If you buy an on-premise solution via perpetual user licensing, your vendor will charge you an annual maintenance fee.

The maintenance fee covers the costs of the vendor 'maintaining' their software, which means fixing bugs and improving the software by enhancing the functionality that is made available to users via regular software update packs.

The maintenance fee is not a support fee. Telephone or email support is normally an extra fee that will be charged either by your vendor or your partner - depending on who is providing the support.

The maintenance fee is generally not optional (if you want to benefit from bug fixes and imporvements) whereas the support fee is optional as is the provider of that support, who may not be the vendor/partner who supplied the solution but a third party specialising in supporting your specific ERP application.

Maintenance and support fees are usually between 15-25% of the user license value. Support fees may also be based on hourly rates that are purchased in 'packs' for use on-demand.

Support fees are subject to a Service level Agreement (SLA) that will have various levels of response and resolution expectations depending on the fee paid.

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