SaaS changed how you buy and sell software, trading perpetual licenses and on-premises installs for a subscription to someone else's hosted application. That shift creates its own legal questions, and we work both sides of them: helping providers structure offerings and helping enterprise customers procure them. Having sat at both ends of the table, and having built and operated software ourselves, we know where these deals actually go wrong.
Subscription Terms And Pricing
SaaS economics are nothing like a perpetual license. We nail down term, renewal mechanics, and termination rights, then make the pricing metric, whether users, transactions, data volume, or feature tier, clear and measurable. True-up terms handle growth during the term, renewal caps limit surprise increases, and volume commitments and discounts shape your real total cost. The goal is pricing tied to value, with enough flexibility to absorb how your usage changes.
Service Levels That Bite
Because you depend on the vendor's uptime rather than your own servers, the SLA matters. We negotiate availability commitments with honest measurement methodology, real exclusions, and remedies that mean something, plus response-time and performance standards and defined maintenance windows. Service credits are a floor, not the whole answer, so we also push for termination rights when performance stays bad. An SLA with no consequences is just marketing.
Data Rights And Portability
Your data sits on the vendor's systems, so the agreement has to say plainly that you own it. We secure limited vendor use rights tied only to providing the service, the ability to retrieve your data in usable formats during and after the relationship, and a clear obligation to return or destroy it on termination. We specify portability formats, timelines, and vendor assistance, because without that language you can end up locked in or cut off from your own information.
Security, Continuity, And Exit
Vendor security drives your own compliance, so we address certifications and audit results, specific controls, breach notification timelines, audit rights, and obligations under HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or SOC 2 rather than waving through boilerplate exhibits. We cover integration and API rights, multi-tenant realities like data segregation and update timing you cannot control, and continuity through disaster recovery, backups, and escrow. Then we build exit rights, for cause and for convenience, with transition help, so you are never stuck.