The short answer: fire and EMS operations software is sold one of
four ways. Per user, per vehicle, per module, or per station. Per-user pricing grows
with your roster. Per-vehicle pricing grows with your fleet. Per-module pricing grows
every time you add a function. Per-station pricing stays the same until you open
another station. For a volunteer department with a big roster and a handful of rigs,
that difference decides whether everyone gets a login or only the officers do.
The four pricing models
Per user (per seat)
You pay a set amount for each person with a login. It is simple to understand and
looks cheap for a small career crew. It gets expensive for volunteer and combination
departments, where the roster is large and many members log in only a few times a
month. The common workaround, giving logins only to officers, means the people doing
the checks are not the people entering them.
Per vehicle (per asset)
You pay for each apparatus or asset the system tracks. It tracks your fleet size
closely, which is fair, but every brush truck, tender, utility and reserve unit adds
to the bill. Departments sometimes leave reserve units out to save money, and those
are the units that go unchecked.
Per module
You pay for each function: vehicle checks, SCBA, PPE, inventory, narcotics. Public
quotes we have seen price single modules around $250 a year
per station, often stacked with a per-vehicle charge. It lets you start small, but the
total climbs as you add the records an ISO review or a DEA inspection will ask for.
Per station
You pay by how many stations you run. Members, apparatus and checks inside the plan do
not change the price. It is the most predictable model for a budget request, and it is
how Emergency Logs prices.
A worked example: one volunteer station
Take a one-station volunteer department with 25 members and
6 apparatus that wants truck checks and rig inventory. The per-user and
per-vehicle rates below are illustrative, chosen from inside the ranges we have seen in
public municipal records and risk-pool price lists. Your quotes will differ. The
per-station figure is our published price.
| Model |
How it is figured |
Per year |
3-year total |
Add 10 members and 2 rigs |
| Per user |
25 members × $43 |
$1,075 |
$3,225 |
+$430 a year |
| Per vehicle |
6 rigs × $125, setup equal to one year |
$750 |
$3,000 |
+$250 a year |
Per station
Emergency Logs Station Essentials |
1 station, 25% volunteer discount, setup waived on a 2-year term |
$900 |
$2,700 |
$0 |
No annual increases are included for any model. Many agreements allow increases of
up to 5 percent a year; an Emergency Logs three-year term locks the price.
On these numbers the per-vehicle plan is the cheapest per year, and the per-station
plan is the cheapest over three years once the setup fee is counted. The bigger
difference is the last column. When this department recruits ten members and buys a
tender and a brush truck, two of the three bills go up. One does not.
Run your own numbers
Change the roster, the fleet and the rates you have been quoted. The per-station
figure uses our published Station Essentials price.
Per user, per year$0
Per vehicle, per year (plus setup equal to one year)$0
Per station, Emergency Logs Station Essentials$0
3-year totals: user / vehicle / station$0
Which model fits which department
- Per user can make sense for a small career crew where only a few people ever log in.
- Per vehicle can make sense for a department with a small, stable fleet that only needs vehicle checks.
- Per module can make sense if you need one function today and are sure you will never need more.
- Per station fits departments that want every member on the system, check reserve units too, and want a number that holds steady for the budget.
Questions to ask about any quote
Whatever the model, ask for the setup fee, the cap on annual increases, whether
phones need a separate license, whether support costs extra, and what it costs to add
a module next year. Our truck
check software buyer's checklist has twelve questions to bring to every vendor.