1

IT budgets are shifting fast—whether it’s software renewals, compliance tools, or energy costs. What area are you seeing costs creep up the fastest, and how are you planning ahead?

12 Spice ups
2

We are looking to replace our current on prem VM cluster. We bought our current system 5 years ago. To do a 1 to 1 replacement with newer hardware, the cost has almost tripled. We are looking at moving from a cap-ex to an op-ex model for our hardware, which has some savings.

4 Spice ups
3

Subscription creep. So many subscriptions. We spent much of our On-Prem years paying outright for licenses and hardware and then running them two generations to get the most value out of them. We’d still be on Win7 were that still an option. We’ve never had a specified budget. But, we’re spending much more annually than ever before even with Inflation and such figured in.

12 Spice ups
4

Security, security, security, and uh… let me see… more security.

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5

Subscription price increases due to unwanted AI bloat.

Looking at you Adobe Acrobat. I can read, I don’t need to pay more for an AI summary tool.

16 Spice ups
6

Subscription prices, mentioned already, are killing so many budgets…and the “tariffs went up” excuse is getting old…it’s software, there’s no physical ‘thing’ that causes the price to go up, and all but guarantee not a single programmer gets a raise…

Also of note, hardware costs, due to tariffs…

7 Spice ups
7

I’m in Australia and it’s subscription prices and hardware replacement costs that are really starting to eat in to our budget with probably the biggest issue being software renewals and licensing for copilot (For some terminal server based users I’m struggling to understand other than revenue why Microsoft has determined that a user cannot use a Office 365 Apps for Enterprise subscription + a copilot license and instead needs a Office 365 Apps for Enterprise, Office 365 Business Standard and a copilot license).

It’s starting to get beyond a joke at this point. We’re also doubly screwed if the USD to AUD exchange rate moves too much as that also applies pricing pressure as well.

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8

Filing cabinets and typing paper. Not expensive right now - but once organizations get tired of being exploited and bled to death by Microsoft and Google and Amazon and the AI leeches, they will be.

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9

anything that consumes alot of rare earth materials, like battery backups. we manufacture and test electronics for mining equipment and all the electrical surges eat up battery backups

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10

So far, news about US and Australian relations has been pretty non-existent. Either your government is appeasing the American dictator well enough or he just hasn’t gotten around to reaming you folks yet…you’re probably good for the remainder of the year though…

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11

Last year was infrastructure and end user hardware upgrades. This year, 3 AI subscriptions (lawyers can’t agree on anything) will be almost equal to that hardware cost. Worst to me is that out of all the licenses, only 10% are being used.

3 Spice ups
12

What is the Op-Ex model for that? Some kind of lease deal?

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13

I hate to answer “Yes” but I work for a non-profit, so the answer is just Yes.

Microsoft just announced they’re ending their free E1 licensing for non profits, so that’s an extra 3k per month. End of Windows 10 also means we have to replace computers that can’t run Windows 11, which is more cost because of Microsoft.

Adobe stopped selling perpetual licenses through TechSoup, so we have to switch to their subscription for new Acrobat licenses.

Thankfully, I was prepared for Broadcom to try to bend us over a barrel for vSphere licensing (I remembered them doing it at a previous company over Symantec SMB Edition), so I had Proxmox VE set up as prep, and lo and behold, it happened. Managed to get our environment shifted over before the deadline in their Cease and Desist letter after we said no to a 12x cost increase, year over year.

6 Spice ups
14

We are using Dell servers. It is Dell Apex. We will have the hardware on prem, but only using what we pay for (there is an agreed upon baseline that you pay regardless).

3 Spice ups
15

I assume you’ve looked at Google Workspace for Nonprofits. We’ve been on it for about 14 years, they’ve added and removed features of course, but the price has never changed, still free, they have other options with cost associated but at a deep discount off the normal price.

3 Spice ups
16

I hadn’t actually. I’ll poke around, but I will freely admit most of this migration would be re-training users I barely trust with pencil and paper let alone a computer.

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17

Just started my 2026 budget. Most of our software maintenence renewals are stable from last year. A few like PDQ are calling it a renewal but it would be the same price as a new purchase. They budget killer is Broadcom. Last years vSphere renewal was $54k. Now it is $216k and locked in for 3 years. Luckily the newest units, purchased in December still have new perpetual licenses until 2029. We are looking at SaaS on Prem with Dell to wipe out the vSan cost but keep our VxRails.

3 Spice ups
18

Yes, everything is a service now, what do we actually own?
& don’t forget to pay the bill for the AaaS, BaaS, CaaS, DaaS, EaaS… etc.

3 Spice ups
19

Software licensing, some of it nearly TRIPLED this year. Also, Dell servers, damn…sticker shock on the last purchases, doubled?

3 Spice ups
20

Probably hardware, between “AI”, cloud and tariffs, I won’t be surprised if on-prem hardware costs go up.

3 Spice ups