Most Odoo partners earn a commission on every licence they sell. We decided early on not to take one. It has cost us some revenue and saved us a great many awkward conversations. This is the reasoning.
The commission problem
Reselling is a perfectly legitimate business. The difficulty is what it does to advice. When a partner is paid a share of every seat and every app, the recommendation drifts — rarely dishonestly, but steadily — towards more seats, more apps and an earlier renewal.
We noticed it in our own proposals before we had signed a single reseller agreement. The version of a project that made the most sense for the client was not always the one that made the most sense for the partner margin.
When the person advising you on a platform is paid by the platform, the advice is not wrong. It is just never “you do not need this”.
What building on it means
We treat Odoo as a foundation, the way we treat a database or a cloud provider. We are paid for the engineering, and the platform relationship stays between you and Odoo.
- 01You hold the licenceSubscriptions are in your name, on your account, at Odoo’s published price. If we part ways, nothing needs to be transferred.
- 02Custom modules live in your repositoryEvery module we write is delivered as source into a repository you own, with tests and upgrade notes — not hidden inside a partner instance.
- 03We upgrade with the release cycle, not against itCustomisation is kept to extension points Odoo supports, so a major version upgrade is a planned week rather than a rewrite.
- 04We say so when it is the wrong fitWithout a commission to protect, recommending a different platform — or no platform at all — costs us nothing but the project.
When Odoo is the wrong answer
Odoo is excellent for businesses whose processes are close to its defaults: trading, distribution, services, light manufacturing. It is a poorer fit where the core of the business is a workflow nobody else has, or where a good accounting package and two integrations would do the job for a tenth of the cost.
Roughly one discovery call in four ends with us recommending something other than Odoo. That number would be very hard to sustain on a reseller margin.
0%
Commission we take on Odoo licences, subscriptions or apps purchased by our clients.
What this means for you
You pay Odoo for Odoo and you pay us for the work. Our estimates show engineering days, not bundled licence packs, and the cheapest version of your project is always on the table.
