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Discover HR software broker benefits. OutSail improves HRIS vendor negotiation, saves time, avoids wrong-fit demos, and delivers expert vendor matching at no cost.
Going straight to HRIS vendors feels efficient. But between wasted demos, blind negotiations, and the massive cost of choosing wrong, the "direct" approach often ends up being the most expensive path. Here's how HR software broker benefits change the math.
It seems like the obvious approach.
You need an HRIS. There are vendors who sell HRIS software. Why not just go directly to them, skip the middleman, and handle it yourself?
This logic drives most HR leaders straight to vendor websites. They fill out "request a demo" forms, schedule calls with sales teams, and start the evaluation process without any third-party involvement.
On paper, it looks efficient. In practice, it's often the most expensive way to buy HR software—even when you end up choosing a great vendor.
The costs aren't always visible on an invoice. They show up in wasted hours, drawn-out timelines, negotiating without leverage, and sometimes, choosing the wrong system entirely.
Let's break down what going direct actually costs—and why working with an HRIS broker like OutSail typically saves money, even though the broker's services are free.
When you go direct, you're building your own shortlist from scratch. That usually means:
The problem? Without deep market knowledge, your shortlist is essentially guesswork. You're including vendors who will never be a fit—wrong size range, missing key modules, too expensive, wrong industry focus—because you have no way of knowing that upfront.
Each misaligned demo costs you:
Time: A typical HRIS demo runs 60–90 minutes. With prep, follow-up questions, and internal debriefs, each vendor easily consumes 3–4 hours of your team's time. Multiply that by four or five wrong-fit vendors, and you've lost 15–20 hours before talking to anyone who could actually win the deal.
Attention: Vendor evaluation is mentally exhausting. Every demo you take with a wrong-fit vendor depletes the attention and energy you should be saving for the vendors who actually matter. By demo eight, you're fatigued—and that's often when the right vendor finally shows up.
Momentum: A drawn-out process with too many vendors creates delays and decision fatigue. Stakeholders lose interest. Budget windows close. What should take six weeks stretches to four months.
OutSail's approach: Based on your specific requirements, OutSail delivers a curated shortlist of three to five vendors who are already strong fits. You demo fewer vendors, but they're the right vendors. The time you save on wrong-fit demos goes back into evaluating the options that actually matter.
HRIS selection has best practices. There's an optimal order of operations, questions you should ask at each stage, red flags to watch for, and milestones that keep the process on track.
Most HR leaders don't know these best practices—because they buy HRIS software once every five to seven years. You're not a procurement expert, and there's no reason you should be.
Going direct means learning through trial and error. You'll discover halfway through that you should have defined requirements more clearly upfront. You'll realize after three demos that you've been asking the wrong questions. You'll get to the proposal stage and have no framework for comparing apples to oranges.
This learning curve extends timelines and increases the chances of a poor decision.
OutSail's approach: You get access to ready-made tools and proven processes built on thousands of completed selections:
You're not reinventing the wheel. You're using tools refined over 1,000+ client engagements.
Here's where going direct gets really expensive.
When a vendor sends you a proposal, you have no idea if the pricing is fair. Is $18 per employee per month competitive or inflated? Is a $25,000 implementation fee standard or negotiable? What about that three-year contract term—can you get it down to two?
Vendors know you don't have this information. They price accordingly.
HRIS vendor negotiation is a game where one side holds all the cards. The vendor has done thousands of deals. They know exactly how much margin they have, what discounts are realistic, and which fees are pure profit. You've done maybe two or three HRIS purchases in your career—if any.
Going direct means negotiating blind. And blind negotiation means leaving money on the table.
OutSail's approach: OutSail maintains a database of thousands of HRIS pricing data points—actual contract values across vendors, company sizes, and deal structures. When you receive a proposal, your advisor benchmarks it against real market data:
Armed with this data, you negotiate from a position of knowledge rather than hope. Clients routinely save 10–20% on their contracts simply by knowing what's realistic to ask for.
On a $50,000 annual HRIS contract, that's $5,000–$10,000 in savings—every year.
The costs above are painful but recoverable. This one isn't.
Choosing the wrong HRIS is expensive in ways that compound over years:
Implementation costs you can't get back: You've already spent $30,000–$100,000+ implementing a system. When it doesn't work, that money is gone.
Productivity losses: A poor-fit HRIS creates workarounds. Your team spends hours fighting the software instead of doing HR work. Employees get frustrated with clunky self-service. Managers avoid using the system entirely.
Re-implementation costs: Eventually, you'll have to replace the system and do it all over again—another $50,000–$150,000 in implementation costs, another six months of disruption, another round of training and change management.
Opportunity costs: Every year you're stuck with the wrong system is a year you're not benefiting from the right one. Better recruiting, smoother onboarding, more accurate payroll, improved employee experience—all delayed.
Most companies don't fully account for these costs when evaluating their HRIS options. They focus on the subscription price and ignore the massive downside risk of a bad decision.
Going direct increases the risk of choosing wrong. Without expert guidance, you're more likely to be swayed by a polished demo, miss red flags that an experienced advisor would catch, or select a vendor that works for companies like yours on paper but fails in practice.
OutSail's approach: Every vendor recommendation is based on actual fit with your requirements—not marketing claims or demo showmanship. OutSail's advisors have seen which vendors succeed and struggle with different company profiles. They know which platforms shine for manufacturing versus tech versus healthcare. They've watched implementations succeed and fail.
That pattern recognition doesn't guarantee a perfect choice. But it dramatically reduces the odds of an expensive mistake.
Let's put rough numbers to a typical mid-market HRIS selection:
The "free" approach of going direct often costs more than the free approach of using a broker—through wasted time, missed savings, and increased risk.
It's worth asking: if third-party brokers save buyers money, why don't vendors discourage them?
The answer is simple: vendors benefit from working with OutSail too.
When a buyer comes through OutSail, they're:
This is why 220+ vendors partner with OutSail. The broker model isn't adversarial—it's aligned. Vendors get better-qualified leads. Buyers get expert guidance. OutSail gets paid on completed deals. Everyone wins.
If you've only bought software direct, here's what changes when you work with a broker like OutSail:
Before you talk to any vendor:
During evaluation:
When proposals arrive:
After selection:
The entire process is designed to get you from "we need an HRIS" to "signed contract with the right vendor" as efficiently as possible.
Going straight to vendors feels like the direct route. But without market knowledge, proven processes, and negotiation data, you end up taking the long way around—and paying for it in time, money, and risk.
Working with an HRIS broker adds expertise without adding cost. You demo fewer vendors, evaluate more efficiently, negotiate more effectively, and dramatically reduce the odds of an expensive mistake.
That's not adding a step to the process. It's removing the steps that waste your time and money.
Ready to see which HRIS vendors are actually worth your time?
OutSail is a free HR technology broker that has helped over 1,000 companies make smarter HRIS decisions. With partnerships across 220+ vendors and a pricing database built on thousands of actual contracts, OutSail gives you the market knowledge and negotiation leverage that going direct can't match.
