ROI, TCO Cloud all in Browser vs. On-Premise Installations: What the status quo really costs you
Feb 16, 2026
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Lesezeit 9 Minuten
You are currently paying €157,000 per year for your company systems. You don't believe it? Most mechanical engineering companies underestimate their actual IT costs by a factor of 2 to 3. Why? Because hardly anyone includes the hidden costs.
What the TCO calculation really has to show
Total Cost of Ownership does not just mean licensing costs. Here’s what most people forget.
The obvious costs:
SolidWorks Professional: €4,144/year per seat
PDM System: €3,500 pro-rata (for 10 users)
SAP Business One: €3,280/year per user
ANSYS Mechanical: €8,800/year per seat
The hidden costs:
Server room operation: €11,300/year (electricity, climate, space)
IT administrator: €18,000–45,000/year (depending on company size)
Hardware depreciation: €6,300/year
Windows Server + SQL + VMware: €12,540/year
VPN licenses: €120/year per employee
Backup & Disaster Recovery: Included in server room operation
The invisible costs:
Manual bill of materials transfer: 4h/week per designer = €13,520/year with 8 designers
Version conflicts due to PDM issues: Difficult to quantify, but real
Delayed updates due to maintenance windows: Loss of productivity
Home office limitations: VPN performance, IT tickets
Example calculation for 25 employees (8 CAD, 15 ERP, 3 simulation):
On-Premise annual costs:
├─ Software: €96,760
├─ IT infrastructure: €30,140
├─ IT admin: €30,000
└─ TOTAL: €157,000/year
The Cloud-Native Collaboration Model
Same company, different architecture:
Cloud-Native annual costs:
├─ Onshape Professional: €15,600 (8 × €1,950)
├─ ERPNext Business Cloud: €9,000 (15 × €600)
├─ SimScale Professional: €8,400 (3 × €2,800)
├─ Nextcloud: €1,500
├─ Bitwarden: €1,200
├─ Support (15%): €4,950
└─ TOTAL: €57,000/year
Savings: €100,000/year (63%)
But it gets even better.
What the numbers don't show: Time Savings
Cloud-Native eliminates manual data maintenance:
Before (On-Premise):
Designer releases component in SolidWorks
Part no., description, material are manually copied to Excel list
Excel list is transferred to SAP
Bill of materials is manually typed
Errors happen, corrections take more time
Time spent: 4 hours/week per designer
After (Cloud-Native with Webhook):
Designer releases component in Onshape
Webhook is triggered automatically
ERPNext receives: part no., description, material, complete bill of materials, STEP file, PDF drawing
Time spent: 0 minutes
With 8 designers:
1,664 hours/year saved
Equivalent: €108,160 (at €65/h)
ROI of the webhook integration: < 1 month
The 5-Year Perspective
Over 5 years, not only the ongoing costs accumulate. On-Premise requires:
Year 4: Major upgrade cycle
SolidWorks version upgrade: ~€6,500 × 8 seats × 33% = €17,160
SAP update project: ~€2,700 × 15 users × 33% = €13,365
Additional costs: €30,525
5-Year TCO:
On-Premise: €815,525
Cloud-Native: €285,000
──────────────────────
Savings: €530,525 (65%)
What you could do with €530,000
3 additional engineers for 3 years
Complete FEM/CFD infrastructure with SimScale Enterprise
10 more prototype iterations per year
An innovation fund that really finances innovations
Or simply: Better margins, less stress, more flexibility.
The agility you can't buy
Some benefits are hard to express in euros:
Onboarding new employees:
On-Premise: 4 months (IT order, installation, training, VPN setup)
Cloud-Native: 3 weeks (create account, grant access, get started)
Factor: 12x faster
New location:
On-Premise: 8 weeks (set up server, network, migration, tests)
Cloud-Native: Instant (open browser, log in, work)
Factor: Instant
Implementation:
On-Premise: 11 months (planning, hardware, installation, data migration, go-live)
Cloud-Native: 4 months (account setup, webhook integration, training)
Factor: 3x faster
Your custom calculation
Every company is different. That’s why we built an interactive TCO calculator:
The calculator considers:
✅ Your exact team size (CAD, ERP, Simulation)
✅ Implementation costs (Year 1)
✅ Upgrade cycles (Year 4)
✅ Time savings through automation
✅ 1-year, 2-year, and 5-year perspective
Takes 2 minutes. Shows you in black and white what the status quo costs.
The uncomfortable truth
Most mechanical engineering companies stick to On-Premise because:
"We've always done it this way" – true, and it was right. 10 years ago.
"We just invested in SAP" – Sunk Cost Fallacy. The past is gone, the future is coming.
"Our IT department knows about this" – Exactly. They know about server maintenance. Not about product development.
"Cloud is insecure" – GDPR-compliant EU servers (Frankfurt, Amsterdam) with end-to-end encryption are less secure than your server room in the basement?
None of these reasons stand up to a TCO analysis.
What's next?
You have three options:
Option 1: Do nothing
Continue paying €157,000/year
Continue wasting 1,664 hours/year
Continue struggling with VPN problems
Continue onboarding new employees for 4 months
Option 2: Calculate yourself
Enter your numbers
Take a screenshot
Show management
Option 3: Look together
We calculate live with your real data
You get a 3-step plan
Costs you €390, can save you €500,000+
The core question
It's not about cloud vs. on-premise.
It's about:
Can we afford €100,000/year in inefficiency?
Do we want to be 1,664 hours/year more productive?
Is agility more important to us than habit?
The numbers are there. The only question is: Do you want to see them?
Next step:
Or directly:
📅 Book a 90-min cloud readiness check – €390 net
📧 Questions by email
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