[taylodl]

Huge contract? Not really. Especially when many larger clients whom you'd love to have for a reference will demand it. Take care of it up-front and don't wait until you get into contract negotiation. If the client knows you don't have a software escrow service already in place they may ask for the moon. Head that off at the pass and have it ready to go from day one.

In fact having it ready to go might help you clinch the deal. If you're part of an evaluation and you're ready to proceed and your competitor has to go and get this setup - you're more likely to get that business. Likewise if you're the competitor who's been caught with their pants down then you're more likely to lose that business. Every salesman I know is always looking for something to give them an edge for closing a deal!

[conductr]

But I don’t have to please every client and don’t have to jump through hoops for small dollars. It would depend on the product/market if this was the normal expectation then I’d find that out rather quickly and may decide differently. But I’ve never been asked for anything like this and would gladly just say no if it was a small dollar value at stake.

[__d]

I guess it would depend on the size of the sale.

My former company sold on-premises enterprise software. Sales were usually a monthly fee in the $10k+ range.

Our company started quite small: 4 people, and in Australia but selling into the US and UK mostly.

Basically every one of our customers wanted source code escrow. The cost to use was minimal, both in effort and for the escrow agent.