Seat Minimum (Email Signature Software)

A seat minimum is the floor a vendor bills at even when an organization has fewer employees than the floor. For small teams it changes the effective price far more than the advertised per-user rate. A vendor charging $1.10 per user with a 10 seat minimum costs $11 a month for a 6 person firm, while a vendor charging $15 a month for up to 5 users and $2 per user above that costs $20 for the same firm, since 6 to 10 users bill as one band, and $15 for a 3 person firm that the 10 seat vendor still bills at $11. The gap widens as the minimum rises. Minimums in this category commonly sit at 5, 10, or 20 users, and at least one vendor sets a 20 licence floor that prices out most sub-20 teams entirely. Seat minimums matter most to the buyers who are least likely to check them, which is service businesses of 5 to 25 people where email is the client-facing surface. The practical test is to multiply the vendor's minimum by its lowest published rate and compare that number, not the per-user rate, against actual headcount.