We bought the tool first once. This is what it cost us.
Why does software spend keep growing?
Because nothing ever leaves. Each tool arrives to fix a symptom the last one produced, and it arrives carrying its own version of a process nobody wrote down. Two years later three systems hold three versions of the same workflow, and the fourth purchase is the one meant to reconcile them.
The licence line is the visible cost. The expensive part is the reconciliation, and it appears on no invoice: the exports, the double entry, the person who knows which system is right this week.
Before the next purchase, ask what comes out when this goes in. If the answer is nothing, you are not buying a tool. You are buying a fourth version.