PIM Price increases and alternative PIMs

PIM renewals are coming in higher. Consumer price inflation is part of the background. The product record still has to live in one place. Wrong shipments and wrong prices on the site come from scattered product data. Stay on the current PIM or move: aim for one source for the catalog, the descriptions, and the change history, online and offline. That consistency is what the brand experience across channels depends on.

Why the license went up

Three pressures show up together.

Demand. Remote work and the push to automate raised spending on digital tools, PIM included. Vendors price into that demand.

Operating cost. Inflation and labour show up in salaries, marketing, and the rest of the bill, and then in the license.

Positioning. This is the main reason. inriver and Akeneo have moved from mid-market toward the high end of the mid-market and into enterprise, which is what lets them charge more. That move follows thin innovation from tools whose core is ERP or MDM, and too little investment in PIM-specific features.

Newer products have entered anyway. That competition is likely to drive further change, and more affordable, better-performing options for companies of different sizes.

If the renewal is already higher

You may be on inriver or Akeneo, or on a license priced the same way. Three moves.

Negotiate. The move up-market is hard to reverse. There is still room on price, discount, or payment terms when you bring purchasing leverage to the conversation. That softens the increase for teams already carrying higher costs.

Look at other tools. Pimcore and Akeneo, both long-standing open-source options, have shifted more of the useful functionality onto paid tiers. Many newer products are in the market. Weigh them against the product-data work you actually do. We can help find an alternative that fits.

Rank the spend. PIM can be a strategic priority and still sit next to other IT investments that also need the same money. Judge the renewal and those other investments on business value and return, against the objectives you already have.

Before the next increase

If the current term still runs, use it.

• A headless front end and an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) decouple the shop from one back end, so a later PIM swap stays possible as tools and prices move.
• Build the vendor relationship as a deal both sides can keep. Aim for an agreement where each side gets something it can defend.
• Keep watching tools, pricing, and what is newly useful. Generative tools such as ChatGPT belong on that watch list, because they change the daily product-data work the license is supposed to cover.

The price is mostly a positioning choice by the larger vendors, with inflation and demand behind it. Your counter is a record you can move, a shortlist you have already priced, and a budget choice made against the other IT work on the table.