How much is loyalty costing you?

We hear a version of this conversation almost every week.

"Look, the gear's been good to us. I don't want to upset our supplier."

It sounds like the relationship matters more than the line item — and in this industry, that's the right instinct. Surveying and civil construction run on relationships. Your dealer has probably sorted you out on a Friday afternoon when a rover went down. That counts for something.

But there are two things getting bundled together here, and it's worth pulling them apart.

Hardware companies are very good at selling hardware

Leica, Trimble and Topcon build genuinely excellent equipment. That's not in dispute, and it's not the point.

The point is that they are hardware businesses, and their commercial machinery is built around moving equipment. Reps carry equipment targets. Dealer margin lives in gear, trade-ins and upgrades. That's the engine.

The correction network — SmartNet, VRS Now, AllDayRTK — usually arrives attached to that. It goes onto the quote alongside the rover. It renews annually. Often it renews without anyone looking at it.

So, a fair question: when was the last time your supplier rang to let you know you were paying for licences nobody had connected to in six months?

That's not a criticism of them. It genuinely isn't their job — their job is to sell and support equipment, and they do it well. But it does mean the subscription line on your invoice is the line least likely to be reviewed by anyone. Including you.

What happens to a price nobody reviews

There's a name for it, and regulators have measured it: the loyalty tax. Victoria's energy regulator found customers on the same plan for ten-plus years were paying up to $950 a year more than their own retailer's cheapest plan. Same retailer, same customer — the only variable was whether anyone had looked. The ACCC found the same pattern in insurance, and the UK went as far as banning it.

Nobody had to behave badly for that. It's simply what happens to a price when the seller knows the renewal is automatic. And there's no reason to think a correction subscription behaves any differently — if anything, it's more exposed, because it renews in the shadow of a hardware relationship nobody wants to disturb.

Three questions before you sign for another year

You don't need a competitor's quote. Just your own records.

1.         How many correction licences are we paying for, and how many were actually connected last month?

2.        What did we pay last year, what are we paying this year, and what changed?

3.       If a project wraps up in March, can we turn that licence off in March?

If the answers come back clean, there's genuinely nothing to do here. Keep going.

Most of the time, question one is where it gets uncomfortable.

Reviewing a subscription isn't disloyalty

You might be thinking Mondo Pin is just having a crack at the big three so we can sell you something. Fair enough — we do sell a correction service, so weigh the argument accordingly.

But the reframe holds either way: your hardware relationship and your correction subscription are two different purchases. Keep the gear, the dealer, the rep's mobile number. And still ask what the correction licences are costing and whether the terms suit how your team works now.

Reviewing a subscription isn't changing suppliers. It's reading one line on an invoice.

Would it be unreasonable to check that line before you commit to another twelve months?

Coming Next

This is where most of the confusion sits, and it's the single most common thing we have to untangle. A lot of teams assume the correction subscription is what keeps their equipment supported and working. It isn't. They're two separate things, sold together.

Next post: **the difference between a correction subscription and hardware support** — and why knowing the difference changes what you should be paying for each.

*Mondo Pin provides GNSS correction services for Australian surveying, civil construction and infrastructure teams, with flexible monthly or annual licensing and a portal for licence and connection visibility. If flexibility or cost is becoming a problem, it may be worth comparing before your renewal. If the current setup is working well, no issue at all.*