Three prices for the same server
Take a virtual machine on a hyperscaler. The public price list gives one number. A customer who promises a year of usage in advance pays a second, lower number, typically 20 to 40 percent less. A customer with an enterprise agreement, negotiated by a procurement team against a spend commitment of several million a year, pays a third number that is lower still, plus enterprise support, custom terms and a named account team.
App platforms and managed databases follow the same shape with different labels. A Pro plan is list price. A Team or Business plan adds features and often a small volume discount. Enterprise is a negotiation that starts at a monthly minimum most teams will never reach.
| Tier | Who gets it | Typical position |
|---|---|---|
| List | Anyone with a card | The published price |
| Committed use | Customers who forecast a year ahead | 20 to 40 percent below list on compute, less on bandwidth and storage |
| Enterprise | Customers past the provider's minimum, with a procurement team | Negotiated; includes support, SSO, paperwork |
Why small and mid-sized teams stay at the top
The committed tier needs a forecast. A team that grew 60 percent last year and might be acquired next year cannot sign a one-year commitment without either overbuying or leaving savings on the table. The enterprise tier needs scale and time: a minimum spend, a negotiation, legal review of the provider's paper, and usually a multi-year term.
Most companies between two thousand and two hundred thousand dollars of monthly spend fall into neither category. They pay list on a company card, per provider, in whichever currency the provider bills, and they get community support. The providers know this. The pricing pages are built so that the path from list to a better tier runs through a sales call.
The hidden second cost
Paying list is only half of it. Eight providers on eight cards means eight invoices, several currencies, no cost allocation across them, and nobody who reads the total. Finance teams routinely discover the real cloud bill only at quarter end.
What pooled buying does
A broker aggregates the spend of many teams and signs the commitments and enterprise agreements that no single team could. The provider sees one large, predictable customer and offers its lower tiers. The broker resells at a rate below list, keeps a share of the difference, and passes the rest through.
The mechanism differs by provider. On AWS, your accounts join the broker's Organization as member accounts; the broker is the payer and its Savings Plans and Enterprise Discount Program terms apply to your usage. On Vercel or Neon, the broker becomes the billing owner of your team. On Azure or DigitalOcean, the broker is a reseller under a partner programme and your account is linked to its tenant. In every case the resources stay in your accounts.
- 1You keep your accounts, regions, IAM and deploy flow.
- 2The provider bills the broker at the committed or enterprise rate.
- 3The broker bills you one statement at the agreed rate, in your currency.
- 4The broker's margin is visible on the statement, per provider.
What to check before you sign with any broker
- Is the margin printed per provider, or hidden in a bundle price? You should be able to compare list and broker price line by line.
- Are savings quoted as ranges from real invoices, or as a single headline number? Compute discounts deeper than bandwidth or storage discounts, so a blended figure hides a lot.
- What happens on exit? Because resources never move, leaving should be one setting and one billing month, with billing reverting to your own account.
- Who owns the provider accounts? The answer must be you. A broker that owns your accounts is a lock-in risk, not a procurement service.
- Does the broker hold enterprise support with the provider, and can it escalate your incidents into it? That support is often worth more than the discount.
How Deplium applies this
Deplium is a pooled buyer for 33 providers. The providers table shows the billing model and typical saving band for each, the quote replaces the band with your real invoices, and Deplium's share is printed on every statement. Packages are priced in euro or dollar and locked to one currency, so the saving is not eaten by conversion. Leaving is cancel-at-period-end.
Common questions
Is pooled buying the same as a reseller marketplace?
No. A marketplace lets you buy software through one account at list price. Pooled buying changes the unit price by aggregating commitment, and applies to infrastructure usage you already have.
Can a small team ever get committed-use pricing directly?
Yes, by committing to a year of a specific resource. It works well for a stable baseline and poorly for anything that changes; most teams underuse or overbuy.
Does pooled buying change my provider's terms of service?
No. Your agreement with the provider stays in place. The broker's agreement with the provider governs the price the broker pays.