What reporting software actually costs per client

Fourteen published plans from three vendors, in three currencies. Databoat converted them and derived the cost per client — and the first client on a practice plan costs twelve times what the hundredth does.

Source: Fathom, Spotlight Reporting and Joiin published price lists
Period: Prices and FX verified 14 August 2026
Published: August 14, 2026
Built with: Databoat

DataboatFathom, Spotlight Reporting and Joiin published price lists

$41.30

is what a single client costs per month on an entry plan — the same category charges $3.36 a client at a hundred

Fathom · Starter

Joiin · 100 companies$3.36
Joiin · 50 companies$4.34
Spotlight · Super VCFO 75$7.80
Joiin · 20 companies$8.35
Joiin · 10 companies$11.10
Fathom · Platinum$11.27
Spotlight · Super VCFO 25$11.64
Fathom · Gold$12.60
Joiin · 5 companies$14.00
Spotlight · Basic$17.35
Joiin · 2 companies$18.00
Fathom · Silver$22.05
Joiin · 1 company$28.00
Fathom · Starter$41.30

What reporting software actually costs per clientdatabo.at

FIG. 01The more clients you have, the less each one costs

Each dot is one published plan (n=14). Horizontal: clients included. Vertical: monthly cost ÷ clients included, USD.

Hover a point

Cost per client falls from $41.30 to $3.36 — a twelvefold spread inside the same three products. Which plan you sit on matters more than which vendor you chose. A ten-client practice pays between $11.10 and $22.05 per client depending only on where it landed.

Plans below the curve are efficient for their size; plans above it are being paid for capacity nobody is using.

Basis — what this measures

Sources: Published pricing pages for Fathom, Spotlight Reporting and Joiin. List prices only — no negotiated, promotional or partner rates.
Period: Prices and exchange rates read 14 August 2026
Grain: One row per published plan, measured at the client capacity that plan includes
Currency: USD. Converted at 0.70 AUD/USD and 0.588 NZD/USD, both columns in the table
Excludes: Feature differences of any kind. These products do meaningfully different things and this measures one axis only. Also excludes Spotlight's 25%-off new-customer promotion, Fathom's Portfolio line, and annual-billing discounts where offered.

Movement — why the number is what it is

FIG. 02Every plan ranked on a number none of them publishes

All 14 plans, sorted by monthly cost ÷ clients included, USD. Shorter is cheaper per client.

Joiin · 100 companies$3.36
Joiin · 50 companies$4.34
Spotlight · Super VCFO 75$7.80
Joiin · 20 companies$8.35
Joiin · 10 companies$11.10
Fathom · Platinum$11.27
Spotlight · Super VCFO 25$11.64
Fathom · Gold$12.60
Joiin · 5 companies$14.00
Spotlight · Basic$17.35
Joiin · 2 companies$18.00
Fathom · Silver$22.05
Joiin · 1 company$28.00
Fathom · Starter$41.30

The four cheapest positions per client are all large-capacity plans. No entry plan is competitive per client — the first client is always the most expensive one a practice ever buys.

FIG. 03What it costs to move up a plan

Monthly USD difference between each plan and the one below it in the same range.

Spotlight · Super VCFO 75$294.00
Fathom · Platinum$248.50
Fathom · Silver$179.20
Spotlight · Basic$173.46
Joiin · 100 companies$119.00
Spotlight · Super VCFO 25$117.60
Fathom · Gold$94.50
Joiin · 20 companies$56.00
Joiin · 50 companies$50.00
Fathom · Starter$41.30
Joiin · 10 companies$41.00
Joiin · 5 companies$34.00
Joiin · 1 company$28.00
Joiin · 2 companies$8.00

Where a vendor sells extra clients individually, this step is avoidable. Where it does not, a single extra client triggers the whole jump — up to $294 a month on Spotlight, for one client.

FIG. 04The per-client range across the category

Distribution of monthly cost per client, USD, across all 14 plans.

$3.36$41.30

Same job, same buyer, an order of magnitude between the ends. A price comparison that stops at the headline figure is comparing almost nothing.

FIG. 05Monthly cost of every plan, to scale

Area is monthly list price in USD, converted at 0.70 AUD and 0.588 NZD, verified 14 August 2026.

The largest blocks are the top plans, but they serve 50–100 clients. Absolute price says nothing about value until it is divided by client count — which is the calculation none of the three pricing pages performs for you.

Ties — the numbers reconcile

Every USD figure reconciles to the published list price at the stated rate
usd = list × fx, for all 14 rows
Exact
Per-client figures reconstruct the plan price
perClient × clients = usd
Exact
Each vendor's plan steps sum to its top plan — no step is missing or double-counted
Σ jump = 336.00 Joiin · 563.50 Fathom · 585.06 Spotlight
Exact, 3 of 3
Regional price lists may not be straight FX conversions of the published page
USD list prices not independently obtained
Unverified

8 columns read14 rows4 derived5 views generated

Method

Fourteen published plans, taken from three vendors' own pricing pages, in three different currencies. Databoat read the list prices, the included client counts and the per-extra-client rates where they exist, then derived four columns: the monthly cost in USD, the cost per client, the cost of reaching each plan from the one below, and the price of adding a single client without changing plan.

Nothing here is a negotiated rate. These are the numbers on the pricing pages, which is the point — the per-client figure is the one that decides what this costs a practice, and not one of the three vendors publishes it.

The two structures, and why it matters

The plans divide into two shapes, and the difference only shows up once you grow.

Fathom sells extra clients individually at every tier — AUD $59, $31, $17 and $13 as you move up. Your eleventh client costs $21.70 and nothing else changes.

Joiin and Spotlight sell blocks. There is no way to buy the eleventh client on its own, so exceeding a plan means paying for the whole next one. On Spotlight that step is $117.60 a month, and the twelfth client through the twenty-fifth then cost nothing.

Both are reasonable ways to price. But they behave in opposite directions at the exact moment a practice is growing, and neither pricing page frames it that way.

What this doesn't tell you

Currency conversion is a real limitation. Fathom publishes in AUD and Spotlight in NZD, and both offer regional price lists that are not straight conversions — so a US buyer may see different numbers than the ones derived here. The rates used are 0.70 AUD/USD and 0.588 NZD/USD, verified on 14 August 2026, and both are in the table so you can substitute your own.

Features are not compared. These products do meaningfully different things, and the cheapest per client is not therefore the best. This measures one axis only.

Databoat is not in the table. It is not purchasable yet, and putting a pre-product price beside real ones would make this an advertisement rather than a report.

Why we published this

Every derived column here states its formula, and every number traces back to a row you can inspect — switch to Data at the top of the page and check any of it. That is the same guarantee a report going to your client has to make, which is why we publish these with the working left in.

Fathom pricing · Spotlight Reporting pricing · Joiin pricing

Early access

Your files, the same treatment.

This report was built the way Databoat builds a monthly client pack — read the files, work out what is in them, publish. Tell us which report you rebuild every month.