I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied.

The product is expensive.

The licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges.

On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight. 

It is an expensive product when compared to other solutions in the market. I believe that IBM Cognos delivers the best functionalities for the product's expensive nature. Most of our customers know that the product is expensive since it offers more functions and features.

I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price.

I did not have the need to pay any extra charges apart from the standard licensing costs attached to the solution.

My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used.

There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos.

IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side.

I can't speak to the direct pricing, although it is my understanding that it is high. That said, the solution holds great value.

The standard user licensing is straightforward. It seems like they are expanding these licenses now to cover more of the tools so there is less complexity there. PVU licensing must be researched and understood before committing. The terms of PVU licensing seemed to be a little vague and confusing.

We discovered a great deal more by asking IBM some detailed questions. This will save us some headaches in the future.

The solution is averagely priced. I rate it as a five for pricing. We have to pay extra to buy third-party administrative tools.

If you are going to invest in a reputable quality BI solution, be prepared to not be frugal in terms of pricing/licensing. IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market.

I don't have this information, it is handled by our finance department. 

It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive.

Don’t be cheap; try the product and scale accordingly. Pricing is a lot more competitive these days.

We'd like the pricing to be reduced, of course. We'd like to reduce the cost period.

Buy the software and licenses that you will need for the next 12-15 months.

I don't deal with the licensing aspect of the solution. I can't speak to the exact costs. 

There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost.

Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month. 

Cognos licensing is comparable to other competing products. IBM provides several licensing options such as named vs CPU licenses, and it is better to understand the current and future reporting needs before opting for any licensing option.

Get bulk licensing if at all possible. IBM has a very structured pricing model.

I do not like the PVU licensing model. It is nice to not have to worry about handing out individual licenses, but I feel it is terrible to then be limited to the hardware you licensed at the time. I think it is easier to charge business units for adding new users rather than trying to get a big chunk of money all at once to upgrade the hardware.

I can't say much about the licensing costs because I am not privy to that information. However, I do know we are sharing a global license. 

Recently, IBM have changed the way they package the licensing (which so far seems to give us a better understanding of what we are paying for). The product can seem quite pricey compared to other suitors in the BI arena.

Cognos offers middle-market and enterprise solutions. The middle market is a great value package for companies with less than 500 users.

It is very expensive… You have to determine if the complexity of software you are getting is worth the price you are paying; how many bells and whistles do you need for what price. And if you don’t have the manpower to implement all the features, is it worth the cost?

It is pretty expensive.

Pricing and licensing really comes down to what customers are looking to achieve, as there are lots of options out there. IBM Cognos Analytics offers a fully managed SaaS Cognos in the cloud offering, where a customer does not have to deal with infrastructure, maintenance, administration, or provisioning. This is a great option for many SMBs out there. For other larger customers, it comes down to the number of users, what roles they will have, and internal IT capabilities that they have. One of IBM Cognos’ greatest strengths is the ability to cover the whole spectrum of customers at a price point that is acceptable to all.

The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market .

The prodict is expensive.

If you need to send scheduled reports to third parties, you need to have a PVU server.

The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product.

Licensing has been simplified over the years. However, we do not like their Processor Value Unit (PVU) model and prefer the named user licensing route.

Pricing can be expensive depending on the number of administrators or developers. Regular consumer licenses do not cost as much. They also have a cloud solution.

For the university, Cognos is very competitive, because IBM offers huge discounts to higher education. My advice would be to work with an IBM business partner.

If the organization is big enough, I would recommend this product.

The pricing is good. It's fairly cheap compared to other products.

Don't hesitate to ask for a better price, especially on new licenses. The more you buy, the steeper the discount that can be offered. Also, it seems like you can get a better deal by going through a third-party vendor than directly through IBM many times.

The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises. These higher licensing costs are why we recommend Pentaho or Talend for the SME segment. For them, they have to minimize the total cost of ownership. This segment is also interested in open-source enterprise solutions, which will reduce their costs to a large extent.

