Are you on the verge of hiring a data cleaning company or individual for your company and you are not sure what are data cleaning companies pricing models? Or you are in the process of making budget and you want to include the cost of data cleaning but you are unsure how much it cost?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions then, this post is right for you as it seeks to discuss the several data cleaning pricing model offered by data cleaning companies and individuals.
In this post, you’ll be exposed to several data cleaning company models, why they charge and what to expect and in the end you’ll be able to choose which is best for you. First off, it is important to know that it is impossible to provide a fixed price for data cleaning as it largely depends on several factors. Many data cleaning companies charge based on several factors.
But before we take a look at the factors that informs the pricing models of data cleaning companies, it is important to take a look at some factors that should inform how much you spend on data cleaning.
What Happens If Your Data Is Dirty?
Have you tried to count the cost of having a dirty database? Will your shipments be sent to a wrong address? Will customers receive multiple mails because their mails appear more than once on your mailing list? Will a customer who lives in a Europe get invite for events in America? Would your dirty data cause a chaotic situation? If you answered yes to any or all of the questions above then you should definitely pay heavily for thorough address data clean up if not, you should take you time and be frugal.
What Is The Return On Your Investment?
It is important to note that unless you will be greatly harmed or your business disrupted, you shouldn’t spend too heavily on data cleaning. If you estimate that your unclean data would mean that you would spend an extra $100 then it is totally unwise to spend $10,000 to do data cleaning. It is also necessary that you look clearly what ROI & data cleansing advantages you would receive before shipping out funds for that purpose.
How Long Will You Be Able To Keep The Data Clean?
It is wise to rather prevent dirty data in the first place than embarking on data cleaning later on and this why. “Bad Data Costs the U.S. $3 Trillion Per Year“. The more dirty data you collect, the more cumbersome your database will look which will in turn lead to you spending more on data cleaning. The right thing for you to do is to ensure you collect data from reliable sources only. This will help reduce the possibility of getting your data disorganized.
Lets Now Take At Some Factors That Determine How Much Data Cleaning Companies Charge :
The number of records
Data cleaning companies often charge based on the volume of data or records to be cleaned because obviously it would require a lot more effort and resources to clean 10million data than to clean 100,000.
Age of the records
This is also an important factor because there is a good chance that customer data that have been left unmaintained for a long while would be inaccurate thereby requiring more time and effort to update. Details such as phone numbers, contact address can often change over time.
Location of records
Data cleaning companies charge more if data are not stored in a single location because they would have to search and compile these data from several locations that they may have been siloed in.
Number of fields in each record
The number of fields in each record is as important as the number of records itself. A record that contains just four fields will require less effort and resource to be cleaned when compared to a data with about eight or ten field.
Degree of cleaning needed
Although it sounds funny, but truth is there are levels to cleanliness. You have to determine how clean is clean enough for your data. This means the more the cleanliness required the more you will be required to pay.
Terms and conditions of the contract
Many data cleaning company also pricing model also depends on the terms and agreements of the contract which may include several services add on and your personal preference. It is important that you take note of the terms and conditions and discuss whenever you do not understand any requirement or option.
Volume of work and weekend support
Some data cleaning do have to option to offer weekend support for your business and this would definitely come at an extra cost. If you would like them to work on your data over the weekend then you’ll have to pay little bit extra for the service.
Total completion time
This can be viewed in two ways; if you would require that your project be fast tracked then these companies often charge extra for a tight deadline. On the other hand, if you have a large volume of data that would require quite a lot of time to complete then you should be ready to pay more.
Skill requirements
Some data cleaning company also charge based on the required skills needed to complete your task. Or better still if they are sending in a highly skilled staff to take care of your data cleaning due to the level of complexity then the cost could be a bit high.
Project complexity
As mentioned above, the complexity of your data cleaning project would determine how costly it would be. If project has a low level of complexity then you’ll pay less but on the other hand, if your data cleaning project has a high level of complexity, then it would cost more.
Deployment of support and technology
In addition to their personnel, if these data cleaning companies need to provide more technology and support then they would charge a lot more than if they are only required to send in their personnel to work on your project.
As mentioned earlier for you to determine the right amount to pay for data cleaning, you need to under what harm it would cost if you do not clean it up.