Planon does not publish a price for its lease accounting or real estate management modules; every deal is a custom quote. IBM does publish one: the Maximo Essentials Lease Management package starts under US$40K per year for one environment, 50 user AppPoints and up to 500 leases. Neither figure includes reading your existing leases, which is a separate cost you can price and start today.
This comparison is for US corporate real estate, facilities and finance leads who have Planon and IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities (the successor to IBM TRIRIGA) on the same shortlist and need to understand what each will cost for the lease side of the portfolio. Every fact below comes from the two vendors' own sites and documentation. Where we do arithmetic on a published figure, we say so.
Planon pricing vs IBM Maximo lease management pricing at a glance
| Factor | Planon | IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | None, quote only | Essentials Lease Management starting under US$40K per year |
| Licensing unit | Scoped by module, deployment and portfolio | AppPoints, starting at 150 for Lease Management |
| Stated lease capacity | Not published | Up to 500 leases on Essentials |
| Higher tiers | Quoted | Standard and Premium SaaS, plus client-managed software, all quoted |
| Lease standards | IFRS 16, ASC 842, GASB 87 and GASB 96 listed in its documentation | ASC 842 and IFRS 16 since TRIRIGA 10.5.3 (July 2017) |
| Reads lease PDFs | No, integrates with specialized abstraction software | AI lease abstraction marketed in Maximo Real Estate and Facilities |
| Owner | Schneider Electric (80% stake agreed July 2024) | IBM |
How much does Planon cost?
Planon does not put a dollar figure anywhere on its site. Pricing is a quote built from the modules you license (Real Estate Management, Lease Accounting, Space and Workplace, Asset and Maintenance, Energy and Sustainability), the deployment model and the size of the portfolio. Several directory sites print Planon price ranges, and an AI-written comparison site claims a winner on cost, but none of them cite Planon as the source, so we do not repeat those numbers.
What Planon does document in detail is how leases get in. Its Lease Accounting Solution page says lease data is imported "from your existing contract administrations or by the integration with specialized lease abstraction software". That is the line item that most often surprises buyers later: the quote covers the platform and the services to configure it, and the reading of several hundred executed leases is budgeted somewhere else, or not at all. We walk through the exact fields Planon wants on each contract line in Planon lease accounting and lease abstraction.
How much does IBM Maximo lease management cost?
IBM is the rare enterprise vendor that publishes a starting point. On the Maximo Application Suite pricing page, the Essentials package comes in six options, and the Lease Management option is listed as "starting under US$ 40K per year", starting at 150 AppPoints, with a capacity of one environment, 50 AppPoints for users and up to 500 leases. Standard, Premium and the client-managed software option are quoted.
Run the arithmetic and the published floor works out to roughly $80 per lease per year at the full 500-lease cap. That is our calculation on IBM's figures, not an IBM statement, and the real number per lease is higher if you hold 150 leases, because the package price does not shrink with the portfolio. IBM also notes that its estimates are for planning only and that IBM Business Partners set their own pricing. Our TRIRIGA lease abstraction page covers how the TRIRIGA and Maximo naming fits together if your organization is still on an older release.
What the platform price does not include
Both quotes buy you a system of record and a calculation engine. Neither one makes your back catalog of leases ready to load. For a 300-lease corporate portfolio, a skilled analyst needs two to four hours per lease with amendments, which is 600 to 1,200 hours of reading before the first journal entry posts. That work is usually priced one of three ways:
- Internal hours from a lease administration team that is also running the live portfolio.
- An outsourced abstraction project, typically quoted per lease with a turnaround measured in weeks. Our lease abstraction companies comparison lists who does this.
- Abstraction software that reads the PDFs and leaves your team to review. LeaseAbstracts is $49 a month for 15 leases, $149 for 75, $399 for 250 and $800 for 500, billed monthly with no implementation project. The full plan list is on our pricing page.
The data model also differs. Planon's migration route asks for each contract "as it was originally signed" and then only the future changes, so the abstract has to separate the original lease from each amendment with effective dates. A single current-state snapshot is not enough there.
Is Planon or Maximo better for lease accounting?
Neither is better in general. They come from different directions, and the right one depends on what else the platform has to do. Planon is an integrated workplace management system that grew up around real estate, space and facilities. Maximo is IBM's asset management suite, with real estate and facilities folded in from TRIRIGA.
| Your situation | Leans toward |
|---|---|
| You already run Maximo for maintenance or assets | Maximo, since the AppPoints entitlement can be shared |
| You need a published budget number for approval this quarter | Maximo Essentials, if 500 leases and one environment are enough |
| You run real estate inside SAP | Planon, which sells REM4SAP for SAP-based real estate |
| You report under GASB 87 as a public entity | Planon documents GASB 87; ask IBM to confirm GASB in writing |
| Space, workplace and energy matter as much as leases | Planon |
| You need the leases read before either goes live | Neither; abstract first, then load |
If the reason Planon made your list is its energy and sustainability module rather than leases, keep in mind that turning utility and fuel invoices into a reportable footprint is a separate job, and dedicated carbon accounting software for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions may cover it without widening the IWMS scope.
Does Planon or Maximo read lease PDFs?
Planon does not, by its own description. Its lease accounting page says lease documents "can be scanned and analyzed by specialized lease abstraction software that can be integrated with this solution". IBM markets AI-powered lease abstraction in Maximo Real Estate and Facilities and says it extracts key dates, financial terms and clauses. Two caveats apply to IBM. The capability belongs to the current Maximo generation, so teams on an older TRIRIGA release do not have it, and it lives on the far side of the go-live, while the migration backlog is due before it.
Either way, an independent, source-linked read of each lease before it becomes the system of record is a normal control. It is also what your auditor will ask to see when the opening lease liability is tested.
What to ask both vendors before you sign
- How many leases does the quoted package cover, and what does the next block cost?
- Is lease data loading, and the abstraction of the existing portfolio, inside the implementation quote, or priced separately?
- Which accounting standards are licensed in the quote: ASC 842, IFRS 16, GASB 87?
- How are subleases and headleases handled on the onboarding route? (Planon lists them as not yet supported when onboarding existing contracts.)
- How many environments are included, and what does a non-production environment add?
- Who sets the price, the vendor or a business partner, and how long is the quote valid?
If Archibus is the third name on the list, we priced it the same way in Archibus pricing vs TRIRIGA lease management pricing. For a wider view of what tenant-side platforms charge, see commercial lease management software pricing, and for the abstraction tools specifically, the lease abstraction software pricing roundup.
Getting the leases ready whichever platform wins
The platform decision can take a quarter. The leases do not have to wait for it. Abstracted data is independent of the target system, so the reading can start now and the export can be shaped to Planon's Simple Data Interface or a Maximo lease load once the decision is made. Upload a lease to the tool at the top of this page, check every field against the clause it links to, and export a reviewed sheet. If the portfolio is also heading into an ASC 842 implementation, the same reviewed abstracts feed both workstreams.