Document management systems are a major capital expense. You can expect to pay thousands of dollars for even the most basic system. The piece to remember is the economics we discussed in the Benefits section: with a bit of analysis of the costs of your current paper systems, you will quickly realize that the ROI potential these systems carry is significant.

Also, keep in mind that these systems are highly customized, so pricing will vary tremendously depending on the features and integration work you require.

For entry-level paper conversion systems, including a server and scanner and software with all the basic indexing, searching, and security features, you might be able to go as low as $3,000 for a very small setup. At ten users, you’re more likely looking at a minimum of $6,000 and often more. A medium-sized installation, with web access, auditing, and workflow features, and support for 100 users will probably run $25,000 to $80,000 plus. Costs for enterprise-level solutions for hundreds of users can easily reach half a million dollars or more.

For ASP models, you can expect minimum prices of $250 per month, and easily over $1,000 per month for mid-sized solutions. Support for larger companies can quickly top $2,000 per month.

Some ASP suppliers base their fee structures on the total number of images in the system, rather than the number of users. Since you’ve already estimated the amount of documents your system will be handling, you should be able to compare costs fairly easily.

Again, these are only rough estimates of your total costs. Vendors will break down the pricing in much more detail: hardware, software, customer service and support, training, installation, and maintenance.

If you’re having archived records scanned, expect prices of between 2 and 20 cents per page. You’ll pay more for on-site scanning, stapled or damaged documents, and indexing services. When you consider a million-file archive, you can see why many companies opt for the scan forward approach and leave their old documents as they are.

Some businesses aren’t concerned with compliance, don’t need network access to their documents, and have few tracking and security needs. In those cases, a turnkey solution for $200 or $300 can be sufficient – but the benefits are limited to basic scanning of important documents.