Global mobility software for the mid-market: build, buy, or bundle

The gap, in the market's own numbers

Four independent signals triangulate the same conclusion. Large enterprises absorb 65% of relocation-management-software spend in the analysts' own segmentation. The named software incumbents distribute through enterprise channels: Deloitte formally resells Equus-based mobility management, and Mercer's cost-estimate reports are produced with AssignmentPro under license from Equus. None of them publishes pricing. And the search results for "global mobility software" are owned by listicles recommending enterprise suites or EOR tools; no mid-market analytics-first entrant ranks anywhere. The segment in between runs on Excel: KPMG's 72% spreadsheet-reporting figure is, in effect, the market share of the status quo.

Option 1: buy the enterprise stack

Topia and Equus AssignmentPro are capable platforms; at enterprise scale, with a mobility technology team, they are the standard, and Topia is now investing in an agentic-AI platform under new ownership. Three realities push against a mid-market purchase. Price: unpublished, but buyers who have run the procurement consistently report six figures annually before implementation; treat that as buyer-side diligence, not a public fact. Weight: these platforms assume implementation capacity, admin ownership and enough assignments to amortize both. Vendor viability: the wider incumbent landscape restructured within a year (Sirva to its lenders in August 2024, Vialto through a USD 1.5 billion debt restructuring in February 2025, Topia recapitalized in June 2025), which procurement teams now correctly price as risk.

Option 2: build internally

The build path founders on the same fact that defines the segment: a 50-500 assignee program almost never has a data engineer, and hiring one to serve a single function is a USD 80-120K recurring bet on retention (our observation from buyer conversations, not a survey figure). The technical problem is also harder than a dashboard: multi-system entity resolution, currency and FX handling, tax gross-up logic that only became productized industry-wide in 2026, and a maintenance surface that grows every time a vendor changes an export. Appetite for tech investment is real (62% plan investment within 18 months, double the prior year), but the blockers those same organizations name (data spread, integrity) are exactly the parts a BI tool does not solve.

Option 3: stay on spreadsheets plus the annual review

The default is not irrational: no license fee, total flexibility, and the Big 4 annual review provides periodic assurance. Its costs are simply hidden in different lines: one to three weeks of manual work per CFO question (what buyers describe to us), key-person risk in a single analyst's workbook, no provenance when a figure is challenged, and a rising compliance exposure as pay transparency reporting waves begin in June 2027 and per-assignee data duties tighten. The spreadsheet was a rational answer to a market that offered nothing between USD 0 and six figures. That gap is the actual problem.

Option 4: the bundle

The third path is buying an outcome rather than a tool: mobility operations, tax methodology and an analytics layer delivered together on one data model, at mid-market pricing, with the service wrap replacing the data team you do not have. That is the model Ask & Chart sells with Convergo (operations) and EY-reviewed tax methodology, alongside an RMC partner for the physical moves. The honest comparison:

| | Enterprise suite | Full-service RMC | Data subscription | Spreadsheets + annual review | The bundle | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Reconciled program view | Yes, at enterprise weight | Within their service scope | No (inputs only) | Manual, unversioned | Yes, on your own feeds | | Pricing published | No | No (bespoke) | Partly (per report) | n/a | Pilot terms stated up front | | Assumes a data team | Yes | No | Yes (to use the data) | One heroic analyst | No (service-wrapped) | | Provenance on figures | Varies | Vendor's records | Report-level | None | Every figure, by design | | Fits 50-500 assignees | Rarely | Rarely | As an input | By default | By design |

Two disclosures keep this table honest. Ask & Chart is the vendor writing it, so verify the claims in a working session on your own data, which is how every engagement starts. And the incumbents are not villains: at 2,000 assignees, buy the enterprise stack; if you need reference data, license Mercer, ECA or AIRINC (Ask & Chart ingests them rather than replacing them). The bundle exists for the segment the rest of the market structurally cannot serve profitably.

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