HACKER Q&A
📣 leanstartupnoob

How to get a small software license approved?


Background: I've been a software developer for over 20 years. Mainly contracting/consulting roles and I've mainly used my own laptop for about the last 10+ years.

I've found a few tools useful to my own workflow over the years. One of those is a proprietary app with a licensing cost of $150 per seat.

I've now started working with a company of about 800 employees with a company provided laptop. I want to get a license to install my tool on this laptop, but I'm running into resistance. Some developers at the company say there are freeware and open source alternatives, but those options are poorly implemented and missing features after using the proprietary tool.

My immediate manager has only been in management for a few months and didn't have any luck navigating the procurement hierarchy.

Any advice on pushing this to the next level?

  👤 mytailorisrich Accepted Answer ✓
Make your case to your manager about the benefits to the team and business and that tool and ask if you could buy one license for evaluation.

The process to approve an expense of only $150 should be relatively straightforward. So you may need to consider whether your manager might in fact be stalling.