The True Cost of OutSystems: What EUR500K/Year Really Buys You
OutSystems licensing costs are escalating, with renewals increasing 2-4x. We break down the real cost of staying vs. migrating to modern open-source technology.
You're not imagining it. OutSystems is getting more expensive.
If your last OutSystems renewal came with a price increase that made you reconsider your entire technology strategy, you're not alone.
Across forums, review sites, and LinkedIn, OutSystems customers are sharing the same experience:
"My old employer received a most unwelcome renewal proposal which increased our spend by almost 3x."
— JT Vaughan, OutSystems Forum, Feb 2024
"Key takeaways from the last OS license negotiation at my company: Moving from Unlimited AO to fixed AO, but the price increases?? So we can do less by paying more."
— r/OutSystems, May 2024
"The fees are approximately €150,000, €170,000 per year, which is excessive for a company of our size."
— Head of Innovation at a financial services firm, PeerSpot
And it's not just anecdotal. In June 2025, Devs.com.pt reported on a wave of European companies reconsidering OutSystems specifically because of license price hikes.
The pricing model that punishes growth
OutSystems pricing is based on Application Objects (AOs) — a metric that increases as you build more. The more successful you are on the platform, the more you pay.
This creates a perverse incentive: teams avoid building new features, restructure applications to minimize AO counts, and make architectural compromises — all to stay within their licensing tier.
"We have to constantly cut corners and limit our development because of the additional license cost."
— Alexander Stump, OutSystems Forum, Nov 2023
And when your contract comes up for renewal, OutSystems knows exactly how dependent you've become.
"They smugly play the 'since you've developed all these apps on our platform, we've got you by the [body part] now' card, and people hate them for it."
— JT Vaughan, OutSystems Forum, Feb 2024
The hidden costs nobody talks about
The license fee is just the beginning. Here's what else you're paying for:
1. Developer scarcity premium OutSystems developers are rare and expensive. The talent pool is small and shrinking as the industry moves toward open-source frameworks and AI-assisted development.
"The lack of OS developers in my country means we can't continue with OS."
— r/OutSystems, May 2024
2. The O11 → ODC forced migration If you're on OutSystems 11, you're facing a mandatory migration to ODC (OutSystems Developer Cloud). This isn't an upgrade — it's a complete rebuild on a new platform. OutSystems supports O11 until at least March 2027, but the clock is ticking.
"Shifting from OutSystems 11 to ODC requires a complete rebuild."
— RustyStick, Feb 2025
So you'll be paying for a massive migration project — and still paying the license fee on the other side.
3. Lost knowledge Many OutSystems applications were built 5–10 years ago. The original developers have moved on. The institutional knowledge of what was built and why is gone. This makes any future change — whether staying on OutSystems or leaving — more expensive.
4. Opportunity cost Every euro spent on OutSystems licensing is a euro not spent on innovation, hiring, or building capabilities your team actually owns.
The math of staying vs. leaving
Let's be honest about the numbers:
| Staying on OutSystems (3 years) | Migrating to modern stack | |
|---|---|---|
| License fees | €500K–2M/year (increasing) | €0 after migration |
| Developer costs | Premium (scarce talent) | Standard (React/Next.js talent pool is massive) |
| O11→ODC rebuild | Mandatory, at your expense | Not needed — you're leaving |
| Infrastructure | Included in license (but you're paying for it) | €1K–5K/month on standard cloud (AWS/Azure/Vercel) |
| Vendor risk | Single vendor dependency | Open source, no lock-in |
| Innovation speed | Constrained by platform limitations | Full freedom |
There is a way out
The reason companies stay on OutSystems isn't that they want to. It's that leaving seems too hard:
- The detach process produces unusable code
- Rebuilding from scratch takes 12-18 months
- Nobody knows what's inside the applications anymore
That's what we do.
We'll analyze your OutSystems environment and show you exactly what a migration looks like — timeline, cost, and approach. No obligation.