When evaluating EDI VAN providers, pricing models matter far more than most teams realize. The way your EDI traffic is billed affects not only your monthly spend, but also how easily you can budget, scale, and forecast costs over time.
Two models dominate EDI pricing today: kilo-character pricing, a legacy approach based on data volume, and trading partner pricing, which ties cost to the number of active partners you support.
While kilo-character pricing is still common, many manufacturers and distributors are discovering that it introduces cost volatility and budgeting challenges—especially as transaction volumes grow and document complexity increases. This guide breaks down how each model works, where costs tend to escalate, and how the real-world experience differs once you’re live.
Kilo-character pricing bills you based on the total amount of data transmitted through your EDI VAN. Each “kilo-character” represents 1,000 characters sent or received, regardless of how many documents or trading partners are involved.
This model originated when bandwidth and storage were expensive. Today, however, modern EDI documents often contain significantly more data, making costs harder to predict.
Real-world example: If a new retail partner requires richer ASN detail, your character volume can jump significantly overnight without any change to document count or partner volume. The result is higher costs that are difficult to forecast or explain internally.
Trading Partner Pricing, by contrast, is based on the number of unique business connections you exchange EDI data with each month, regardless of how many documents, transactions, or the total bytes sent or received. This approach is structurally different and addresses the unpredictability inherent in usage-based billing models.
The answer is simple: It’s profitable (for them). You pay for every byte, which made sense when computing was expensive. In 2025, the cloud has made bandwidth and storage cheap, but not every EDI provider has passed those efficiencies along. Some providers may adjust pricing only after a contract review or renewal—raising the question of why those rates weren’t available upfront in the first place.
At BOLD VAN, your monthly rate covers all your transactions with included trading partners. If your business suddenly doubles in volume to your current partners, your costs won’t change. If you add new suppliers or customers, your bill adjusts based on transparent, predictable tiers. There are no "overage" surprises lurking in the fine print.
No. If you migrate to a modern trading partner-priced VAN, your IDs migrate seamlessly, your maps remain unchanged, and your current process stays untouched—just your billing model (and transparency) improves. See how easy migration is with BOLD VAN.
No. In fact, you often gain more with modern web-based or cloud EDI solutions—such as real-time dashboards, 90-day data access, and 24/7 support—at no extra cost. That’s part of why so many top manufacturers now choose BOLD VAN over legacy alternatives.
Ultimately, the choice comes down to transparency, predictability, and alignment with your business goals. For manufacturers, distributors, and B2B supply chains looking to grow, kilo-character pricing acts as a hidden tax on success—each improvement in digital process or richer data can cost you, rather than reward you.
Trading Partner Pricing, in contrast, supports growth: you know when your bill will change, it happens only when you win new business or form new relationships, and you can budget effectively for the long haul.
As businesses continue to digitize, the old kilo-character model simply doesn’t fit the needs of modern, data-driven manufacturing and distribution. Predictable, partner-based pricing ensures your EDI costs are aligned with your business relationships—where they belong—not with unpredictable swings in data traffic. It means CFOs can plan, IT coordinators aren’t firefighting surprise invoices, and your supply chain scales freely as you grow.
If you’re ready to break free from the old model and experience what true transparency and cost control feel like, review your current EDI pricing structure with a provider that offers transparent, partner-based billing. Let’s make your EDI one less thing you have to worry about, so you can focus on growing your business.
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