As software continues to be a pivotal contributor to improving the customer experience, you may come across the name Optimizely while looking for web experimentation, a content management system, a digital experience platform, an ecommerce platform, and other business-critical software.
As a longtime Gold Optimizely partner, we receive questions about Optimizely's pricing and licensing structure - especially given the vast portfolio of products.
Questions like:
This guide will give you detailed information on Optimizely pricing and the factors affecting how much your business will pay for Optimizely - from your initial license purchase to support beyond launch.
Continue reading to get the most out of your Optimizely evaluation, purchase, and implementation experience.
Optimizely Licensing Costs and Purchase Options
Optimizely Products and Pricing Models Explained
The first thing to note about Optimizely pricing is that the costs break down into two main areas: license and implementation costs. That's right; the license fee is just one part of the expense.
To ensure your software investment delivers value, you must consider all the moving parts that make an Optimizely project successful. And that means scoping the entire project with your eyes wide open. Before we provide a detailed view of what factors into license and implementation costs, let's look at Optimizely's software model - Platform-as-a-Service.
One of the most crucial things to understand is that Optimizely is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), which means the upkeep of the software - like upgrades, patches, and fixes - is on you or an implementation partner. While this can sound intimidating, companies prefer this approach for many reasons.
Advantages of Optimizely's PaaS solution:
Challenges of Optimizely's PaaS solution:
Optimizely's PaaS model can be an excellent fit for many mid to enterprise-sized businesses, especially those who want to develop and deliver highly customized, modern apps and digital experiences that drive business innovation and customer engagement. Sound good? How do you get a license for Optimizely?
When it comes to licensing Optimizely, you can work with Optimizely directly through a sales representative or with a Solutions Partner from Optimizely's partner network. Read on to learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of each approach.
The best approach to get a license quote directly from Optimizely is to submit a form through Optimizely's website. From there, you'll connect with a sales representative focusing on your industry and company size. The direct sales/marketing team will get to know your business needs and the products you're interested in to gauge what kind of license you'll need.
Their team is highly knowledgeable about their products and can show you in-depth demos of an Optimizely solution you may want to emulate with your brand. If you choose to move forward working with their team beyond purchasing a license, you can partner with Optimizely directly for its professional and implementation services.
These can be favorable options for organizations with more precise needs. If you need more complex system integrations and customizations to fit your business model, ask their team about recommended Solution Partners for an implementation project.
Potential benefits of working with Optimizely directly:
Potential challenges of working with Optimizely directly:
Solution partners are consulting and digital experience agencies within Optimizely's ecosystem that have proved their expertise through rigorous qualifications, such as developer certifications, product implementations, and industry-specific solutions.
Unlike Optimizely directly, Solution Partners exist to help customers evaluate whether or not Optimizely is right for them and propose a combination of software and professional services designed to meet the needs of the organization's goals. Most have a proven approach that works for them to get customers to their desired solution, but they can personalize an evaluation process to align with the buyer's needs and requirements.
With Solution Partners available in nearly 50 countries, ranging in niche industry expertise and Optimizely specializations, you can choose from a fantastic network of highly skilled and certified partners.
Optimizely Solution Partners and Optimizely's direct sales work off an identical price sheet. So there is no inherent pricing advantage of going direct vs. working with a partner on Optimizely license sales.
Potential benefits of working with Optimizely Solution Partners:
Potential challenges of working with Optimizely Solution Partners:
Software license agreement negotiations are complex. One common mistake we see from Optimizely buyers is thinking they can renegotiate their license when their subscription expires. The most important software purchase you make with Optimizely will be your initial one. All future renewals will rely on the initial Subscriptions Software Agreement (SSA) and license estimate you originally agreed to and signed. Therefore, it's essential to get it right the first time.
The risk for overspending is high, and the cost implications can be years-long if not correctly executed and managed the first time. A strongly negotiated software license agreement can increase IT agility, accelerate digital transformation and other strategic initiatives, and uncover areas of technical debt that need attention.
Solution Partners can consult and educate you on if Optimizely is the right fit for you (Remember - it's what they do for a living) and help you negotiate the best license to maximize your ROI.
Just like homes, cars, and other big-ticket purchases - when you buy is just as important as what you buy. As you prepare your budget for significant software purchases, it's crucial to strategize the timing of your license purchase to meet your organization's timeline and maximize your Optimizely ROI.
Software companies have sales and revenue goals to hit, most commonly each quarter, especially at the year's end. Timing is a lever that's applied differently depending on the vendor - know how to use it to your advantage!
When it comes down to renewing your license, we advise against waiting until the last minute. As new deals swell their pipelines, it can be challenging to secure last-minute deals. Avoid being in a bind to keep up your digital presence if you miss your renewal.
Bundles are products that work together to provide a solution, reduce the complexity of choice, and usually offer cost savings. Optimizely's full suite is built to enhance one another (regardless of combination) to ensure you get the most from each product.
While bundling multiple licenses can save you some money upfront, we advise you to pump the brakes on any software you still need to get a plan to implement and own. The wonderful thing about Optimizely's catalog is that you can integrate new features or products as needed - meaning - no wasted money on licensing products that would otherwise sit on the shelf until you're ready.
It is best to plan how you will utilize your software, and you'll need to devise the right team and expertise to ensure its success. An extensive rule of thumb is to assume you'll spend at least 10x its license cost in staffing to manage and own each product.
