I didn't set out to build maintenance software. I set out to solve a problem I kept running into: small maintenance teams (a facilities engineer at a school, a maintenance manager at a small factory, someone looking after a block of flats) being priced out of tools designed for organisations ten times their size.

This is the story of why PPM Maintenance Tracker exists, and why I think the subscription model is genuinely harmful to small teams trying to run professional maintenance operations.

The problem with how CMMS software is sold

CMMS stands for Computerized Maintenance Management System. It's the category of software used to manage work orders, equipment records, and preventive maintenance schedules. The tools in this space (MaintainX, Limble, Fiix, eMaint, and others) are mostly good products. They've invested heavily in features, mobile apps, and integrations.

But they're almost all priced the same way: per user, per month, forever.

A typical mid-tier CMMS subscription runs £45–£150 per user per month. For an enterprise with 50 maintenance staff, that's expensive but justifiable. The software is core infrastructure, and the per-user cost amortises across a large team.

For a team of three? That's £135–£450 every single month. £1,620–£5,400 per year. For software you never own, that can change its pricing at any time, and that holds your maintenance history hostage if you ever want to leave.

"For a team of three, a typical CMMS subscription costs £1,600–£5,400 per year. For software you never own."

I kept meeting maintenance professionals who had evaluated these tools, done the maths, and gone back to spreadsheets. Not because spreadsheets are better (they're not, and everyone knows it) but because the alternative was spending more on software than on spare parts.

What small maintenance teams actually need

Here's the thing nobody in enterprise software wants to say out loud: most small maintenance teams don't need 90% of what a modern CMMS offers.

They don't need IoT sensor integration. They don't need multi-site dashboards. They don't need API connectors to their ERP. They need:

  • A proper work order system to replace the whiteboard or the shared spreadsheet
  • An equipment register so service history doesn't live in someone's head
  • Preventive maintenance schedules that actually remind people when things are due
  • PDF reports for audits, management, or compliance sign-off
  • Multi-user access so the whole team can log work without one person being a bottleneck

That's it. Those five things, done reliably, would transform most small maintenance operations. And they don't require a cloud subscription to deliver.

Why I chose a perpetual license model

When I started building PPM Maintenance Tracker, the pricing model was the first decision I made, not the last. Everything else followed from it.

A perpetual license (you pay once, you own it forever) does something important: it aligns my incentives with yours. I make money when the software is genuinely useful enough that you choose to buy it. I don't make money by making it difficult to cancel, by gradually raising prices, or by restricting features to higher tiers to push you up the pricing ladder.

Subscription software has a structural problem that nobody talks about enough: the vendor's interests and the customer's interests diverge over time. The vendor wants you locked in and paying monthly. You want the best tool for your needs at the lowest cost. Those are not the same thing.

"A perpetual license aligns my incentives with yours. I make money when the software is genuinely useful enough that you choose to buy it."

With a one-time purchase, there's no lock-in. If you decide PPM Maintenance Tracker isn't right for you, you stop using it. Your data stays on your own machine. I never had access to it. There's nothing to cancel, no awkward conversation with a retention team, no data export that may or may not include everything.

The hidden costs of cloud CMMS

The per-user monthly fee is the obvious cost. But there are others that don't show up in the headline price.

Your data lives somewhere else

When your maintenance records are in a vendor's cloud, you're dependent on their uptime, their data retention policies, and their continued existence as a business. Most vendors are fine. But "most" isn't "all," and the risk is real, particularly for organisations that need to retain maintenance records for compliance or legal purposes.

PPM Maintenance Tracker stores everything in a SQLite database on your own machine or server. I can't access it. It doesn't disappear if I go out of business. It's yours.

Internet dependency on industrial sites

A lot of the sites where maintenance software matters most (factories, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, remote properties) don't have reliable internet. A cloud-only CMMS becomes useless when the connection drops. A local application keeps running regardless.

Price increases

Every SaaS company reserves the right to raise prices. It's in every terms of service. Most do, eventually. You have limited leverage as a small customer. You can cancel, but switching maintenance systems is painful enough that many teams just absorb the increase and resent it.

With a one-time license, the price you paid is the price you paid. Forever.

What the numbers actually look like

Let's be concrete. Take a maintenance team of four people (a maintenance manager and three engineers) at a small manufacturing site.

On a mid-tier subscription CMMS at £60/user/month:

  • Year 1: £2,880
  • Year 2: £2,880 (assuming no price increase)
  • Year 3: £2,880
  • Three-year total: £8,640

On PPM Maintenance Tracker:

  • One-time license: £499
  • Year 2: £0
  • Year 3: £0
  • Three-year total: £499

That's not a rounding difference. That's £8,141 kept in the maintenance budget, money that could go on spare parts, tools, or training.

What I had to compromise on

I want to be honest about what a one-time license product can't do, because pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

A subscription business has recurring revenue to fund continuous development, large support teams, and constant feature additions. I'm one developer. I can't build everything, and I've had to make choices about scope.

PPM Maintenance Tracker doesn't have a native mobile app (the interface is mobile-friendly in a browser, but it's not an app). It doesn't have IoT integrations, multi-site management, or ERP connectors. It's not trying to be those things. It's trying to be the best possible tool for a single-site maintenance team that needs core CMMS functionality at a price that makes sense.

If you need those enterprise features, tools like MaintainX or Limble exist and are worth the money for the right organisation. I'd rather be honest about fit than sell you something wrong for your needs.

Who PPM Maintenance Tracker is built for

After all of this, the answer is pretty simple. It's built for:

  • Small maintenance teams of 1–10 people at a single site
  • Any industry: manufacturing, facilities, property, hospitality, education, healthcare
  • Teams currently using spreadsheets who need something more structured
  • Teams who've looked at subscription CMMS tools and can't justify the cost
  • Sites where internet reliability is an issue
  • Anyone who's been burned by SaaS price increases and wants a fixed cost

If that sounds like you, the 14-day trial is free and requires no payment details. Download it, set it up, and see if it works for your team before committing to anything.

About Engineering Support UK. PPM Maintenance Tracker is built and maintained by Bartosz at Engineering Support UK. Questions or feedback: [email protected]