Avanan Introduces First Consumption-Based Licensing for Email Security

Highlights

• Avanan is introducing a new usage-based payment option for all email security plans.
• An optional billing method: usages are measured daily and paid monthly or annually.
• This makes it possible for businesses to be more cautious with their spending while increasing security for remote employees when phishing attacks are increasing.

Background

The Avanan solution has always offered more security than competing products.

• Our Office 365 anti-phishing and other security layers block more attacks, catching what others miss because we train our artificial intelligence on actual attacks that bypass Office 365.
• We scan all email—incoming, outgoing and internal.
• We secure the entire Office 365 Suite, from Exchange Email and OneDrive to SharePoint and Teams. And not only Office 365–we secure other popular collaboration apps like G Suite and Slack.

But can you get more security for less money? The COVID-19 crisis has reminded us that both budgets and staffing needs may change suddenly and unpredictably. Some of our customers have had to hire additional employees and contractors to respond to the crisis; others have entire departments at a standstill. University student accounts have gone idle and some accounts are no longer needed. We are responding to the crisis with a more flexible and responsive billing plan.

Introducing Usage-based Billing. Avanan is introducing a new option for customers—to pay for their email security the same way they pay for their electric bill, paying only for what they use. We hope to lead the security world away from expensive and inflexible contracts that might last two or three years. Because Avanan is designed to integrate and protect cloud services that already offer usage-based billing, it seems natural to bill in exactly the same way, adapting easily, and automatically, to changes in your business.

How Does It Work?

The system reduces costs in two ways:

• Usage-based billing: pay only for the security you use.
• Customizable protection levels: pay only for the security you need.

Usage-Based Billing

Every night, our system will count the number of active accounts and only charge the pro-rated cost of those users (i.e the daily cost per user is the annual price divided by 365).

Customizable Protection Levels

You can reduce costs by customizing the protection for different groups within your organization. For example, a university may choose to secure only staff and faculty and exclude students, or an enterprise may not need to secure some departments or contractor accounts. Avanan allows you to define a subset of users that will receive the protection, and pay only for that group.

How Does Billing Work?

Monthly, Credit-Card Based Billing

The most popular option is automated credit card billing. Avanan will send a monthly invoice with the itemized usage and bill your credit card. Everything is automatic so you don’t need to make any changes as you add accounts or change usage. The only reason your bill will increase is if you add new accounts. Otherwise, it will be less than you budgeted.

Annual Usage-Based Billing

For customers that prefer to pay annually, we will estimate the yearly cost but only charge for actual usage each month. Any unused amount will roll forward each month and the remaining balance will be credited to the following year. A monthly receipt will itemize the costs and show the remaining balance.

Who Can Benefit?

While all customers will see a reduction in their costs, the customers that could benefit the most are:

• Companies impacted by COVID-19: Companies that need to expand or contract their workforce will find their costs adjust accordingly and automatically.
• Companies with seasonal employees: Universities and tax-accounting firms, for example, see significant changes in new, temporary and closed accounts throughout the year so all users can be protected without paying for idle accounts.
• High Growth Companies: For companies that cannot predict future needs, security will grow automatically.
• Companies moving to Office 365: Organizations that gradually move their staff from datacenter to cloud services do not need to worry as new accounts are automatically protected at the lowest cost with zero management.

Conclusion

We hope that the COVID-19 crisis is a temporary one. We also hope that these changes will help simplify security and save money for our customers. Even after this crisis, however, we know that businesses will continue to face other uncertainties and hope this plan will offer the flexibility to respond.