A November 2012 report by IMS research, titled “The North American and European Markets for Access Control as a Service (ACaaS) – 2012 Edition,” indicated the following market outlook:
Hosted access control was estimated to be the second-largest market opportunity for ACaaS for North America and Europe in 2011, and was also estimated to be the fastest growing market from 2011 through 2016.
Small contract sizes were estimated to be the largest market in 2011 and are forecast to remain the largest market in 2016, representing about 59% of the contract size market.
Small and medium-sized businesses are forecast to remain the largest end-user customer type through the forecast period. Enterprise and government is anticipated to see strong growth and is predicated to represent about 13% of the market in 2016.
Pricing Models — According to the IMS report, the current state of the ACaaS industry does not have a set standard for pricing. Some providers may charge their dealers monthly for the number of connections or doors or the provider may charge the dealer quarterly or perpetual annual subscriptions. The dealers may charge a markup to the end user and only charge by the number of doors or the dealer may charge by users, transactions, sites or a combination of all three. The billing model for ACaaS remains customized and on a per-project basis.