Almost nobody in this category publishes a rate. Provenir, Taktile, FICO, Experian, GDS Link and CRIF all quote through sales, and so do we.
That leaves buyers comparing proposals that are not structured the same way, where the cheapest licence is frequently the most expensive outcome. This page covers the pricing models you will actually meet, what moves the number, the costs that never appear on a quote, and how to compare two proposals honestly.
Why loan decisioning software is quote-only
The honest reason is that the cost genuinely varies, and a published number would be wrong for most buyers.
A microfinance lender running 800 applications a month on one product is not the same purchase as a multifinance company running 40,000 across five products with three bureau integrations and a custom scorecard. Volume, product count, integration depth and policy complexity each move the total materially.
The reasonable test is not whether a vendor publishes a rate. It is how quickly they will give you a real one. A vendor who needs six weeks and three meetings before producing a number is telling you something about how the rest of the relationship will run.
The four pricing models you will meet
Per-decision or per-application consumption
You pay for what you run. Costs track volume in both directions, so a slow quarter costs less and a growth quarter costs more. This suits lenders with seasonal or uncertain volume, and it makes the unit economics legible: you can put a number on what each decision costs you.
Flat platform fee
A fixed annual or monthly amount regardless of volume. Predictable for budgeting, and good value at high volume. The risk is paying for headroom you never use, which is common when a lender buys for the volume they plan to reach rather than the volume they have.
Seat or enterprise licence
Priced by users or by institution, typically annual, typically with a floor. This is where the large incumbents sit, and the floor is usually the binding constraint for a mid-market lender rather than the rate itself.
Platform fee plus usage
A base fee that covers the platform, with consumption on top. The most common enterprise shape. Watch the ratio: a high base with low usage rates behaves like a licence, and a low base with high usage rates behaves like consumption.
What actually drives the number
Five levers explain most of the variance between quotes.
- Decision volume. The primary driver in every model, and the one to be honest about. Quoting your ambition rather than your current run rate is how lenders end up over-committed.
- Products in scope. Document intelligence, decisioning, or both. Buying the two separately from two vendors is usually more expensive than buying them together, before you count the integration work.
- Integrations. Bureaus, KYC providers, banking data, core banking and your LMS. Each connection is scope. Some vendors include a set and charge for the rest.
- Policy complexity. A single product with twelve rules is not the same build as five products with segment-specific policies and champion-challenger testing.
- Vendor due diligence. Regulated lenders carry the cost of assessing the vendor itself. The 2023 interagency guidance on third-party relationships sets out what that review covers, and it consumes internal risk and legal time on every shortlisted vendor.
- Environments and support. Production plus staging, and the support tier attached, both move enterprise quotes more than buyers expect.
The costs that never appear on the quote
This is where most of the real difference lives, and none of it is on the pricing page.
Implementation and professional services
If your policy uses models, validation is a cost line before it is a compliance one: the Federal Reserve's SR 11-7 guidance on model risk management sets the expectation for documentation and independent validation, and that work has to be resourced whoever supplies the model.
Enterprise decisioning platforms commonly deploy over six months or more with a services engagement attached. That is a real line item, and it is often quoted separately or later. Ask for it in writing at the same time as the licence.
The document layer, if it is not native
Several decisioning platforms do not read documents themselves; they partner. If your applications arrive as clean digital PDFs or connected accounts, that costs you nothing. If they arrive photographed, scanned or handwritten, you are buying a second product with its own contract, its own SLA and its own accuracy ceiling.
For lenders whose real-world document quality is uneven, which is most lenders outside fully digital consumer flows, this is frequently the largest hidden cost in the whole comparison.
Internal engineering time
If only an engineer can change a rule, every policy change carries an internal cost and a queue. Over two years that can exceed the licence. The test is simple: ask the vendor to demo a policy change made by someone who is not an engineer, in the room, on your logic.
The cost of not being live
The months between signature and first production decision are months of paying for the old process. At a few thousand applications a month, a two-quarter implementation is a large number that appears on nobody's quote.
How to compare two quotes that are not comparable
Convert both to total cost per live decision over 24 months. Include the licence, implementation, the document layer, internal engineering time, and the months of delay before production.
Run it as a single table with both vendors in the same units. Two things usually happen. The cheaper licence stops being cheaper once implementation and the document layer are priced in. And the gap between vendors turns out to be driven by time-to-live rather than by rate.
If you want the question list that gets these numbers out of a sales call, our loan decisioning vendor evaluation guide covers it, and the loan decisioning software comparison puts ten platforms side by side on deployment time and buyer fit. For worked examples of how individual vendors structure a quote, see Provenir pricing and Taktile pricing.
Where Floowed sits
We are quote-only too, so we will not pretend otherwise. What we do differently is the shape. The category itself is explained in what a credit decisioning platform is, and our own pricing page covers how we size a quote.
Pricing is consumption-based on credits and sized to your operation on one short call rather than across a sales cycle, and it lands well under the large enterprise platforms. Document intelligence is native rather than a partner product, so the second invoice does not appear later. Credit and risk teams author policy directly, which keeps the internal engineering cost off the total. Activation runs in weeks rather than quarters, which is the line item most comparisons miss.
Frequently asked questions
Why does nobody publish loan decisioning pricing?
Because the cost genuinely varies by decision volume, which products you switch on, how many integrations you need and how complex your policy is. A published rate would be wrong for most buyers. The reasonable test is not whether a vendor publishes a number but how fast they will give you one.
What pricing models will I encounter?
Four: per-decision or per-application consumption, a flat platform fee, a seat or enterprise licence, and hybrids of a platform fee plus usage. Consumption models track your volume; licence models do not, which is either protection or waste depending on which way volume moves.
What costs are missing from the quote?
Implementation and professional services, the document layer if it is a partner product rather than native, internal engineering time to author and maintain policy, environment and integration fees, and the cost of the months before you are live.
How do I compare two quotes that are structured differently?
Convert both to cost per live decision over the first 24 months, including implementation, the document layer, internal engineering time and the delay before production. A licence that looks cheaper often loses once the months of delay are priced in.
Is a setup fee normal?
Yes, and it is usually a signal about scope rather than a markup. Setup covers integration work, configuration and validation before you go live. What matters is that it is quoted up front, in writing, with what it includes, rather than appearing as a change order after signature.
Should I commit to an annual contract for a discount?
Only once you have seen the platform decide on your own files. A multi-year discount on a platform that turns out to mis-read your documents is not a saving. Run a paid pilot or a trial on your real document mix first, then negotiate term.
Next step
If you want a real number rather than a range, book a demo and we will size it on the call against your volume and scope. To see how it handles your documents before any pricing conversation, start free.