Deltek Ajera alternatives for small architecture and engineering firms

What this page is. A plain comparison of the tools small A/E firms look at when they leave Deltek Ajera, by how each one charges. Every price is from the vendor’s own page unless we say otherwise, with the date we checked it. We do not rank these tools by quality, and we have not moved a firm off Ajera yet, so there are no client stories here.

The short answer

For a firm of 5 to 25 people, the options are:

1. Monograph, priced per firm, not per user.
2. BQE Core, priced per user plus modules, quote only.
3. Factor A/E, priced per user, published.
4. Deltek Vantagepoint, Deltek’s bigger ERP, quote only.
5. Keep Ajera for accounting and move only time entry and budgets to a small tool.

Two facts decide between them. The first is how the tool prices. A per-firm price moves in steps by firm size, and Monograph’s tops out at $490 a month. A per-user price grows with every person who logs time. The second is whether you need the tool to keep your books. Ajera has its own general ledger. Monograph and Factor do not; they sync to QuickBooks. If you leave Ajera for one of them, your ledger moves to QuickBooks too.

For what Ajera itself is likely to cost, see what Deltek Ajera costs a small firm. Deltek does not publish it, so that page works from third-party estimates.

The options side by side

One fact per tool

• Monograph: its pricing page shows $45 to $490 a month for the whole firm, set by how many employees you enter, with no per-user price and no billing period stated (Monograph pricing, checked 2026-10-02). On 2026-09-29 the same page said $25 to $490 a month, paid annually, so the low end moved within a week. Ask for your exact price in writing.
• BQE Core: the pricing page says “Per-user pricing that’s clear and intuitive. Only pay for the additional modules you need,” and shows no dollar amount (BQE pricing, checked 2026-10-02).
• Factor A/E: its pricing page says “Factor costs $30 per user/month with an annual plan,” for teams of 5 or more, plus “a one time implementation fee for setup, data import, and training” with no amount given (Factor pricing, checked 2026-10-02). At that rate, licenses alone are $3,600 a year for 10 people and $7,200 a year for 20.
• ArchiOffice: BQE calls it “a legacy product” and says “We no longer actively sell ArchiOffice” (BQE, checked 2026-10-02). It shows up in searches, but it is not a tool you can move to today.
• Vantagepoint: we found no price on Deltek’s site (checked 2026-10-02). Deltek positions Ajera, not Vantagepoint, for small A/E firms.

What per firm vs per user means at three sizes

Using only the published numbers above:

The Monograph range is $45 x 12 to $490 x 12. Monograph does not say which headcount gets which price, so enter yours on their page. The point of the table is the shape, not the totals: one column has a published ceiling, the other grows with every hire.

Ajera vs BQE Core

Both are quote only, so there is no public answer to which is cheaper. They also bundle differently. BQE Core sells a base package and adds modules, with accounting as one of them. Ajera includes its own ledger. To compare them fairly, ask both for:

1. A yearly price at your headcount.
2. The same scope: time, expenses, project budgets, invoicing, and accounting.
3. Setup, data migration and training, each in dollars.
4. Whether someone who only enters time pays the same as a full user.

Then compare yearly totals, not per-user rates.

Keep Ajera for accounting, move only timesheets

Several Ajera reviewers on Capterra say the accounting side works well, and others say project management is hard for staff without accounting training. If your firm’s complaint is the screens everyone uses (entering time and checking budgets), you may not need to move the books to fix it.

The split looks like this:

• Ajera stays the ledger, AP, AR and billing system. Your bookkeeper keeps the tool they know.
• Time entry and project budgets move to a small tool the firm owns. Staff log hours by project and phase. Principals see fee against hours burned per phase. Each billing cycle the tool produces a file of hours by project, phase, person and rate for the bookkeeper.

What to check first: how Deltek counts your seats, and whether hours can be imported into Ajera in a format your bookkeeper trusts. If every person still needs a full Ajera seat to have their hours billed, this saves less.

To see what this looks like, try the Ajera time and budget demo (fake data, runs in your browser). For the basics of tracking time by phase without a full suite, read timesheets and project budgets for small architecture firms.

What about Vantagepoint?

Vantagepoint is Deltek’s bigger ERP and the upgrade Deltek offers Vision customers. Deltek positions Ajera as its product for small A/E firms, so going from Ajera to Vantagepoint is a move up, not sideways. We found no Vantagepoint price on Deltek’s site; get a quote and compare yearly totals. If you are on Vision rather than Ajera, the timing matters more than the tool: see what a small firm should do about Deltek Vision’s end of life.

What switching costs besides the subscription

The license is the number everyone compares. These are the others:

• Moving your data. Projects, phases, clients, rates, time history and billing history. Decide what has to move and what can be archived as a file. Factor’s one-time fee covers “setup, data import, and training,” but Factor does not publish the amount.
• Moving your ledger. If the new tool has no ledger (Monograph, Factor), your books move to QuickBooks or similar. That is your accountant’s job and your accountant’s time.
• Training. Everyone who logs time learns a new screen. The bookkeeper learns a new billing process.
• Paying for both. Ajera does not stop billing the day you choose something else. Check your renewal date and contract term before you sign anything new, and plan to run both systems through at least one billing cycle.

We have no sourced dollar figures for these, so we give none. Ask every vendor to put each one in writing.

Get your numbers first

Before you take any of these calls, know what you pay now. Our free Software Cost Snapshot puts your yearly cost per tool on one page within 2 business days. Send the tools you pay for, the seats you pay for, and how many people use each.

If the answer points at time entry and billing, the $350 Workflow Ownership Audit is the paid next step. We look at that one workflow, what it costs today, and what each option would cost, and you get a written keep, repair, switch or build recommendation with the math visible. Sometimes the answer is to keep Ajera as it is. If we later build a tool for you, the $350 is credited toward the build. See how the audit works.