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Discover how OutSail free service outperforms HR tech consulting. Compare OutSail vs consulting firms for unbiased HRIS selection, vendor matching, and cost savings.
HR consulting firms charge $20,000 to $100,000+ for HRIS selection projects. OutSail charges nothing. Here's why the free option often delivers better, more unbiased results—and what most companies don't know about how consultants really make money on these engagements.
When you're facing a major HRIS decision, hiring a consulting firm feels like the responsible choice.
You're making a six-figure technology investment that will affect every employee for the next five years. Shouldn't you bring in experts? Wouldn't it be reckless not to pay for professional guidance?
The logic seems sound. But it misses something important: the HR consulting industry has a business model problem that most buyers never see. And that problem often makes "professional guidance" less objective than the free alternative.
Let's break down how OutSail's free advisory model actually compares to paid consulting firms—not just on cost, but on incentives, expertise, and outcomes.
First, the obvious: HR consulting firms charge substantial fees for HRIS selection projects.
A typical engagement runs $20,000 to $50,000 for mid-market companies. Enterprise-level selections with formal RFP processes can exceed $100,000. These fees cover requirements gathering, vendor research, RFP development, demo facilitation, and selection recommendations.
For large organizations with procurement budgets, these fees might be manageable. But for growing companies—the 200 to 2,000 employee range where HRIS decisions matter most—$30,000+ for vendor selection advice is often out of reach. That's a meaningful chunk of the software budget itself.
So most mid-market companies skip the consultants and go it alone, mudding through G2 reviews and vendor demos without expert guidance. The result? Longer timelines, worse matches, and decisions based on whoever gave the best sales presentation.
OutSail offers a third path: Expert advisory with no project fees, no retainers, and no cost to the buyer.
How? OutSail operates as an HR technology broker, receiving a commission from whichever vendor you ultimately select. The expertise is real. The guidance is hands-on. The invoice to you is zero.
But "free" raises its own questions. Can free advice actually be unbiased? And can a broker model deliver the same quality as a paid consulting engagement?
The answer to both is yes—and here's why.
Here's something most companies don't realize when they hire an HR consulting firm for HRIS selection: this probably isn't what the firm actually does.
For the vast majority of HR consultancies, technology selection represents less than 5% of their revenue. Their real business is implementation services, fractional HR support, benefits consulting, compliance work, and ongoing managed services.
HRIS selection projects are often a loss leader—a way to get in the door before upselling the services that actually drive their business.
This creates problems that go beyond cost:
When something is 5% of your revenue, you don't invest heavily in it. You don't build proprietary tools. You don't maintain a database of current pricing across 220+ vendors. You don't track which vendors perform best for specific company sizes, industries, and use cases.
Most HR consultants run HRIS selections the same way they did a decade ago: manual research, Word document RFPs, and Excel spreadsheet comparisons. They're generalists applying general frameworks to a specialized problem.
OutSail does one thing: HR technology advisory. One hundred percent of the business is focused on helping companies research, evaluate, and select HR software. That specialization shows up in purpose-built evaluation tools, continuously updated vendor data, and advisors who spend all day, every day on HRIS selection—not quarterly when a project comes in.
If a consulting firm's real revenue comes from implementation services, what do you think they're optimizing for during the selection process?
Not necessarily the best vendor for your needs. Often, it's the vendor that creates the biggest implementation project—or the vendor they're already certified to implement.
This doesn't mean consultants are dishonest. But incentives shape behavior. A firm that makes $50,000 on selection and $200,000 on implementation will naturally gravitate toward recommendations that lead to larger implementation engagements.
OutSail has no implementation services to upsell. The business model is clean: find you the right vendor, get paid by that vendor when you sign. There's no downstream revenue that might bias the recommendation toward a more complicated (and more profitable) implementation.
Here's the most uncomfortable truth about HR consulting firms: many have preferred vendors.
Sometimes it's explicit—they're a certified implementation partner for Workday, UKG, or ADP. Sometimes it's implicit—they've done twelve implementations on one platform and know it inside out, so they naturally recommend it because it's easier for them.
Either way, the "objective evaluation" you're paying for often has a thumb on the scale before the first demo happens.
OutSail partners with 220+ vendors—every major HRIS in the market—with no preferred platforms and no implementation partnerships that would bias recommendations. The only question is which vendor best fits your specific requirements, not which vendor the advisor is most comfortable implementing.
The surprising pattern: the free option frequently outperforms the paid option across most dimensions that matter.
