your projected headcount in two years, on the tier those requirements put you on.

Not this year's tier at this year's count.

Between candidates this frequently reverses the ranking, because vendors place their tier boundaries differently and a product that is cheaper today is not necessarily cheaper at the size you will be.

What to ask in writing

"At what point would we need to move to the next tier, and what would the annual cost be then?"

One sentence. A vendor who answers it clearly has told you something useful about both the pricing and themselves, and a vague answer is also informative.

Then ask for it in the contract, where you can: a price for the higher tier fixed for the initial term removes the discovery entirely.

The short version

• You will be on the evaluated tier for about a year; the tier above is the price that matters
• Triggers: headcount, accumulated record and storage limits, gated features, and external requirements arriving from clients, auditors or a DPO
• Check the per-user price above, which current requirements are already gated, the numeric limits on your tier, and how mid-term upgrades are billed
• Organisation-essential features sit one tier above team-essential ones, so the real price is discovered after adoption
• Compare annual cost at your two-year headcount on the tier your requirements put you on, which frequently reverses the ranking
• Ask in writing when you would need to move and what it would cost, and fix that price in the contract where you can