🚨 Podio's New Business Model Update
Dear Valued Podio customers,
Â
We are writing to inform you about important updates regarding Podio, including changes to our business model and pricing structure. We are excited to introduce a new business model that brings simplicity and efficiency to defining employees and external clients. We are moving from a variable pricing model to a fixed license model as part of this transition.
Â
New Business Model:
In our ongoing pursuit of simplicity and efficiency, we are introducing a new business model for Podio. This transition involves moving from a variable pricing model to a fixed license model, allowing for streamlined user management and improved collaboration within and outside your organization. This brings in changes to the below-mentioned areas.
- Email Domain Requirement
- External/Client Permission
- User Management
Â
Domain Requirement:
This new model eliminates the dependency on email domains for determining paid user licenses. Instead, licensing will be determined based on user capabilities. This change offers greater flexibility in collaborating with individuals, regardless of their email domain. When inviting new users to workspaces, you will now have the option to specify if they are employees or external clients. Please refer to the image below for a visual representation. It's important to note that these changes do not affect the current employee network logic, which still relies on the email domain associated with your company.
External/Client Permission:
As part of our efforts to enhance the user experience and align with the new business model, there will be some adjustments for free external client users. We are reducing the capabilities of free external client users to align with industry standards. This change allows us to focus on delivering exceptional value and features to our paid users while maintaining a high level of service for everyone. If you have any doubts regarding the new permissions of employees and externals/clients that will go live on August 30, 2023, kindly review this help center article here.
Â
User Management:
To provide flexibility in managing your users, the organization admin will have the ability to move employees to externals/clients seamlessly and vice versa. This enhanced user management tool will be available starting from August 1, 2023.
If you have any further doubts, kindly contact our support team here.
Packaging Updates:Â
In addition to the new business model, we have updated our packaging structure. We are transitioning from a variable/pay-as-you-go to a fixed license model. You will have a more predictable and streamlined billing experience. You only pay for the necessary licenses and use them as you see fit. You have peace of mind knowing exactly what you will pay each month. You are in control of the bill. Contract Owners can easily update the license count whenever required during the billing cycle. This change ensures fairness and consistency in pricing for all our valued customers.Â
All existing variable plan customers will be moved to fixed plan on August 1, 2023. If you need further clarification on managing your plan, kindly review this article here.Â
Â
Should you have general questions about user permissions, using the user management tool and workspace user permissions for employee and external client users: please contact Podio support at https://support.citrix.com/cscase/ams/podio and choose "General question" as the issue type.
If you have any billing-related questions for your account, please contact Podio support at https://support.citrix.com/cscase/ams/podio and choose "Billing" as the issue type.
We are hosting live webinar series to review the reasoning behind the changes, and overview of exactly what is changing.Â
- Webinar August 9 - 13.00 PM EST (19.00 CET) - sign up here.
- Webinar August 16 - 8 AM EST (14.00 CET) - sign up here.
Deadline update; extended deadline to August 30, 2023.
Roll-out timeline:
- We will initiate rolling out new workspace user permissions August 30 for a small part of the user group and organizations
- We will continue the roll-out for remaining users and organizations during the month of September
Thank you for your continued loyalty and support,
Podio Team
-
Official comment
Hi everyone,
We appreciate the questions and feedback on this change.
To ensure we give everyone more time to process changes internally, we have extended the deadline for new external client user permissions to August 30.
Roll-out timeline:
- We will initiate rolling out new workspace user permissions August 30 for a small part of the user group and organizations
- We will continue the roll-out for remaining users and organizations during the month of September
We realize this is still a very short deadline from initial communication sent on July 17 via email, and will soon invite to a webinar series to share details about the reasoning for the change in person and detailed overview of the changes.
- Webinar August 9 - 13.00 PM EST (19.00 CET) - sign up here.
- Webinar August 16 - 8 AM EST (14.00 CET) - sign up here.
We will also provide more background to the reasoning for the short timeframe (complexity of moving business models with different set of users operating under different set of permissions with a Podio user being able to contribute across multiple organizations with same user).
Sara - on behalf of the Podio team
Director of Product
Comment actions -
Dear Podio Team,
We have already paid a yearly plan for 2023 with specific characteristics, one of them being the (free of charge) External Users capabilities of creating and editing app items! How do you expect us to change that in just 15 days?Â
This is unacceptable! Time-wise and budget-wise!
-
Thanks for sharing Jason - we will have a team member reach out to review your account.
