Open source: why you pay even when it is “free”.
The question we always get
“If Odoo and n8n are free, why am I paying you?” Because open-source software costs nothing to licence, but it does need installing, configuring in depth, customising and maintaining. What we charge for is the consulting and the integration — for adapting the software to your company rather than your company to the software.
The three-year sum
An indicative example for an eight-person office:
| Typical SaaS with per-seat fees | Open source with AUREA | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 8 users × monthly fee, every month | Rollout (one-off project) + monthly maintenance |
| Years 2 and 3 | The same fees, or more if you grow | Maintenance only |
| If you go from 8 to 15 users | Nearly double the fee | The same maintenance |
| The system | The provider's: stop paying and you lose it | Yours: on your server, with your data |
The honest caveat
We are not selling “€0 and everything free”. The foundation is open source in order to cut recurring costs and keep your data sovereign; if a low-cost paid add-on offers a clear return, we look at it and propose it with the figure in front of us. What is cheap here is the absence of per-seat fees, not the absence of judgement.
Want the sum with your own numbers? The free audit compares what you spend on tools today against the open-source scenario.
Quick questions
No: Odoo and n8n are mature products used by thousands of companies. The difference is not quality but the model: you pay for adaptation work instead of perpetual per-seat licences.
Nothing serious: the system is yours, it is on your server, it is documented, and any competent technician can take over the maintenance. That is exactly the difference from SaaS.
