Trying to create an ESRI portal for my organization, but salesman is a bit unclear on licensing

[Wants_To_Use_Esri]

Hi there

I reached out to ESRI because we'd like to move our local government across from our current GIS to ESRI.

We currently have about 150 unique logins to our GIS each month using their Microsoft active directory accounts.  We have about 100 map layers we need to create.

I reached out originally to ESRI and asked for an ArcGIS online Portal License and some ArcGIS Pro Licenses for our users to edit the data.  I assumed this would let me create users who could log in and give a few users the ability to edit and create maps.

After, literally months with a salesman who is really difficult to get a straight answer out of, they're preparing a quote with what they recommend.

They're quoting us the following:

• 150 individual viewer licenses 
• 5 Arcgis Pro Licenses
• 10 Arcgis Editor licenses

The price is coming out very close to what I originally asked for, but the salesmen isn't responding when I ask if this will let me manage user permissions or for a comparison with the Online Portal license.

Can anyone verify purchasing these licenses will give me what I'm after, if so I'm happy to sign the contract.

Otherwise can anyone suggest which licenses I need.

[JalesM]

I would review the ArcGIS Online documentation on User types, roles, and privileges:

• https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/administer/roles.htm

You can also review this YouTube video that gives a brief overview. The "user" information is around the 3:05 mark. 

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC5mR63EHHU

You can create custom roles, so you can create the exact user that you want.

[MichaelDavis3 · Accepted solution]

ESRI's product naming can get a bit confusing, and it might help if we straighten out the terminology you are using when requesting licenses.  

• ArcGIS Enterprise: Includes on-premise Portal and ArcGIS Server 
• ArcGIS Online: Cloud hosted service that is a Portal and the ability to publish and host data layers

There is no product called "ArcGIS Online Portal".

If you are interested in a hosted solution like ArcGIS Online you essentially will need to purchase named users for people to access the system, and credits to cover the different cloud-based functionality (storing data, serving features, performing analysis, etc...).  If I was looking to set up an organization with the  the items you list I'd be looking at something like this

• 150 viewer licenses: 150 viewer users @ $110 each/yr
• 5 ArcGIS Pro Licenses: 5 GIS Professional Standard Licenses @ $3,025 each/yr
• 10 ArcGIS Editor Licenses: 10 GIS Professional Standard Licenses @ $3,025 each/yr

The GIS Professional Standard License is what's called an AGOL Foundational User Type which means it includes an AGOL Creator named user and 500 credits.  So with this configuration you'd end up with 7500 AGOL credits which should more than cover hosting 100 feature layers.  If your 100 layers includes raster (aerial imagery or other big raster data) you might need to purchase additional credits for storage.

So all in you'd be looking at something like $60k per year.

Now to compare that to ArcGIS Enterprise (on-premise Portal) and ignoring the additional considerations like purchasing the hardware/VM resources to host everything we are looking at:

• ~$18k for a perpetual Enterprise/Portal Standard license itself (I don't remember the exact number), then $5k/ maintenance
• 5 Enterprise GIS Standard Users @ $7,000/yr, then $2,750/yr maintenance
• 10 Enterprise Editor Licenses @ $800/yr, then $200/yr maintenance
• Enterprise includes "unlimited" viewers to you don't need to purchase licenses for that

So roughly $61k for the first year and ~$20k/yr maintenance... plus physical or virtual machines to support.

These numbers are based on the (limited) pricing I could find on ESRI's site and publicly available pricing schedules like this one (https://purchasing.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/ESRI_Price_List_2022.pdf).  Pricing increased a bit for 2023 so nothing should be taken as gospel. 

[Wants_To_Use_Esri]

Thanks very much for your explanation, your write up has really cleared my mind.  The ArcGIS Online solution sounds perfect for us.

[BuffaloCoWI]

If the size of your jurisdiction is small enough, you might also consider a government enterprise agreement. It's tier based, so prices increase with population. I'm in a small rural county, so we fall into the lowest tier, and the enterprise agreement is very economical for us. However, other nearby counties or cities with higher populations don't find it economical, and instead purchase individual licenses/named users.