Built for how public health actually buys software.
A $0 public-good software license from Global Hands, Inc., paired with transparent setup, volume-based hosting, and fixed annual maintenance. Here is how that maps to grant funding and your procurement process.
Deploy without a formal RFP cycle, where your agency's rules allow it.
Because the platform software itself is licensed at $0 and there is no setup fee, a typical PHL's production costs are annual hosting from $15,000 and a flat $7,500 for maintenance and support, starting at $22,500 per year. Many state and county health agencies set a discretionary or single-signer purchase threshold for routine operational contracts. Check with your procurement office, since the exact figure varies by jurisdiction. Where it applies, that can mean a lab director or bureau chief can authorize a Salus deployment directly, without a multi-month competitive bid.
Grant alignment.
Two CDC grant programs cover most of what a Salus deployment costs. Confirm exact eligibility with your grants management office - allowability depends on your award terms.
Public Health Infrastructure Grant
Typically eligible line items: Implementation, workflow automation, managed support.
Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity
Typically eligible line items: Interoperability pipelines, cloud hosting, instrument integration.
Pricing transparency.
Clear line items, sized by actual usage, not seats or modules.
| Line item | Description | Cost structure | Typical funding path |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01. Platform software license | Full Salus platform, unlimited users, all modules | $0 (perpetual public-good grant) | Non-profit software grant |
| 02. Hosting & cloud operations | Hosted Snowflake / platform tenancy, compute-storage share, backups, ELR pipeline share | From $15,000 / year, assessed quarterly | Cloud operations / capacity funds |
| 03. Maintenance & support | Platform updates, standard support, ongoing care | $7,500 / year, at any volume | Operational maintenance |
| 04. Custom work | Reports, enhancements, special integrations | $125/hour via approved Global Hands integrator | Project / capacity funds |
What a laboratory should expect.
Hosting starts at a $15,000 per year minimum and is assessed at the end of each quarter against actual cloud cost and specimen volume. Maintenance and support is fixed at $7,500 per year at any volume. Figures are planning guidance, not a substitute for a formal quote.
Under 50,000 specimens / year
- • Smaller single-laboratory deployments
- • Under ~50,000 specimens / year
- • Often a single-signer or discretionary path
Elastic compute sized for a single-lab workload.
Hosting typically sits at or near the $15,000 minimum, plus $7,500 maintenance and support.
50,000 to 100,000 specimens / year (most PHLs)
- • Typical state or large local public health laboratory
- • ~50,000-100,000 specimens / year
- • Single deployment, multi-bench operations
Auto-scaling with burst headroom for outbreak days.
Hosting usually sits above the minimum and is reassessed each quarter, plus $7,500 maintenance and support.
Over 100,000 specimens / year
- • High-volume labs and multi-site networks
- • 100,000-500,000+ specimens / year
- • May span regional or multi-state scope
Sustained multi-site and network-scale throughput.
Hosting scales with sustained volume and is reassessed each quarter, plus $7,500 maintenance and support.
Guardrails against cloud cost shock.
CIOs reasonably worry that usage-based cloud spend can surprise a budget. Here is how that risk is bounded.
A hosting floor plus a quarterly assessment
Year 1 hosting follows the published specimen-volume schedule. Before renewal we review actual cloud cost and volume, then present next year's hosting figure - transparent cost-recovery, not a silent overage bill.
Fixed maintenance
Maintenance and standard support stay at $7,500 per year at any volume, so the support line is predictable.
Bring your own Snowflake account
If your agency already holds an enterprise Snowflake contract, Salus can deploy into your own tenant. Maintenance at $7,500 per year still applies; pure platform hosting may drop when BYO is validated. Your Snowflake spend stays yours.
Value, implementation, and support, on one page.
ROI dashboard, cost savings breakdown, implementation roadmap, migration strategy, training, support model, and compliance framework, all in one reference your finance and IT teams can review together.
What it demonstrates
Why we hand this to finance and procurement teams.
- A five-year ROI and cost-savings picture your finance team can take into a budget cycle
- A week-by-week implementation and migration roadmap, not a vague promise
- Training, change management, and a defined support model with a proactive path
- A compliance framework (HIPAA, SOC 2, HITRUST, FedRAMP / StateRAMP) plus CDC and WHO connectivity
Justification support.
Most agencies require written justification to skip a competitive bid, even under a discretionary threshold. These are reference starting points, not legal advice - your counsel or contracts office should sign off on the final version.
Downloadable procurement toolkit
- Sample sole-source / discretionary-purchase justification memo
- Grant line-item template, mapped to CDC ELC and PHIG
- Security & compliance matrix for your IT security review
Want a version filled in with your agency's details?
Ready to see how this fits your budget cycle?
Bring your grants or procurement contact - we'll walk through funding sources and timeline together.