Lucent1 charges two things.
The rate
A flat 1% of the vendor base cost, on every transaction.
A platform subscription
Charged to IT resellers and vendors. Not yet priced, see below.
That is the whole of it. There is nothing further that appears at contract, at invoice, or at renewal.
The rate
A flat one percent of the vendor base cost, on every transaction.
The vendor base cost is the price the vendor sets for the product, before anything is added to it. The 1% is calculated on that number and nothing else.
It does not change as volume grows. It is not an introductory rate, a promotion or a discount, and there is no arrangement under which it becomes something else. It is the business model.
| Vendor base cost | $1,000.00 |
|---|---|
| Lucent1 1% | $10.00 |
| IT reseller total | $1,010.00 |
- All three, before you commit
- The vendor base cost is shown first. It is the number the legacy model does not show, and without it there is no way to check what the 1% is a percentage of.
The platform subscription
This is the part of our pricing we cannot give you a number for yet, so here is exactly what we can say about it.
Who pays it
IT resellers and vendors alike. We are not designing one side to carry the other.
What it buys
Access to the platform itself: the vendors on it, quoting, deal registration, co-terming, the renewal alerts and the agents that run them. It is a recurring charge, not a one off.
Why it exists
So that 1% can stay at 1%. The transaction fee is not designed to carry the business on its own, as set out further down this page.
What it is not
Not a transaction cost. It is not deducted from a vendor's base cost and it is not added to an IT reseller's total, which is why it does not appear on the quote above.
The price
Not set. We are pre-launch, and neither the amount nor the billing period has been decided, so there is no figure to publish and we are not going to invent a range to look complete.
When you will know
Before the platform opens to transactions in Australia. It will be published on this page when it is set, and quoted in writing before you commit to anything. If the platform is open and there is no figure here, we have not kept this.
What is not charged
A list this long is the point. Each item is a thing that does not exist here.
No tiers
There is no banding, no status level and no rate that depends on which one you are in. One rate, one list, everybody.
No volume thresholds
The rate does not step down at a number, or up at one. Your first transaction and your ten thousandth are priced identically.
No backend rebates
Nothing is held back to be returned later, so there is nothing to forecast, reconcile or chase.
No margin stacking
The 1% is applied once, to the vendor base cost. Nothing is applied to the result of it.
No onboarding fee
Onboarding costs nothing, on either side. There is no implementation charge and no setup charge.
No commitment
No lock-in contracts, no exclusivity, no volume commitments, no switching penalties.
Why the rate is possible
One percent is a low number and the question it raises is a fair one, so here is what makes it work rather than a reassurance that it does.
The platform runs as software rather than as staffed service. We have no quote desk, no account management layer and no manual support function to fund, so the cost of processing a transaction is a fraction of what a staffed model costs to run. In a model where a transaction is processed by a person, 1% does not work. In a model where it is processed by the platform, it does.
The rest is volume, and the platform subscription set out above. Between them, the transaction fee does not have to carry the business by itself, which is what allows it to stay where it is.
Vendors design IT reseller margin into their programs, typically 15 to 30%. The 1% Model exists so that the margin the vendor designed is the margin the IT reseller receives.
Where to start
If you want the subscription figure the moment it is set, or you want to know whether a vendor you sell is on the platform, ask. If it is not there yet, we will tell you.