What's the difference between cloud and on-premise MLM software?

Cloud wins for >90% of buyers. On-prem makes sense in specific data-residency or integration cases.

Cloud (SaaS) is hosted and updated by the vendor; you pay a monthly subscription. On-premise means you install and run the software yourself, paying a one-time license plus ongoing hosting plus sysadmin headcount. Cloud wins for over ninety percent of buyers in 2026 because the headcount cost of running a self-hosted MLM platform eats the license savings inside two years. On-premise still makes sense in three specific cases: data residency requirements cloud can't meet, existing IT capability that genuinely wants ownership, and integration depth beyond what an API can serve.