FloQast is a close management tool that integrates directly with Excel and Google Sheets. It acts as a central management layer that organizes the close checklist, reconciliations, and trial balance tie-outs.
If you are currently managing the close with spreadsheets, implementing a close management tool can help you gain visibility into your process, enforce accountability across your team, and ensure the completeness and accuracy of your reconciliations.
But let’s be clear about what a close management tool is: it is a management tool, not an automation tool.
FloQast gives you visibility into your close and a central location to track the close.
It doesn’t do your accounting.
Yet it costs as much as a staff accountant.
Read this whitepaper for a comprehensive breakdown of FloQast's true functionality, the hidden costs within its sales model, and how to evaluate close management software without overpaying.
Putting FloQast’s Pricing into Context
To understand why FloQast is overpriced, we need to compare it to the software other departments use to manage their complex workflows. For all of the following tools, we'll use the listed annual pricing, converted to a monthly price.
General task management software
First, let’s look at general task management software. There is no shortage of powerful, enterprise grade project management tools on the market:
- Asana: $10.99 to $24.99/user/month
- Monday.com: $9 to $19/user/month
- ClickUp: $10 to $19/user/month
Naturally, you are willing to pay a premium for a tool that is specifically optimized for accounting and finance. But how much of a premium is justified?
Let’s look at the specialized tools driving other departments in your company.
You’re in a unique position as a member of the accounting staff, because you have direct visibility. Open your ERP, check your operating expenses, and follow along:
Engineering
How much does your engineering team spend to ship complex software?
GitHub Enterprise costs $21/user/month.
Jira and other workflow management tools like Linear cost around $16/user/month.
Design
How much does your design team spend on Figma to prototype entire applications? For a Full seat, the Professional plan costs $16/user/mo, and the Enterprise plan costs $90/user/month. Keep in mind that Figma is a foundational tool for UX designers, not just a workflow management tool.
Sales
Your CRM is the system that drives your company's top line. It orchestrates multi-channel marketing campaigns, predicts revenue forecasts, and drives your company's growth.
How much does your sales team spend on a powerhouse tool like HubSpot or Salesforce? Professional tiers start at $25/user/month, and Enterprise tiers run from $75 to $100/user/month.
Your ERP
Your ERP system is the financial lifeblood of your company. It stores every single transaction, manages complex workflows, and acts as the system of record for your entire business.
How much do you spend on your ERP, like NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, or Acumatica? While unfortunately not all vendors list their pricing publicly, the industry standards are well-documented:
- Dynamics 365 Finance: $210/user/month
- Dynamics 365 Finance Premium: $300/user/month
FloQast
Finally, let's look at FloQast.
Let's do the math using a standard mid-market FloQast quote: $35,000 for 6 users for 1 year.
That works out to $486.11/user/month.
If you want to run your exact numbers, use this FloQast pricing calculator.
Even on its basic plan, FloQast charges an order of magnitude more than the most advanced, enterprise-tier workflow management tools used by other departments.
From another perspective: FloQast costs as much as, or more than, your ERP.
Think about that for a minute.
You are being asked to pay more for a tool that merely tracks your close schedule than you are for the complex system that actually runs your entire business.
Summary
The table below summarizes the software tools used by various teams across a company. Notice how other workflow management tools cost an order of magnitude less than FloQast, and how even foundational software for other teams costs 2-5x less than FloQast.
Software | Department | Category | Cost /user/month |
|---|---|---|---|
Asana | General | Workflow management | $24.99 |
Monday.com | General | Workflow management | $19 |
ClickUp | General | Workflow management | $19 |
GitHub Enterprise | Engineering | Foundational | $21 |
Jira Premium | Engineering/Product | Workflow management | $15.42 |
Linear Business | Engineering/Product | Workflow management | $16 |
Figma Enterprise | Design | Foundational | $90 |
HubSpot Smart CRM Enterprise | Sales | Foundational | $75 |
Salesforce Pro Suite | Sales | Foundational | $100 |
Dynamics 365 Finance | Accounting/Finance | Foundational | $210 |
Dynamics 365 Finance Premium | Accounting/Finance | Foundational | $300 |
FloQast | Accounting/Finance | Workflow management | $486 |
The Myth of "Customized" Pricing
FloQast claims that its pricing is "customized" to your organization. For a software like ERP, which requires deep discovery calls, mapping business requirements, and tailoring features to your company operations, custom pricing makes complete sense.
But let's examine the actual complexity of FloQast's software. How much data is it responsible for?
Your actual accounting data lives in your ERP. Your folders, workpapers and spreadsheets live in your existing cloud file storage. FloQast doesn't have a massive database to manage. The only data FloQast holds is your close checklist, reconciliation schedule, and sign-offs.
Because of this lightweight architecture, there simply isn't that much customization necessary, or even possible. In reality, "customized pricing" is merely a smokescreen designed to obscure how expensive the software is relative to its low complexity.
Implementation Fees
During the sales process, FloQast reps will heavily pitch their “quick implementation and time-to-value” as a primary benefit of the system.
They aren’t lying. It is quick.
But that begs a serious question: Why is there a five-figure implementation fee for a system that only takes a few clicks to set up?
A close management tool needs to integrate with two things: your ERP and your cloud file storage. That’s it. Integrating with modern cloud file storage systems, like SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and Box, is done with a few clicks. The same is true for most modern ERPs.
You can realistically set up the technical infrastructure of FloQast in a single day.
There’s simply no reason to charge an implementation fee.
If you push back, they may waive it as a “concession” to close the deal, but it was never a legitimate fee to begin with, and their "concession" makes it harder for you to secure real concessions.
What are the alternatives?
By now, it should be clear that FloQast is grossly overpriced for what it does.
If you’re evaluating your options, you might be wondering what the alternatives are.
Could your engineering team just vibe code a custom checklist and reconciliation tracker internally?
You probably could. The application architecture is simple enough.
However, building an internal tool introduces new risks. You lose the benefit of having an arms-length, third-party system of record. Relying on a secure, tamper-proof and independently audited platform for financial approvals is a key internal control, especially for SOX compliance.
Second, you must evaluate the long-term maintenance costs and technical debt. At FloQast’s price point, you might actually be tempted to dedicate expensive internal engineering resources to build and maintain your own tool. But at any reasonable price point, building it in-house is simply not worth the ongoing maintenance expense.
Fortunately, you don’t have to overpay for FloQast or build it yourself. You can simply choose CloseCore.
CloseCore delivers the exact same seamless integrations, recurring folder structure and accounting workflows you need, with options to add advanced, AI-first automations, at a price point that makes it an easy decision.
