Choosing how you manage your EDI operations impacts not just your IT budget, but your staffing model, ongoing risk, and the agility of your business. In our years supporting experienced EDI professionals, we’ve seen all the cracks in traditional on-premise EDI, and we know how tough it is to make that first jump to a cloud model. Let’s walk through the real math and operational realities, and uncover costs and risks you might not see until they impact your bottom line.
First, let’s clarify what’s at stake. On-prem EDI means managing everything yourself: servers, EDI translation software, security, upgrades, and 24x7 support. In the cloud (a managed EDI VAN), you access the service online, relying on your provider’s infrastructure, monitoring, and expertise. At Nexus VAN, we shoulder the infrastructure, operational, and compliance burden so you can keep your team focused on growing the business and supporting your partners.
We recommend analyzing total cost of ownership (TCO) over three years, not just licensing costs or monthly bills. This honest model should include:
Let’s use a concrete example: A mid-market company handling 60,000 EDI transactions a month, with 40–120 trading partners and 15–40 users. This is a realistic profile for many businesses we work with.
Subtotal (3 years): $289,000
Subtotal (3 years): $656,100
That’s a 63% savings by moving to cloud EDI in this example, with most of the gain coming from lower VAN billing, staffing efficiencies, and a dramatic cut in project and downtime exposure.
The headline numbers rarely tell the full story for IT leaders, CFOs, or private equity teams. The staffing model with on-prem EDI produces less obvious, but significant budget leaks:
With cloud EDI managed through a platform like Nexus VAN, your people focus on exceptions and relationships rather than infrastructure firefighting.
A mature managed VAN reduces your dependency on hard-to-find experts, making it possible to staff with broader IT or business analysts supported by the vendor’s experts.
Nexus VAN handles upgrades and scaling transparently, so your “project” is a validation checklist, not a multi-month fire drill.
The idea that cloud is inherently pricey for steady, business-critical workloads has some truth if you only compare direct server costs. But this view ignores what you’re paying for:
On-premise means cobbling this together with added tools, consultants, and nightly maintenance.
In our experience, perceived risk, not actual migration complexity, stops many organizations from making a change. Nexus VAN is designed from the ground up to remove these roadblocks and put real control in your hands, not ours. Here’s how:
You can read more about how transparent billing models and same-day support drive predictable outcomes in our recent post on billing transparency.
For CFOs and IT leaders who need a hard number for board or investment review, here’s what works best:
When you line up the real numbers, most organizations save 40–80% compared to old-model VAN billing and heavy internal staffing, even before counting the agility and uptime improvement.
Cloud EDI through a provider with real transparency, like Nexus VAN, isn’t just about outsourcing a headache. It’s about transforming a patchwork of hidden fees, support black holes, and brittle legacy servers into a predictable, modern platform, complete with full compliance, cost certainty, and fast support when you need it. The numbers show this isn’t risky, it’s practical.
We’re passionate about helping organizations move from overpaying and firefighting to stable, future-proof EDI operations. If you want to break down your actual 3-year TCO or see how our migration tools work, feel free to connect with our team or try our risk-free trial at Nexus VAN.
