Many EDC deals are a multi-year licence signed before you can test anything. Capture is priced per month, starts at $1,000, and the study fee begins only when your first participant is screened. Here is what month-to-month means for cash flow, and what to confirm in writing.
Free sandbox · No credit card · 21 CFR Part 11 aligned
Month
No study fee
$1,000/month + $50 per participant-month
At a glance
Why terms matter
An EDC quote has two prices: the amount, and the commitment attached to it. A licence that must run for 12 or 36 months turns a small study into a fixed obligation, whether or not the study opens on time. For a funded academic project with a hard end date, or a Phase 1 that may be amended or stopped after a safety review, that obligation is a real risk, and it rarely shows on a comparison spreadsheet.
Capture publishes its terms in months. Core is $1,000 per month with one live study included, and the pricing page describes four steps: start for $1,000 a month, go live when you are ready, pay per enrolled participant, and keep it between studies. Nothing in those steps asks you to commit to a term in advance, and the home page describes the approach as cancel anytime. The practical question is what you owe if the study stops early, which is a short written answer to ask for.
This page is about those terms. For the arithmetic of the per-participant rate, see EDC per-patient pricing explained. For market ranges, see the EDC software pricing guide.
How it is billed
You get access, build unlimited draft studies and test them with your team. Study setup by the Capture team is $0.
The study fee starts when your first participant is screened. Not before. If ethics approval slips by two months, the study fee does not run during those months.
Only enrolled participants count, from screening. Rates are lower above 100 participants (the lower rates are not published).
Stay at $1,000 a month and start your next study from the last one, so a lab or unit that runs studies back to back keeps its templates and forms.
Worked examples
List-rate arithmetic from the published numbers: $1,000 × months live + $50 × participant-months. Participant-months is participants × follow-up months. Not a quote.
| Scenario | Live months | Participant-months | Total on Core | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pilot: 20 participants, 4 months follow-up, 5 months enrolling | 9 | 80 | $13,000 | About $650 per participant, mostly the monthly fee |
| Same pilot, 3-month recruitment stall, 20 already active | +3 | +60 | +$6,000 | Fee keeps running during the stall; plan for it |
| Registry: 150 participants, 12 months follow-up, 12 months enrolling | 24 | 1,800 | $114,000 | About $760 per participant at list rate; volume rates above 100 are lower |
The stall row shows the honest downside of a monthly model: time costs money. The upside is the first row, where you pay for nine live months and nothing before or after.
Cash flow
Grants pay in instalments and forbid spending beyond the award period. A multi-year licence signed in month one can cross a funding boundary, leaving the last year unfunded or forcing a request for a no-cost extension. Monthly billing follows spend to the calendar. A finance officer can see $1,000 plus $50 per participant per month and map it to a budget line without reading a software contract. The EDC budget line for grant proposals page has wording for that line.
It also helps when enrolment is the unknown. Under a per-participant-month model, a slow start costs you the platform fee but not the participant fee for people who have not yet been screened. If you run several small studies in a year, keeping Core at $1,000 per month between them can be cheaper than re-contracting each time, and each study can start from the last one.
Where month-to-month is not the best fit: if you know you will run a stable portfolio for several years, an Enterprise price across all studies, which the pricing page lists as custom volume pricing, may suit better. If you are a sponsor needing eTMF, CTMS and stratified, blinded randomisation in one system, Full Platform at $5,000 per live study per month is the relevant tier.
| Core | Full Platform | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short pilot with an uncertain start | |||
| Back-to-back academic studies | |||
| Sponsor needing eTMF and CTMS | |||
| Multi-study portfolio, multi-year |
The sandbox has every feature, no credit card and no time limit. Build and test the study, then decide when to go live.
Structure compared
Get it in writing
How many days before you can end billing, and from which date.
What happens to a study that is still collecting data when you cancel.
A full export with data dictionary is available when you leave; the platform provides CSV/Excel exports and an audit trail export.
The pricing page shows USD and EUR, excluding taxes.
Which event counts as the first screening for billing.
Moving from Core to Full Platform mid-programme, and how it is billed.
Pricing is published per month, and the home page describes the terms as cancel anytime. Ask for the notice and cancellation terms in writing for your study before you rely on them.
Core starts at $1,000 per month with one live study included, plus $50 per participant per month. Full Platform is $5,000 per month per live study plus $30 per participant per month. Enterprise is custom.
The pricing page says you can build unlimited draft studies and test them, and that the study fee starts when your first participant is screened. The free sandbox has no credit card and no time limit.
Billing for the study fee starts at first screening, so a delay before screening does not run up that fee. A delay after participants are enrolled does keep the monthly fee running.
Yes. The pricing page says you can stay at $1,000 per month between studies and start your next study from the last one.
No. The pricing page shows study setup by the Capture team at $0.
Yes. Capture is suitable for Phase 1 to 3. Larger sponsor studies usually fit Full Platform or an Enterprise price; see the pricing page.
Keep exploring
Test free in the sandbox. The study fee starts only when your first participant is screened.