Many companies looking for an affordable marketing automation solution dive into the open source adventure with Mautic, thinking that open source (an open application code) is free. That’s true, but only partially. It is indeed very easy to download the full code (hosted on GitHub, here our fork), which technically lets you run the application for free. However, Mautic is a very feature-rich marketing automation software and is technically rather complex to manage. On top of that, depending on your needs, there can be fairly strong hosting constraints.
In this article, we will break down the costs and resources to consider when you decide to host the open source version of Mautic.
How an open source service works vs. SaaS
When you subscribe to a marketing automation software in SaaS such as Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot or Webmecanik, you benefit from a certain number of services bundled with the software itself. In a way, the software is only part of the price of your subscription. On the open source side, which you host yourself, you will need to find solutions to cover these services that don’t exist in an open source project.
These related services can be costly to produce in terms of time, energy, or money if you buy them from third parties (IT consultancies or agencies). So, to run your open source Mautic in a sustainable way, include the following services in your cost estimate:
The infrastructure to host Mautic
- At least one server to run the application
- A redundant service to prevent downtime
- Optionally a queue system and/or load balancer to handle load
- A network connecting these different machines
Software maintenance
- Keeping the marketing automation software up to date
- Keeping the OS up to date
- Also keeping the entire stack needed to run the software (database, PhP, etc.) up to date
Application maintenance
- The Mautic software itself—plan for roughly one update per month to integrate. This involves backups before updating and troubleshooting issues if any arise during the update.
- Installing and configuring the plugins you want to implement
- Security management
- Functional development and bug fixes not resolved by the community
- Setting up a backup system
- Restoring services during outages
Essential services for proper marketing automation operation
- An email router
- Optionally an SMS router (and other channels you will use that come at a cost)
- Implementing initial campaigns and training the user teams
Yes, that’s quite a bit of extra work. When you click a button to open an account in SaaS, you don’t realize it, but there’s work that isn’t visible that is provided by the software vendor/host. Suffice it to say that you will need a team with a wide range of skills and availability to make sure your marketing automation service runs. For Mautic, you will need at least skills in:
- PhP / SQL (Symfony will be very useful)
- DevOps for server management
- Marketing
Especially since the availability of your service (the SLA) is more important than you think. I want to emphasize the importance of having these resources available. Indeed, once your forms are live, even the smallest outage could cause you to lose business opportunities and harm your credibility.
The alternative to full open source or full SaaS
This alternative is the choice we made at Webmecanik regarding Mautic. We work on this open source project 100%, and after 4 years since the project began, we are the main contributor alongside the company behind Mautic.
Webmecanik is the open source solution, pre-packaged with all the services listed and maintained as a SaaS offering. That way, you can access the most advanced and flexible solution on the market at the click of a button (the advantage of open source vs. proprietary technologies), while also benefiting from the support and service of a SaaS solution with an SLA higher than 99.99%.
More than one user already won over by this option
Over the 4 years, we’ve had the chance to face the dilemma: “but we can do it ourselves too, right?!”. That’s true! However, don’t rush into it without anticipating the list of costs and resources required. In addition, many users of open source Mautic have joined us over time, either because they were dissatisfied with the level of support available or because they don’t have the time to manage their maintenance themselves. It’s true that when your job is to develop high-precision dental prosthetics, you don’t necessarily have the time and resources to take care of maintaining a third-party software. That would be wasting energy on a support, secondary activity.
We also had the opportunity to meet agencies through this opening. Agencies that are now proudly listed among our expert partners in marketing automation software. We handle the technical side, and they handle the strategic support of their clients.
