You probably know your EDI VAN renewal is right around the corner, but understanding what you actually pay for can feel like peeling back layers on an onion. The problem is not just the total cost, but the number of hidden fees that add no value yet quickly erode your budget. If you are a CFO, CTO, CIO, IT or EDI leader, this guide will help you spot the seven hidden fees that most commonly inflate VAN bills and offer clear steps so you can address them before agreeing to another contract cycle.
You might see a predictable monthly rate, but most VAN invoices quickly grow with add-on charges. These fees usually appear as setup, mailbox, migration, per-document, minimum usage and support surcharges. Over time, we’ve seen these add up to 40 to 80 percent costs you could eliminate with the billing transparency you should expect.
Check your invoice for any one-time charges for onboarding, environment creation, migration or compliance. These can show up as line items from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, per project or per trading partner.
With some providers, this can total six figures just to get started. At Nexus VAN, we do not charge for any setup, migration, or onboarding, period.
Do you have separate mailboxes, environments, or user accounts for QA, different teams, or business units? Many VANs charge monthly fees per mailbox, or per user. These add up fast—and often increase year to year as your structure grows.
We include unlimited mailboxes, IDs, and portal seats for all clients. There’s never a penalty for scaling your business or splitting access between departments.
It sounds reasonable—pay for what you use per document. But once volumes rise, this is a silent cost accelerator. Add-ons like minimum transaction volumes or surcharges for each partner can mean you pay more even as partners or usage change.
We use actual kilo-character (KC) usage, never count per document or trading partner, and do not enforce minimums that do not reflect real business needs.
Overages are one of the least transparent surcharges in the industry. These occur when your data use exceeds a written threshold. But just as often, excess fees stem from how data is counted—some providers round each document up to the nearest thousand or ten thousand characters, meaning your actual use and your bill do not match.
Nexus VAN always bills for the precise number of characters you transmit, never more.
If you want a deeper explanation of this industry practice, see our analysis on VAN overages.
You expect support to be part of the service, but many contracts still list recurring premium support, account management, "priority escalation," or alerting fees. Be careful not to accept these as fixed costs, especially if usage drops or complexity decreases.
At Nexus VAN, all clients get technical support and migration included as standard, not premium.
Many contracts separate translation, mapping and compliance testing as variable costs. In reality, these services are essential, not extras—and should have clear, flat pricing for standard transformations and label fulfillment. At Nexus VAN, translation and fulfillment add-ons are straightforward, and you always know what is included.
Perhaps the most frustrating fee is the one you find when it's time to move. Early termination penalties, data export charges, or fees for "transition support" appear in many contracts. Their purpose is to create friction and discourage you from considering a better deal, even when you know it's time to make a switch.
We include migration, onboarding, and data export. There are no lock-in penalties and the 90-day free trial gives you confidence you can test Nexus VAN in parallel before ever making a final decision.
If you only know usage-based billing by document or trading partner, it is worth examining how pricing by kilo-character (KC) works. With KC pricing, you pay for the exact amount of EDI data actually transmitted. You are not penalized for extra mailboxes, low-volume partners, or burst activity that reflects normal business cycles.
For more details, our post explains EDI VAN pricing models in plain English.
Before you renew, a 60-day invoice and contract review can help you pin down the real cost of your current solution:
For tips on reading through complex invoices and statements, see our guide on breaking down hidden EDI VAN fees.
Many finance and IT leaders hesitate to move providers because of the risk and complexity of migration. In reality, with experienced EDI project managers and the right portal tools, moving to a new VAN is measurable, controlled, and transparent. With Nexus VAN, your migration is handled entirely by EDI specialists, and our migration dashboard gives you visibility at each stage. Your team can run both solutions side by side during your 90-day free trial, and you will never be forced to switch until your traffic, formats, and partners are fully live. You do not need to ask your trading partners to re-platform.
Most importantly, this approach is proven to cut costs—our clients report consistent savings of 40 to 80 percent compared with their prior VANs, without giving up performance, uptime, or responsiveness.
If your renewal is coming up soon, now is the time to document your costs, challenge each hidden fee, and set clear targets for what you will and will not accept. Use your effective cost per kilo-character as your key benchmark. Bring in your finance, IT, and EDI team for the audit process. And if you want an objective comparison based on your actual data, request a side-by-side estimate or reach out to Nexus VAN for help. You can find more resources and actionable steps throughout our blog archives, including:
You do not need to accept hidden fees as a cost of doing business. If you want to learn more about transparent billing, schedule a demo, or get answers about migration, visit Nexus VAN for details. Our EDI specialists are ready to walk you through a zero-risk transition that brings your VAN spending in line with real business needs.
