What you pay for in an M‑Files project
Essentials has a published per-user price on m-files.com and Enterprise is quoted. Implementation, training and support after go-live come on top, and we set out each part so you can see what it covers.
Essentials or Enterprise
M‑Files is sold in two editions. Essentials has a published per-user price on m-files.com and is usually billed yearly. Enterprise is quoted on scale, governance, automation and AI use rather than on user count alone.
What both editions include
Metadata-based document management, M‑Files Aino, the Microsoft 365 integration and graphical workflows, with standard M‑Files product support. Essentials covers everyday AI tasks such as finding information and summarising documents.
What Enterprise adds
More AI capacity, extended audit logging, file encryption keys held in your own Azure Key Vault, federated sign-in through Microsoft Entra ID, custom versioning schemes, and controlled rendering, printing and watermarking.
Hubshare for clients and partners
M‑Files Hubshare lets you share selected content with invited clients and partners, who see only the hubs they are invited to. It comes with the Enterprise plan and is licensed separately.
Named, concurrent and read-only
Besides named-user licences, M‑Files has concurrent and read-only licence types, so a licence can match how each person uses the system. Which types your edition offers is part of the quote.
The four parts of the quote
- Licences — M‑Files comes in two editions, Essentials and Enterprise, and the licence depends on the edition and on who will use the system. Products that run on M‑Files, such as our own VisualQMS or CtrlPortals from our development partner CtrlDocs, are licensed on top.
- Implementation — We set M‑Files up around your documents: what is stored, how it is described and which workflows it follows. Where needed, we connect it to CRM, ERP and other systems. We can start quickly with a pilot for your use case.
- Training — Training and e-learning for the people who will work in the system.
- Support after go-live — Fast access to specialist knowledge, an agreed SLA, technical advice and support, and upgrades.
What we ask before we quote
The licence is the published part. The rest of a quote follows from your answers to these questions, and we go through them with you in the first conversation.
Who will use it, and how
The number of people, and whether each needs a named licence, shares a concurrent one or only reads. People who only read can have a read-only licence.
Which documents go in first
Contracts, supplier certificates, employee files or project documents. Each kind brings its own metadata and its own workflow, and a pilot can start with one of them.
Which approvals to automate
Review and approval, reminders before a notice date, retention and deletion are all set up as workflows in a graphical designer rather than coded. Their number and shape drive the implementation effort.
What it connects to
Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are covered by the M‑Files licence, and Teams by M‑Files' app for Teams. Keeping customers, suppliers or employees in sync with your CRM, ERP or HR system is integration work we scope separately.
What happens to existing files
Network folders and SharePoint Online can stay where they are and be shown through connectors, or be moved in. With the M‑Files Metadata Agent, metadata can be added to existing documents in bulk.
What runs on top
VisualQMS, our own quality management system, and the add‑ons from our development partner CtrlDocs are licensed on top of M‑Files. M‑Files' own add‑ons, such as Hubshare and M‑Files for Outlook Pro, are licensed separately too.
Try M‑Files free for 30 days
You get your own M‑Files vault in the cloud, with basic content and workflows already loaded, and the core of the platform to try, M‑Files Aino included.
- Ask us for access — Ask through our contact form. There is no credit card to enter and nothing to install.
- Invite your colleagues — Add as many colleagues as you like.
- Thirty days, then a pilot — When the 30 days are over, the usual next step is a pilot on your own documents, which we can start quickly.
