margins. For example, a vendor’s contract might focus primarily on when your customers’ users authenticate, access, and ultimately activate an integration. As a result, it may cost you a fixed amount per end user authentication to an integration. You’ll know your margin, you’ll know you’ve delivered value since your customer is happy, and end user authentications are inherently predictable, without the pain of “renewal shock.” 2. Pay only for the minimum quantity to get started and “true-up” periodically Once you’ve moved away from unpredictable metrics or worries about opaque capacity issues by settling on the right metric, you’re in a stronger position. There’s less need to over- purchase to overcompensate for estimation errors because you can now accurately size usage. So, while you may want to make your purchases a little ahead of usage and typically be able to lock in some discounts for pre-purchasing—ultimately, you want to closely align the usage you are paying for with what your customers are using. Then, you can set up quarterly “true- ups” with your vendor as usage grows. 3. Finally, look for pricing that is designed around your integration journey There are a few items you should consider to be non-negotiable. The basics: Expect your vendor to include all connectors with your initial contract. Even at the start of your integration journey, unexpected customer integrations will come up, and you shouldn’t pay extra for them. It’s also important to ensure your integration vendor provides purpose-designed editions that suit your specific needs. For instance, your organization may just be getting started, and may need to handle ad hoc integrations for strategic customers—which means you don’t need white-labeling or self-service marketplace capabilities. Or, you might be looking to deploy productized and services-led integrations at scale globally with more-robust governance and compliance. There are some key benefits to working with a vendor that offers custom packages—namely, you won’t end up over-buying for functionality depending on where you are in your integration journey. 26