eOffice cost: what a rollout quote contains and how to compute TCO

The first question almost everyone asks is what an eOffice system costs. Straight answer: a customized eOffice project for a Vietnamese organization typically starts from 300 million VND and is delivered in three to six months, depending on scope and how ready the organization is. There is no per-seat price list, because most of the cost sits in customization and integration work, not in the number of accounts.

This article does not compare deployment models and does not rehash technical selection criteria. It is only about money: what an eOffice quote contains, which factors move the number up or down, how to compute a three-to-five-year total cost of ownership, and what to prepare so you receive a tight figure instead of a meaninglessly wide range.

Why office automation software has no published price list

Software sold as a fixed package can publish a price, because every customer gets the same feature set. eOffice is the opposite. Two organizations of the same size in the same sector still have different approval chains, different form sets, different document numbering rules, different HR and accounting systems. The cost lives in fitting the software to those differences.

This is not a quirk of the private market. Vietnam's own budgeting framework for IT projects follows the same logic. Decree 73/2019/ND-CP dated 5 September 2019 governs investment management for IT applications funded by the state budget, later amended by Decree 82/2024/ND-CP. Circular 04/2020/TT-BTTTT dated 24 February 2020, effective 9 April 2020, sets out how to establish and manage cost for those projects. In that Circular, in-house software has no fixed unit price: it is determined by norm-based calculation, or by collecting quotes from at least three different suppliers, or by an expert panel, or by comparison with a similar system already delivered. Four methods, none of them a price list.

If your organization spends public budget, this has a practical consequence: you will need three or more quotes to build the estimate. Read the next section carefully, because three quotes are only comparable when all three describe the same scope.

Seven cost components in an on-premise eOffice quote

A complete quote should itemize the following. If a vendor collapses everything into one line, ask for a breakdown before you compare anything.

• Assessment and business consulting. Sitting with each department, reconstructing the real document and approval flows, agreeing the form catalogue. This is the line most often cut and the one where cutting hurts most, because every misunderstanding here returns as a change request in month four.
• Platform licensing. The product core. Under an on-premise model this is usually a one-time payment tied to a version and the right to install on your own infrastructure, not a monthly rental.
• Business customization. Specific approval routes, custom forms, numbering rules, permissions mapped to your org structure, reports in your internal formats. Usually the largest component and by far the most elastic.
• Integration with existing systems. Central identity, mail, HR, accounting, digital signing, document interchange platforms. Each integration point is its own line item, and its price depends almost entirely on whether the other system exposes a decent API.
• Server infrastructure. Application server, database server, document storage, backup, and a test environment separate from production. It may be new hardware or capacity on virtualization you already run.
• Training and handover. End-user training by role, administrator training, documentation, and on-site support during the first weeks after go-live.
• Annual maintenance and support. Bug fixes, version updates, technical support under an agreed response commitment. This is the recurring operating cost, and it determines most of the total cost of ownership over time.

Circular 04/2020/TT-BTTTT also names a line commercial quotes tend to skip: contingency, covering both scope growth and price escalation. In the Circular, the contingency factor for additional work volume is capped at 10%. Even if you spend no public money, that figure is a sensible reference when you budget an internal software project.

What pushes eOffice rollout cost up or down

• Number of business flows. Inbound and outbound correspondence alone is a tight scope. Add signing, purchase requests, leave, travel claims and task assignment, and each flow becomes its own block of analysis, modelling, permissions and testing. This is the strongest driver of the final number.
• Depth of integration. A legacy system with an API is one price. One that only allows direct database access is another. One with nothing at all, where you exchange files, is the highest and the riskiest to maintain.
• Security requirements. Full audit trails, encryption at rest, multi-factor authentication, environment separation, documentation for the assigned information system security level. Each requirement carries both implementation and paperwork effort.
• Legacy data migration. If your backlog sits in another system with a clear structure, this is tractable. If it is scattered across shared folders and spreadsheets, cleanup and data entry can exceed the software cost. Many organizations migrate only the most recent few years and keep the rest as a lookup archive.
• User count. Less influential than you would expect on-premise. It mainly affects server sizing and training volume rather than multiplying the software price the way a subscription does.
• Organizational readiness. The strongest downward lever, and the only one entirely in your hands. An organization with a settled org chart, agreed approval authority and a project owner who can decide will roll out visibly faster and cheaper than one still debating its own processes mid-project.