We have been updating Podio with community requested and long overdue features in recent years - things like MFA, SSO enforcement, file trigger in workflow automation, API and Web speed enhancements, calculations speed enhancements, fixed header in table, ability to pin headers in table, ability to export only filtered items, and much more. See full list here: https://help.podio.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/200077273-Product-News
For the permissions changes we also have an upcoming, highly requested, feature enhancement to introduce ability to share single apps and app views - this has been added as future improvement to the workspace permissions table and we expect the feature to be available later in Q3 of this year (pending feedback in our user beta community).
Thank you for sharing and sticking with us this far.
/Sara - Podio
-
I am agree with Stelios Tsaousidis.
This is unacceptable !It means we have to migrate within 15 days to another solution than Podio.
This is a catastrophic situation for our company regarding the External Users capabilities of creating and editing app items.
It will be simply impossible to pay for our 300 external users. This is strategic for our company and concretly Podio's got us in huge trouble.... -
We would like to express our disappointment with the new pricing model. As a few active users among many external users who utilize the platform in a minimal capacity, we foresee that the proposed changes may not be financially feasible for us.
While we have not reached a final decision, we eagerly await further details. However, we do have concerns regarding our upfront payment for the entire year. In the event that we choose to discontinue our partnership prematurely, we would appreciate clarification on your reimbursement policy for unused months.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Â
-
Dear Podio Team,
I hope this message finds you well. I am writing with a heavy heart to express our deep concern and sadness regarding the recent decision about external users. We have been avid users of Podio, and your platform has been an integral part of our small business's success and growth.
Your constant efforts and updates have made our experience with Podio truly wonderful, and we are grateful for the value it has brought to our daily operations. However, the decision to restrict access for external users has hit us hard, and as a small business, it feels almost impossible to cope with this change.
Podio has been instrumental in fostering collaboration and communication with our partners, clients, and suppliers. It has allowed us to work seamlessly together, ensuring that we stay connected and efficient. The thought of losing this privilege is truly disheartening, and we worry about the impact it will have on our ability to thrive as a company.
We understand that decisions are often made for the greater good, but we kindly request you to reconsider the implications of this change on businesses like ours. We are not alone in facing this challenge; countless companies and industries similar to ours will undoubtedly be deeply affected.
Please, we implore you, if there is any possibility to exempt small businesses like ours from this decision, it would make an immense difference. Podio has become more than just a platform for us; it has become an essential part of our journey and growth.
Your understanding and support would mean the world to us. We sincerely hope that you will reconsider this decision and continue to support businesses like ours on this incredible platform that we have grown to love.
With heartfelt gratitude and hope
-
Hi Marc Payan, JJB Julian Jordan, and Amira Ahmed Asfour,
We understand this is a big change for your business and will be happy to work with you to find a compromise ensuring that you can transition the users you need to paid license for advanced collaboration (while keeping client users who might only need to view or comment as free collaborators that can contribute with comments and feedback in app items and workspaces). We will have a team member reach out to discuss your account. Please get in touch with a sales representative here if you want to share indication of # of users that need ability to create and edit items to help us prepare ahead: https://podio.com/webforms/28796677/2324700
/Sara - Podio
-
Dear Podio Team,
It is clearly your decision to update the pricing plans and policies as you wish, taking full responsibility for the outcome, whatever that might be in terms of loosing loyal customers etc. It is your obligation though to honor every current customer that have pre-paid for specific services and features according to the plan they paid for.Â
As a company that have paid a full year subscription (5 years in a row) we demand to receive - at least! - the same services and features for the whole period! Anything else is unacceptable!Â
Please, address to this issue urgently by excluding from this change all pre-paid companies until the end of their paid period!
Waiting for your actions!
Stelios T.
-
If this changes are done, for me is impossible to continue with Podio, I have a lot of external users (contractors) who needs to amend items. If this move on, after 10 years with Podio we will need to change to another solution that enable us a good collaboration with externals and as you are aware this solutions exists. I hope you change your minds on this or I think you will lose a lot of users for what I am seeing.Â
Â
Â
-
Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen Hello, I have access to hundreds of podio organizations as a partner. Does this mean that each of my clients would have to buy several extra seats for my team if we continued to work with them?
Is there a different plan for partners where we can buy some special licenses that will allow our customers to work with us without extra charges? Â
-
Hello,
This behavior signals that you company may be on the brink of financial collapse and need to increase your revenues instantly. Since we have all of our data on podio, I think it's a good time for us to panic!Â
I don't think it makes sense to give a 15 days notice for people that have paid a yearly plan. It defeats the whole point of having a yearly plan to start with you.Â
As for the PHP upgrade where action needs to be taken within the next 10 days or else our automations will stop working. I own a small company and have many responsibilities other than maintaining podio and I sure won't be able to review all of the code that was written in the last 7 years to update it!
