The ups and downs of the Digital Kit: overpricing and poor control

BarcelonaThe Digital Kit is a Spanish government initiative that, through European Next Generation funds, aims to subsidize self-employed individuals and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (up to 250 employees) to implement digital solutions. It has a budget of €3.067 billion, was launched in January 2021, and has been extended—only for self-employed individuals—until October 2025. According to official data from Red.es, there are more than 670,000 beneficiaries across Spain, with more than 20% in Catalonia.

From the outset, the premise is attractive: depending on the entrepreneur's category (self-employed, micro, or SME), the beneficiary is eligible for up to €3,000 to go digital. The Kit offers several options, ranging from a fully subsidized computer to marketing plans or management, billing, or cybersecurity software, among others, through what are called digitalization agents, that is, technology companies accredited by the Digital Kit program to implement digitalization solutions and services. There are more than 10,000 accredited agents, and, initially, the beneficiary can choose the one they like best from a list to carry out the work they need.

However, the main criticism is "the lack of control" by the administration. While there is a very heavy part of justifying the work performed by the digitalization agent, it is not as controlled as the way this agent is chosen. "Some set exorbitant prices, and therefore the €2,000 grant to create a website, for example, is insufficient," explains a self-employed person at the ARA.

Once the law is made, the trap is set.

The first problem is the unfair competition that exists among digitizing agents. Initially, a company or self-employed person can apply for the grant and choose the most suitable technology company from a list of accredited digitizing agents, and can even ask that agent to process the Kit application process for them. However, some of these digitizing agents have used the name of the grant, Kit Digital, to position themselves in search engines and even make their pages appear to be the official website for the grant.

If the reader does a quick search, they'll immediately see it: the first entry that pops up is a website called kitdigital.cat, and upon entering, there is a detailed explanation of what the grant is and a link to apply for it. One might think it's the official one, but no, it's from a digitizing agent. There are several examples like this. Thus, many beneficiaries enter directly from one of these pages without realizing that, unwittingly, they have already chosen the person who will do the work for them.

Telephone contracting has also occurred: large companies such as Vodafone, CaixaBank, Telefónica, and many others, also accredited as digitizing agents, have campaigned for the Kit over the phone, calling customers and offering them the program. Pimec's director of technology and innovation, Andreu Bru, explains to ARA that problems have arisen when managing the agreement: "There have been incidents when trying to justify what has been done, because, as with everything, there are people who have seen an easy way to bill," explains Brus, "there are more than 1,000; whether you like it or not, and above all, avoid telephone contracting.

Breaking contracts can also become a nightmare: "I had some clients who found that the digitizing agent didn't do the job properly; they decided to break the contract, and this was very difficult with the Kit. They had no support," says Clara B., a self-employed lawyer. "The digitizing agent, when breaking the contract, decided that he would keep the VAT. "This case has ended up in court," the lawyer points out. For her part, Bru believes that "the justification process could have been made easier, and, especially when it comes to creating websites, the minimums should have been higher. There have been many mistakes."

Prices and overpricing

Martina Gatell, a self-employed person who does marketing work for a pharmaceutical company and manages a real estate company, explains that she received €1,000 for a computer and €2,000 for an invoicing program. In the case of the computer, Gatell criticizes the fact that "you could only choose from a list": "Instead of giving me €1,000 and me adding whatever was necessary to the computer I wanted, they told me it was either one of the ones on the list or nothing," she explains. Furthermore, she explains that "the computer arrived open," and when she asked why, "they told me it was normal, that they had opened it to install a tracking program to ensure that the same person would continue to have it for at least a year," this self-employed person explains.

"It's not very transparent. I don't know what they've put on me, and it makes me very uneasy," she explains. But Martina's doubts don't end there: "I also hired an invoicing program. I had the 2,000 euros for it, and they told me that the program cost 150 euros to install and then a subscription of 15 euros a month, which with the Digital Kit was covered for a year. That's 330 euros." questions Gatell, who asked about it and was told that it was "for the management of the contract and other procedures", but the answer didn't satisfy him. "It's, to say the least, strange," he criticizes.

According to Andreu Bru, it must be taken into account that "the digitizing agents are the ones who assume the risk and must bear the financial cost. That's why spending the digital voucher on software that without the Digital Kit costs 150 or 200 euros, with the Kit is always more expensive. The price is set by the digitizer, and some are set by the digitizer, and some are set by the digitizer."

Raquel Pérez, a self-employed woman who has worked as a digitizing agent, criticizes the fact that, when it came to being accredited as an agent, there was no upper limit, so any large company could enter as an agent and compete with people like her, who are self-employed or micro-enterprises. However, she says she is happy to have done this work: "I would do it again, because although as a digitizing agent it takes a long time to get paid and the bureaucracy is heavy, without that help many SMEs would not have gotten ahead," she asserts.

Bru points out that "from the very beginning there has been a lot of criticism, but, seen in perspective, the assessment is very positive. It was the first time that more than 3 billion euros have been injected exclusively dedicated to the digitization of small businesses or self-employed workers; that alone is positive," she concludes.