The right Optimizely Solution Partner can create a personalized plan for your business and help with everything from ideal team structure to putting a plan in place to adopt new products at scale to ensure you maximize your budget and increase your return on your overall Optimizely solution.
Focused on growing their business, Optimizely may be willing to lower their prices for continued user loyalty. This is an excellent opportunity for companies to balance their needs to minimize IT spending while pursuing IT objectives, but it requires careful evaluation. Vendor lock-in can have negative implications on IT and cost agility.
Companies routinely overpay by purchasing more maintenance and support than necessary. Like licenses, support should be clearly defined and aligned to your support requirements. In many cases, third-party support through Solution Partners will match or exceed those offered directly by Optimizely. The benefits are numerous, the most obvious being significant cost savings and the value of your support.
Optimizely's products support various industries and business models that prioritize rich product and content experiences for their customers. This makes it most affordable and applicable for mid to enterprise-sized organizations looking to create a fully integrated and seamless digital experience across channels.
In December 2022, Optimizely announced the renaming of several longtime loved products to make it easier for new and existing customers to understand the product's functionality and purpose solely by its name. Below is an in-depth guide to each Optimizely category, product, pricing considerations, and product features.
Products are categorized based on their goal:
Optimizely’s Orchestrate solutions enable your team to plan, create, publish, and deliver content experiences in one place.
Optimizely’s Content Marketing Platform is an industry-leading and user-friendly platform helping marketing teams plan campaigns, collaborate on tasks, and author content. It offers powerful publishing options via strong Optimizely CMS integration, accelerated headless offering, and even integrates with other CMS platforms, such as Drupal, Sitecore, and Adobe.
Pricing Model: Tiers and Features
Content Marketing Platform has the most transparent pricing in Optimizely's portfolio.
Optimizely’s Content Management System is an analyst-recognized system for building dynamic websites and helping digital teams deliver rich, secure, and personalized experiences.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely’s Digital Asset Management is part of the Content Marketing Platform. It allows teams to manage, track, and repurpose marketing and brand assets - with support for all file types - across other systems and your most important channels.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely’s Content Recommendations Platform delivers AI-powered and real-time recommendations to serve the unique interests of each visitor and personalize every experience, so they spend more time on your site.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely’s Experimentation solutions provide your team with the insights you need to learn, iterate, and deliver the best customer experience across any channel and device.
Optimizely’s Web Experimentation is an industry-leading experimentation tool allowing you to run A/B and multi-variant tests on any channel or device with an internet connection. This product can be used on platforms other than Optimizely.
Feature highlights include:
Compare Optimizely's Web Experimentation features and tiers.
Optimizely’s Feature Experimentation is a comprehensive experimentation platform allowing you to manage features, deploy safer tests, and roll out new releases. This product can be used on platforms other than Optimizely.
Feature Experimentation is offered in four different packages:
Feature highlights include:
Compare Optimizely's Feature Experimentation features and tiers.
Optimizely’s Advanced Personalization is an add-on to core experimentation products (above), allowing teams to create/segment audiences based on past behavior and deliver more relevant experiences. This product can be used on platforms other than Optimizely.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely’s Program Management is an add-on to Optimizely Web Experimentation to understand and scale your experimentation program performance across all touchpoints. It makes ideating, collaborating, reporting, and identifying insights across your experiments easier.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely’s Monetize solutions give your team the flexibility to launch, scale, and manage your business to drive sales and customer loyalty.
Optimizely’s Configured Commerce is a templatized platform designed to help manufacturers and distributors drive efficiency, increase revenue, and create easy buying experiences that retain customers. This solution is intentionally made for B2B and its complexities.
B2B digital commerce is becoming more similar to B2C in terms of customer experience focus and mobile usability.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely Customized Commerce is a complete platform for digital commerce and content management to build dynamic experiences that drive revenue and keep customers coming back for more.
Features Included:
Optimizely Product Recommendations provides machine-learning algorithms optimized for commerce to deliver personalized product recommendations in real time.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely Product Information Management is a dedicated tool to help you set up your product inventory and manage catalogs of any size or scale.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely’s Enhancement solutions enrich your existing content and ecommerce systems with standalone products. Both of these products can work in tandem with Optimizely or third-party systems.
Optimizely Data Platform is a centralized hub to harmonize data across your digital experience tools - providing integrations, AI-assisted campaign guidance, and unified customer profiles. ODP can enhance any of Optimizely’s products, unlocking a more simplified and integrated ecosystem, sophisticated analytics to segment audiences, and the flexibility to activate data across any channel in real-time.
Feature highlights include:
Optimizely Email Campaign is an email service provider-agnostic tool to enhance and deliver personalized email campaigns. It provides the most relevant product recommendation based on a visitor’s previous history that has been tracked within Optimizely’s Product Recommendations database.
Feature highlights include:
How do you get an accurate scope and be sure you get the most value from your Optimizely subscription?
To get a straightforward answer to how much Optimizely costs, fill out our contact form below or get a direct quote here:
As a longtime agency partner who's implemented Optimizely solutions for a decade, we have a strong working relationship with Optimizely. We always represent our customers' best interests to receive the best value and price based on what they want to achieve with the platform.
You don't have to navigate your Optimizely purchase decision alone. Contact The C2 Group to ensure you're asking the right questions when pricing your Optimizely project and ensure you see a return on investment from your implementation.
