Ask an EDI provider "what does it cost?" and you'll get a demo invitation. Here's the actual answer, in numbers, including ours.
The traditional EDI bill, itemized
A typical mid-market EDI setup with a legacy provider stacks four charges:
1. The platform subscription. $100 to $1,000+ per month depending on tier, payable whether you trade one document or none. It usually gates features too — advanced maps, more users, API access.
2. Per-partner fees. $50–$150 per trading partner per month. Add Walmart, Target, and two distributors and you've bought a car payment before shipping a carton.
3. Mapping and setup fees. $500–$5,000 per document type per partner to build the maps, plus onboarding project fees. A supplier setting up the standard chain — 850, 855, 856, 810 — with three retailers can be quoted five figures before the first order flows.
4. VAN kilocharacter charges. The oldest tax in EDI: value-added networks bill per 1,000 characters transmitted. The perverse part is what it punishes — the 856 ASN, the most compliance-critical document in retail, is also the most verbose. Carton-level detail means character count, and character count means cost. Suppliers have literally been advised to "keep ASNs short" — advice that walks straight into chargebacks.
Total it up: a three-partner, moderate-volume supplier commonly pays $500–$1,500 monthly plus a four-figure setup year one — before a single document's marginal cost.
The per-document alternative
EDISQ prices EDI like a utility meters water: pay for what flows.
- 0–25 documents/month: free. Forever, no card. A supplier testing the waters or trading with one small partner pays nothing.
- Then $0.50 per document, stepping down as volume grows — $0.45, $0.40, $0.35, and $0.30 past 100,000/month.
- Marginal-tier billing, like tax brackets: crossing a threshold discounts the next documents, never re-prices the earlier ones.
And the list of things that cost zero, because they're the product rather than add-ons: partner connections (all 1,500+), certified maps, AS2/SFTP connectivity, VAN interconnects where partners require them, the testing sandbox, every feature at every volume. One document = one inbound or outbound business document, whatever its character count. The 400-carton ASN and the 3-line PO cost the same.
Run your own numbers
The math is simple enough to do in your head:
- A small supplier trading ~200 documents/month: 25 free, 175 × $0.50 = $87.50/month. Versus $500+ on a legacy stack.
- A growing brand at 2,000 documents/month lands around $900 — with no per-partner multiplication as it adds retailers.
- Genuinely tiny volume — a purchase order and invoice a week — is simply free, which is the point: EDI compliance shouldn't gatekeep small suppliers out of retail.
The structural difference matters more than any single number: per-document pricing scales with your business, in both directions. Slow season, small bill. No shelf-ware subscription, no fee for having partners, no penalty for the verbose documents retailers demand.
That's the entire pricing model. It fits in a blog post — which is, we'd argue, how you know it's the right one. Full ladder and an estimator on the pricing page.
FAQ
What does EDI cost with a traditional provider?
Typically $200–$1,000+ per month before volume: platform subscription, per-partner fees ($50–$150 each), one-time mapping fees ($500–$5,000 per document type), plus VAN kilocharacter charges. Setup projects commonly run four figures.
What is kilocharacter pricing?
VANs historically bill per 1,000 characters transmitted. Your cost scales with document verbosity — a long ASN costs more to send than a short PO — which makes bills unpredictable and punishes exactly the documents retailers require.
What does EDISQ charge?
Per document only: first 25 each month free, then $0.50 per document, stepping down to $0.30 at volume. Marginal-tier billing like tax brackets. No monthly fee, no partner fees, no mapping fees, no setup fees.
Is one EDI document one bill line?
Yes. One inbound or outbound business document — an 850, an 856, an 810 — is one document, whatever its size. A 400-carton ASN counts the same as a 3-line PO.