How long does a data licence take, start to finish?

Most people who ask about licensing their company's data want to know two things early: how long it takes, and how much of their own time it will eat. The short answer is that it usually runs two to four weeks from first call to payment, and it takes about an hour of your time in total. Here is where that time goes.

Everything starts with a 15-minute call. You describe which tools the company used, roughly how many people, for how many years, and whether the company is operating or winding down. We tell you whether a full evaluation looks worthwhile.

No preparation is needed. If the data is unlikely to be worth pursuing, you have spent fifteen minutes finding out. If you would like a rough sense before the call, the value estimator asks similar questions.

Before any data moves, you decide what is in and what is out. That might mean leaving out a particular client's channels, a folder of board materials, or everything before a certain date. HR, payroll, medical and legally privileged folders are excluded by default, and direct messages stay out unless you choose to include them and have the right to.

The scope and exclusions are annexed to the contract. The order matters: the terms are fixed before any access is granted, not negotiated afterward. Most of the elapsed time in this stage is your own internal review, which might mean a conversation with a cofounder, the board or counsel. For ideas on what is worth excluding, see keeping clients, channels and folders out of scope.

The evaluation is read-only and takes under an hour of your time. Someone with admin access connects the relevant tools, and from there the work is ours. We count what is there: systems, years of history, headcount, and how well projects connect across tools.

This is the point where a real number becomes possible. Typical licences range from about $20K to $400K and up, but no firm figure is given before the data is counted.

Anonymization happens in-house, and no third party touches the raw data. Every person, company, address, email, phone number and account becomes a consistent token across every tool. Credentials, API keys, card numbers and government IDs are removed. Faces, logos and signatures are blacked out in images and PDFs.

This stage takes the most elapsed time but very little of yours. Your part is reviewing an anonymized sample before anything is delivered. You check that the exclusions held and that nothing appears that should not. If something needs to change, it changes before delivery, not after.

Payment goes to the company entity, not to an individual. After sign-off, the raw archive is deleted within 30 days as a contract obligation, and you receive a deletion certificate. Across all four stages, the elapsed time is typically two to four weeks, and your share of it is about an hour: the call, the evaluation and the sample review.

The process is short when the inputs are ready. When it runs longer, it is usually for one of a handful of reasons:

• Internal sign-off. A board or cofounder who wants to discuss the scope adds time, and that is time well spent.
• Authority documents. For a company that is closing, a director, officer, liquidator or assignee with authority over company assets can sign, and we ask for the authority document up front. Gathering it can take a little while.
• Admin access. If the person with admin rights to a tool has left, recovering access is the first job.
• Customer contract checks. If some client contracts carry confidentiality clauses, reviewing them before setting exclusions is sensible.
• Lapsing subscriptions. This one cuts the other way. If a workspace is about to be cancelled, the evaluation has to happen first, or there is nothing left to license.

None of these is unusual, and none needs to stop the process. Most can run in parallel with the earlier stages. Authority documents can be gathered while the intro call is being scheduled, and admin access can be sorted while scope is discussed.

The last point on that list deserves emphasis for companies that are winding down. The process can move quickly, but it cannot recover data that has already been deleted. Imagine a 50-person company whose chat and ticketing subscriptions end at the close of the month. If the evaluation happens in the first week, there is plenty of room. If it is left to the last day, there may be none. Before you cancel Slack explains what to do when a cancellation date is approaching.

If you are deciding whether to start now or later, weigh the two sides plainly. The main cost of waiting is the risk that tools get shut down or admin access disappears. The main cost of starting is fifteen minutes on a call and, if it goes further, under an hour on an evaluation.

Nothing is committed until you have seen the scope, the contract and an anonymized sample. Book an intro call and we will tell you where your company stands.