Licensing versus operating cost: on-premise against subscription

The two models have different cash-flow shapes, and both have a downside. Stated fairly in both directions.

Subscription spreads payment evenly, needs no upfront capital, needs no infrastructure team, and the vendor handles upgrades. In exchange, the payment scales with headcount and never stops. Seven years in you are still paying what you paid in year one, usually more, and you own nothing.

On-premise needs capital upfront, needs someone to operate it, and puts backup responsibility on you. In exchange, cost flattens after year one, does not scale with headcount, and the asset is yours. The technical trade-offs between the two are covered in on-premise versus SaaS eOffice; here we only do the arithmetic.

How to compute total cost of ownership over n years, written as formulas so you can substitute your own numbers:

• On-premise TCO. One-time rollout cost, plus infrastructure allocated across n years, plus annual maintenance times n, plus internal operations staff cost times n, plus planned upgrades within the period.
• Subscription TCO. Price per user per month times users times twelve times n, plus initial setup and configuration fees, plus integration or API charges if billed separately, plus overage storage fees, plus the cost of extracting your data when you leave.
• Break-even. Divide the difference in upfront investment by the difference in annual cost. The result is the number of years after which the one-time investment is cheaper. If that exceeds the lifespan you expect from the system, subscription is the financially correct choice.

Three cautions when substituting numbers. First, include internal staff cost on the on-premise side or the comparison is rigged. Second, use a three-year headcount forecast on the subscription side, not today's number, since organizations grow. Third, for publicly funded projects, the method for costing rented IT services has its own guidance in Circular 12/2020/TT-BTTTT, separate from the investment framework in Circular 04/2020/TT-BTTTT.

Hidden costs organizations forget

• Your own people's time. Assessment, acceptance testing and training all consume hours from your busiest staff. It appears in no quote and is always a real cost.
• Digital certificates and signing devices. If your flows include digital signatures, certificates, key storage devices and their annual renewal are a separate line, not part of the software price.
• Digitizing the paper backlog. Scanning, naming, tagging metadata. Volume is routinely underestimated by a wide margin.
• A test environment. A separate installation for trying configuration changes before touching production. Skipping it saves a little infrastructure and buys incidents.
• Backup and disaster recovery. Local backup is the floor. A copy at a second site is a separate decision to make upfront, not after the first incident.
• Post-go-live adjustment. Processes on paper and processes in practice always diverge. Reserve budget for a tuning round in the first six months.
• Recurring training. New hires, internal transfers. Training is an annual activity, not a one-time event.
• Exit cost. If you change vendors later, how do you get your data out and what does it cost. Ask at signing, not when you want to leave.

What to prepare for an accurate quote

Quote quality follows input quality. Assemble the following before the first working session and the number you get back will be far narrower and more trustworthy.

• The list of business flows you want on the system, clearly split into phase one essentials and later phases.
• The forms actually in use, including those used by a single department. More special-case forms means more customization, and knowing upfront beats discovering midway.
• Org chart and headcount by role, with a three-year forecast.
• The list of systems to integrate, each annotated with whether it has an API and who administers it.
• Legacy data volume: how many documents, where they live, whether they are structured, how many years back you need to search.
• Security and compliance requirements, including the assigned information system security level if determined, and any domestic data residency obligations. Context on that in on-premise eOffice and data sovereignty.
• Infrastructure status: do you have a server room, a virtualization platform, and who operates it.
• Target timeline and the project owner on your side, together with what that person is authorized to decide.

When comparing three quotes, compare on identical scope. The most useful table is not the one ranked by total price but the one broken out by component: how many customization person-days each vendor assumed, how many integration points, what percentage of contract value each commits to for annual maintenance. An unusually low quote is usually an incomplete one, and the missing part returns as a contract addendum. Non-financial vendor criteria are covered in choosing eOffice software.

Conclusion

eOffice cost is not a number but a structure: an upfront investment set by business scope and integration depth, plus an annual operating cost set by the support commitment. Organizations that separate those two, compute a three-to-five-year total cost of ownership, and prepare their information before asking for a price avoid both familiar traps, overpaying and underbuying.

Tetra eOffice sells neither rigid packages nor per-seat subscriptions. We assess your real operations first and quote afterwards, so the number reflects the scope you actually need, starting from 300 million VND with delivery in three to six months depending on scope. If you are budgeting for next year, book a consultation for a figure grounded in your own operations.