Flat per-tenant vs per-user, for MSPs
When a management tool bills per user, your cost climbs with every seat a client adds. rugged.sh charges one flat fee per customer tenant, so a client's headcount stops being an input to your platform bill.
Per-user tools
You pay for every user in every tenant, every month. Onboarding a bigger client, or a client that grows, directly raises your bill: the tool takes a cut of your own margin as your customers scale. Budgeting means counting seats across the whole fleet.
rugged.sh: flat per tenant
One predictable fee per customer tenant: $10 for Microsoft 365, $50 for Azure (AVD / Windows 365), $60 for both, regardless of user count. A 5-seat client and a 500-seat client cost the same to manage. The trade runs the other way at the bottom: for a very small tenant, a per-user rate can work out lower.
Monthly management cost as a client grows
One AVD / Windows 365 client, priced both ways. The per-user column assumes a typical ~$12/user management fee; rugged.sh stays flat at $50 USD/tenant/month.
| Users in tenant | Typical per-user tool | rugged.sh | Difference / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | ~$120 | $50 | ~$70 |
| 25 | ~$300 | $50 | ~$250 |
| 50 | ~$600 | $50 | ~$550 |
| 100 | ~$1,200 | $50 | ~$1,150 |
| 200 | ~$2,400 | $50 | ~$2,350 |
Illustrative of the two pricing models, not a specific competitor's published price. Microsoft license and Azure consumption costs are separate and identical either way. All prices in USD.
Flat vs per-user, answered
- Is flat per-tenant pricing actually cheaper than per-user?
- Past a handful of seats, yes, and below that it can go the other way. A per-user management tool bills more as a client adds users; rugged.sh charges a flat $10 USD per client per month for Microsoft 365, $50 for Azure (AVD / Windows 365), or $60 for both, no matter how many users that client has. Divide the flat fee by the per-user rate on your own quote to get the break-even headcount, then compare it against your client list. At the illustrative $12/user/month used in the table above, a 100-user AVD client is $1,200/month against $50 on rugged.sh.
- What am I comparing, exactly?
- The management-platform fee, not Microsoft's own license or Azure consumption costs (those are the same whichever tool you use). The per-user figures shown are illustrative of a typical management tool, to compare the two pricing models rather than any one competitor's quote.
- Does the flat fee mean fewer features?
- No. The billing unit does not gate capability. The flat per-tenant fee covers template-driven AVD and Windows 365 deployment, autoscaling, Microsoft 365 governance and drift detection, an automation catalog, client-ready QBRs, and a multi-tenant console with hard tenant isolation. The console shows a projected autoscale saving next to each tenant's fee; that figure is a model, not a measurement, and whether it covers the fee depends on the client.
- Can I try it before switching?
- Yes. The free tier covers 1 tenant and 5 users with no time limit, running against your own Azure subscription. Connect one client and compare the numbers on your own fleet before moving the rest.
Run the numbers on your own fleet
Start free on one tenant, then run the numbers against your real clients.