We sometimes get enquiries from customers who compare the license fees charged by a competing school management system which looks cheaper than using QuickSchools.com. Certainly, there will be some programs out there which are cheaper. In fact, if all you’re looking for is a single-user system installed on a PC to track student particulars, you can download such systems for free (i.e. http://www.topshareware.com/School-Management-System-download-44233.htm).

But if you’re like most schools, you’re looking for an advanced web-based system that will support simultaneous logins by your administrative staff, your teachers, and the parents. Such a system needs to be reliable. Can you imagine handling frustrated complaints by teachers and parents if the system goes down, perhaps for days at a time? I didn’t think so.

So let’s take a look at the costs involved if you had to install and run your own web-based school management system. Unsurprisingly, there are a ton of hidden costs which go way beyond the software license cost.

It is not trivial to provide a reliable, web-based system. The moment you have many users who depend on the system, you have a responsibility to ensure the system is secure and reliable. Expensive (and reliable) servers must be procured and managed. Backups have to be made and periodically checked to make sure garbage is not being backed up. Upgrades must be planned to ensure the system remains up to date in terms of hardware and software. Security patches must be carried out.

To do all of the above, you need competent IT staff to take care of the system.

You can see how this gets really expensive, really fast. Your total cost of ownership (TCO) balloons to much more than your initial purchase cost. As a school, I don’t think you want to deal with these non-value-added stuff. You want to focus on education.

This is where QuickSchools.com comes in. We’re the experts in managing the behind-the-scenes details, so let us take care of all that for you. It’s available 24×7 via the web… you just focus on using the system.

And to top it all off, we’re able to do this at such low prices because we’re able to amortize all those costs across many schools. So you end up winning – both in terms of TCO, and in terms of not having to deal with all the back-end stuff.