What to Ask Before You Buy a CMMS: A Buyer Checklist

It is the third demo this week. The salesperson clicks through a dashboard, everything looks tidy, and you nod. Then you think of the HVAC contractor who never answers email and the store manager who will not open anything that needs a password. None of that was in the demo.

This CMMS buyer checklist is for that moment. It is written for people running roughly 4 to 20 convenience-store or restaurant sites, with no facilities department. Use it on any vendor, including us. Write down the answers and compare them side by side.

1. Ask how pricing grows with your business

Pricing pages are easy to misread. Get these answers in writing.

• What is the unit? Per user, per location, per work order, per asset? Each one grows differently as you add managers, sites or equipment.
• What happens when I add a person? If every manager and contractor needs a paid seat, you will start rationing access.
• What happens when I add a site? Is it billed automatically? Is there a confirmation? Can you see the charge before it happens?
• Which features sit behind a higher tier? Spend reporting, estimates, bids and AI features are commonly sold on higher tiers; confirm for each product. Ask which tier your actual use case needs, not the tier in the headline price.
• Is there a minimum or an annual lock-in? Ask what monthly billing costs compared with annual.

For reference, Concoct bills every top-level location when you add it, and the app does not show a cost confirmation first. Areas inside a site, like a kitchen or back room, are not billed separately.

For a deeper look at the unit question, see our per-seat vs per-location pricing breakdown. Run the numbers for your own site count.

2. Ask what the vendors and contractors have to do

Your contractors are not your employees. They will not learn a new tool for you.

• Does a contractor need an account, an app or a password to take a job?
• If not, how do they get the job details, and how do they confirm they are coming?
• Can they update status or add a note without logging in?
• What happens if they simply do not respond? Does anything notice?

Ask for a live demonstration from the contractor's side of the screen, not yours. If the answer is "they just create a free account," expect some never will. We wrote about this in managing vendors who refuse to log in.

Be exact about limits too. In Concoct, a contractor gets a passwordless link by email for one work order. They can accept or decline, give an arrival time, change the status and leave a short note. They cannot upload photos or attach invoices through it, so invoices still arrive by email and your team attaches them. If a vendor tells you theirs does everything, ask to see it.

3. Ask what a store manager sees

If reporting a broken fryer takes five minutes and a training session, store managers will text you instead.

• How many taps does it take to report a problem?
• Does it work in a phone browser, or does it need an app install?
• Can a manager see only their own location, or everything?
• Can they dispatch a contractor on their own, or is that limited to certain roles?
• Does it work without a signal? Some back rooms have none, so ask.

Watch someone new try to log a request, and time it. If it takes much longer than a minute, ask why.

4. Ask what happens when nobody answers

Software does not fix a missing contractor. It can only tell you sooner.

• Who is alerted, and how?
• Does it reassign automatically, or does a person have to?

Be wary of guaranteed response times; those depend on your contractors. In Concoct, a job with no vendor response for 24 hours is automatically unassigned and your owners and operations managers are alerted. Someone then reassigns it by hand. There is no automatic backup-vendor routing.

5. Ask about the fixed edges

Every product has limits. Find them in the demo, not in month three.

• Can you change work order priorities and approval rules, or are they fixed?
• Can you limit a regional manager to their own region?
• What integrations exist today, as opposed to "on the roadmap"?
• Is there SMS? An offline mode? Ask directly.

Concoct, for instance, uses four fixed priorities (Low, Medium, High, Emergency), has no configurable approval rules and no region-only manager view, and sends vendor links by email, not text message. It also has no offline mode. If any of those is a dealbreaker for you, you should know it now.

6. Ask about your data and your exit

You are putting equipment records, vendor contacts and repair history into this system. Treat it like a lease.

• Can you export everything, in a usable format, at any time?
• Can equipment and vendor lists be imported from a spreadsheet, so setup is not a month of typing?
• Where is data stored, and what exactly does the vendor claim about security? Be cautious of certifications you cannot verify.

7. Ask what the first 30 days look like

Ask for a realistic plan, not a "go live in a day" promise.

• How many sites should go first?
• Who do you call when something breaks, and how fast do they reply?
• How will you know it is working? A real repair logged and closed beats "logins."

If it helps, our 30-day rollout plan for 10 sites is a template you can use whichever product you choose. One practical note: if billing is per location, add sites as they actually go live, rather than all at once up front.

How to use this CMMS buyer checklist

Pick two or three candidates. Send each the same questions and your real situation, and ask for answers by email. Then test the contractor flow and the store manager flow yourself, with a real work order, before you sign anything.

This checklist describes categories of questions. It does not compare named products. Features and prices change, so verify every claim with each vendor, in writing.

If you want to put Concoct through the same list, our pricing is published, with annual and monthly rates per location and unlimited users on every plan. You can also book a demo, bring this checklist, and ask us the uncomfortable questions.

FAQ

What is the most important question to ask when buying a CMMS?

Ask what your contractors and store managers have to do. If either group needs training, an account or a password, adoption will be slow.

How many CMMS options should I compare?

Two or three is enough. More and the demos blur together. Send each the same written questions and compare the answers side by side.

Should I choose per-user or per-location pricing?

It depends. With many sites and many people touching the system, per-user costs climb and discourage access. With few sites and a small team, the gap may be small. Model both with your numbers.

Do I need a CMMS if I only have a few locations?

Not always. If one person handles every repair and a spreadsheet works, that can be fine. A CMMS earns its place when jobs get missed or you cannot say what a site has cost to maintain.

How long does it take to roll out a CMMS across several sites?

Plan on weeks, not days. Start with two or three sites, get real work orders flowing, then widen.