The only advice I can give here is that there are several third-party companies that will handle implementation as well as provide continued support post-production. I recommend doing your homework and hiring one of them to take care of implementation and support, if you don’t have a dedicated team to do so internally.

Negotiate on licensing and support costs.

The solution is affordable.

It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos.

It’s an enterprise tool and different stacks of tools are beneficial for small, medium, or large companies.

It is a very good product. I feel the price is OK, as it is not just a tool but it is a reporting platform.

The cost of the license is very expensive and it's costly to achieve scalability. For that reason, Microsoft Power BI and Tableau are more commonly used in Brazil.

Haggle and buy near the end of IBM’s financial year.

Make sure to assess the number of concurrent users and the type of users, i.e., studio vs viewers. Also, there is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties.

Use one of the best BI tools, which Cognos is.

Cognos BI or Cognos Analytics comes bundled with many IBM solutions now. E.g, PMQ, Maximo. Check if your company has this supporting program license first before purchasing a new license. BUT, a bundled license is limited, so check the wording carefully.

Licensing and pricing seems fair as compared to other products.

Like any enterprise software product, make sure you negotiate. IBM simplified the licensing in 2014, so I can't suggest any improvements there.

Do your homework on the licensing that you require. The penalties and costs involved if you are audited for licensing can be expensive.

IBM does not allow you to trade or swap licenses. Most companies don't allow this either. The definitions of what each license holder is and requires should be clearly understood before entering into any agreements.

Some of their requirements around user licensing for those who were only consumers of reports (e.g., they have output sent to them by email) used to be fairly onerous.

Licensing is expensive and can be an issue to expand the number of users within a company or to get new customers. Only large companies invest in Cognos.

Cognos is not a very common BI product in Denmark, even though it's one of the best on the market with a broad palette of tools.

More creative licensing policies should be made by IBM in order to win market shares in the BI market.

It is expensive.

I have little knowledge of this but I think we pay for each report we deploy

In terms of pricing, for what you get, it's a relatively good price. It's good value for what you pay for. But you always want things for cheaper, but the price for what you get is relatively good, because everything is included. Everything, all the extra features that with other products you have to pay for, here they are just included. It's in it. You don't have to pay for sending out emails, you don't need to have an extra mail server. It's in the product.

Pricing and licensing is high. It can be lowered.

I was not involved in the licensing process.

I don't have any advice about these issues.

Cognos BI has role-based licensing, so think well about which BI role you really need, and whether you should buy user- or CPU-based licences.

I think the price and license cost is very expensive, especially for Oracle BI and IBM Cognos. It’s because here in Arab world, it depends on software houses that work for governmental projects are looking to retain their partnerships with IBM and Oracle.

I think QlikView and SAP BO are better because their licenses are available for about 500$ per user and include two years of support. However, I don’t think the QlikView reporting tool is as good as Oracle and IBM. I don’t know SAP BO because I don’t use it enough to judge it.

The initial set-up price is higher than comparative tools, due to the base server component, but can be more cost-effective in the long run for a larger user base (> 100 users). Also, all features come standard, so add-ons are not required for printing, distribution etc.

Not matching the product quality.

You need to have a good idea of how many people will be using the product. It helps knowing how many of them should have full permission (admins), how many will be developers, and how many will be "just" consumers.

Work with an IBM partner like Lodestar Solutions to ensure you have the right mix of licenses and you are not over paying in support.

It is very costly, now that IBM has taken over.

I do not have much exposure to pricing. I understand it is on par, in terms of delivered value with respect to price, with other BI vendors.

Look at the TCO not just the sticker price.

If you need enterprise grade reporting, Cognos is a very economical solution for organizations.

The price is very low for the SaaS edition.

The licensing model had changed from the past and currently needs more flexibility in the area of advanced users. Other products make no difference between the user types. The licensing model should be usage based.

Pricing and licensing have many forms and possibilities. Take a good look at the number of users and the profiles needed. This will increase or decrease the price accordingly.

The price is a bit expensive.