This is the reasonable objection. If OutSail gets paid by vendors, won't they push you toward higher-priced options or vendors who pay bigger commissions?
Here's why that concern doesn't hold up:
Commission rates are standardized. OutSail's agreements with vendors use consistent commission structures. There's no financial incentive to recommend Vendor A over Vendor B—the commission percentage is the same.
Success requires completed purchases. OutSail only gets paid when you actually sign a contract. Pushing you toward the wrong vendor means you're less likely to complete the purchase, which means OutSail doesn't get paid. The incentive is to find the right fit, not any fit.
Reputation is the business. OutSail has helped over 1,000 companies make HRIS selections. That track record—and the referrals it generates—depends on clients ending up with systems they're actually happy with. One biased recommendation might generate a commission; a thousand successful matches builds a business.
The comparison point matters. Is broker-based advisory theoretically less pure than paying a consultant out of pocket? Perhaps. But as we've established, paid consultants have their own biases—implementation upsells, preferred platforms, limited vendor knowledge. The question isn't "is OutSail perfectly unbiased?" It's "is OutSail more unbiased than the realistic alternatives?" The answer is usually yes.
If you've only experienced consulting-firm-style engagements (or no guidance at all), here's what OutSail's model delivers:
You're matched with an advisor who learns your specific situation—not a junior analyst gathering requirements for a partner who swoops in for presentations. Your advisor is your consistent point of contact from first conversation through signed contract.
Before any vendor conversations, OutSail helps you articulate what you actually need: must-haves versus nice-to-haves, integration requirements, budget parameters, timeline constraints. This prevents the common trap of falling for flashy demos that don't solve your real problems.
Based on your requirements, you receive a detailed shortlist of three to five vendors specifically matched to your situation. This includes pricing estimates, pros and cons relative to your needs, and real user feedback from similar companies.
No six-week RFP process. No 50-page deliverable filled with padding. Just actionable recommendations you can move on immediately.
OutSail's platform provides shared scorecards, pre-built question libraries, and structured workflows that make vendor demos actually comparable. Your team evaluates against consistent criteria rather than subjective impressions.
When vendors submit proposals, OutSail benchmarks them against a database of thousands of HRIS contracts. You'll know whether pricing is competitive, which fees are negotiable, and what terms to push back on. Clients routinely save 10–20% through informed negotiation.
Need implementation support beyond what the vendor provides? OutSail maintains relationships with implementation consultants across the ecosystem—and connects you without markups or referral fees. No upsell, just access to the right resources.
To be fair, there are scenarios where a traditional consulting engagement might be appropriate:
Massive enterprises with formal procurement requirements. If you're a 10,000+ employee organization with mandatory RFP processes, board-level reporting requirements, and a procurement team that expects traditional deliverables, a consulting firm may fit your existing workflows better.
Situations requiring extensive change management. If your HRIS project is part of a larger HR transformation that requires organizational change management, training development, and multi-year roadmaps, a full-service consultancy brings capabilities beyond vendor selection.
When you need someone to blame. This sounds cynical, but it's real: some organizations need a third-party name on the recommendation for political cover. "McKinsey recommended it" carries weight that "we used a free broker" might not in certain corporate cultures.
For the majority of mid-market companies making straightforward HRIS decisions, though, these scenarios don't apply—and the consulting firm model delivers less value at far greater cost.
Consider a typical mid-market HRIS selection:
Even if the consulting firm delivered marginally better analysis (which isn't guaranteed), the $35,000 savings could fund a year of additional HR software, implementation support, or actual HR headcount.
And there's an opportunity cost most companies ignore: while you're waiting for consultants to complete their 12-week engagement, you're another quarter further from having the system you need.
Paid consulting firms built their HRIS selection practices as a side business—a door-opener for implementation services and ongoing engagements. The selection itself is an afterthought, often performed by generalists with limited vendor knowledge and significant conflicts of interest.
OutSail built the entire company around HRIS selection. Every tool, every process, every advisor hour is focused on helping you find the right vendor at the right price. And you pay nothing for it.
That's not a gimmick or a loss leader. It's a business model designed around a single goal: successful selections.
Ready to see what expert HRIS guidance looks like without the consulting fees?
OutSail is a free HR technology broker that has helped over 1,000 companies—including DoorDash, Hudl, and Aurora—research, evaluate, and select the right HRIS. With partnerships across 220+ vendors and zero project fees, OutSail delivers consulting-quality guidance with broker-model economics.
