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What does Dynamics 365 (formerly CRM) Cost? The InfoStrat Calculator

The cost of a Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation includes software licensing, internal costs of the time of your staff, and sometimes hardware and professional services from Dynamics 365 specialists such as a Microsoft Dynamics Gold Partner like InfoStrat.

Your reseller is best source for software pricing, and can create a quote based on your volume license agreement.  If your organization has an enterprise agreement for Microsoft products, it will offer the best prices.

The following flowchart shows the steps in determining which products you need and the ways to purchase or deploy.




1. What You Need

Start by determining which business processes you are automating and which Dynamics 365 apps you will need.  Do you need Sales, Marketing, Accounting, Field Services, Project Services or Customer Service?

Next, count you users and assign them to each app.  Dynamics 365 is most commonly licensed based on named users, so the first step in calculating costs is to count your users.  You need only count internal users that are within your organization -- external users do not need subscriptions.   For instance, if your organization has 500 people and all of them will be using Dynamics 365, you would buy 500 subscriptions.

Microsoft also offers device CALs, so two or more people who are non-concurrently sharing a workstation could use just one CAL.    This makes sense if you have shift workers or call centers that operate around the clock.

2. How to Run It

Cloud-hosted Dynamics 365 is the easiest deployment model to price.     The subscription covers both the hosting and the associated software licenses.   This deployment model is rapid -- Microsoft manages the infrastructure and you don't need to install anything on your servers.  It is flexible and quite scalable, so you can add (or subtract) users as your needs change.     In the short run it is also the least expensive option because it doesn't require any hardware acquisition or server licenses.  If you deploy with Dynamics 365 in the Microsoft cloud, you will automatically receive all software updates which will be installed by Microsoft.

Government agencies are eligible for hosting in the Microsoft Government cloud, a set of facilities which meet the highest security standards.

To deploy in your data center, count how many Dynamics 365 servers you will need.    How many servers are needed to support the size of your solution?   How many environments will you need, such as development, test, staging and production?    Three or four environments are typical for enterprise solutions.

3. How to Purchase

You can buy Dynamics 365 through resellers along with your Microsoft volume licensing agreement.  Bundles of Dynamics 365 apps offer cost savings and flexibility.  Volume discounts make bundles less expensive than individual apps for 99 or more users.

4. Discounts

Microsoft offers promotions with even better pricing.  These include pricing for organizations such as non-profits, government, and education, and incentives for existing Microsoft customers and customers of competitive products such as Salesforce.

5. Extras

You can purchase additional storage for Dynamics 365, so you should estimate the storage you will need to get an accurate cost estimate. Microsoft and third parties offer a number of add-ons for Dynamics 365 which have additional costs.

See our Dynamics 365 cost calculator for pricing






For more on Dynamics 365, see my posts:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Team Members Subscriptions

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