-
Thank you for the comments and reaching out.
Wichard Hulsbergen and Raimon - we are not removing the free external client collaboration but changing the permissions available for the user role to align with what the industry in general is offering (free user collaborators being a read-only or limited role). You can continue to collaborate with external clients using comments directly, using webforms for new item creation, or using the single item share Guest role with full collaboration for free to also update items. We are not changing your plan or subscription as a part of the change in user permissions however we understand this is resulting in a need to review your collaboration with external parties and determine what users will be okay with reduced user capabilities and if any needs upgrades to a paid user role in the future. Our team will be in touch with you direct to review options.
Brittany Turner - thanks for adding, I shared your details in the webform link for our account team to check in with you. We are happy to help review the details of your account.
Omar Bahra, I sent a message direct on Podio chat. For certified Podio and ShareFile partners we have the option to grant you a partner service account so you and your clients will not be charged from inviting you to workspaces as a partner.
Bassam Nakfour, we are making this change to invest in a simplification and improvement of the business model that has not been updated since the founding days of 2011 - in fact this is an investment in our platform to improve our ability to stay tuned with the market and aligned to competitors today. The last time we made signifiant changes to existing customer pricing and packaging were back in early 2015, more than 8 years ago. We are making these updates to align to the future. I understand this can be really disruptive, and we are happy to work with you to see what can be done for your account before August 15.
On the PHP upgrade for workflow automation you should be able to review the logs in the workflow automation admin account page and if no errors appear you should be good, we will notify you in the error logs if any flows are at risk with the upgrade due custom calculations. Learn more here: https://help.podio.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/12059665178130-PHP-Upgrade-for-Podio-workflow-automation-Action-Requested
/ Sara - Podio
-
Sara Høeg Højlund-RasmussenÂ
I agree that this change need time to operate for all existing customer. Stop trying to do piece by piece compromise. Give time is actually what is asker. ANother company recently made a similar change on their business models and they allow 18 months to user to move to the new plans. It just doesn't make sense (like the GF update that initially give 15 days to make change! ... it should have ben probably 3 month of delay just for that). All existing org should be able to keep the actual business model for a 1 year minimum.
-
Thanks Jean-Claude. We will review options internally. 18 months is not realistic for us to manage the change, I have a hard time seeing any SaaS company offering 18 months of transition with updated features - so will be curious to learn what company you saw this from? Feel free to DM me direct on Podio.
-
Sara under Patronecs.com we have to setup podio for many clients and they add us as a developer in their workspace with admin permissions. Before they were adding us as an external member and they were not getting charged due to this but now they will have to purchase a new seat so we can setup workspace for them and add backend workflows. As we are not member of their organisation so they should not be bound to pay for us. Or may be u can introduce a new developer role with that type of privilieges. thanks
-
Obviously Podio wants to do changes, they dont work for me. I need to leave, but am caught up by having lots of files attached to podio entries. I know that I can export the entries to Excel files BUT... and it is a big BUT... the attached files dont travel with the export AND podio only lets you download the files one entry at a time.
DOES PODIO HAVE A WAY THAT THE COMPLETE DATA SET (ENTRIES PLUS ATTACHED FILES) CAN BE DOWNLOADED TO BE PUT INTO ANOTHER APP?Or can you recommend a third party solution which will do this?
-
Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen If someone was to create a new paid Podio account right now, could they do it without the need for a domain name email address to set it up? We work with families who don't normally have these and have to purchase them just to have a Podio account. I have someone right now who wants to set up a new paid account, and I'm hoping they don't have to go through purchasing this if it is now not necessary. Thanks.
-
Dear Sara and Podio
I hope this message finds you well. I must express my deep disappointment in the introduction of a payment requirement for external clients. It is simply not feasible for our organization to stay on the platform even though we have been there since the beginning.Â
Please contact me directly. -
Donna Blyth Thanks for reaching out. Yes, you can create a new paid podio account without needing a domain email address.
Tue Roth We are not introducing payment for external clients, only the employee users will continue to pay for their entitlements. -
ahsan ali shah we are introducing a developer/partner service account user for certified Podio partners. Please add your partner company details here to be considered as an existing partner:Â
-
Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen I need help understanding the implications of your new pricing model on my apps and workspaces. Can someone please contact me to map this out for me?Â
-
There was a time, where SaaS companies sticked to the rule of "grandfathering" plans. This means, that clients who were loyal for years would keep their existing plans until they(!) needed to change it for business purposes.
More often today I see SaaS companies breaking that unwritten law and don't stay loyal to their clients anymore. Sad to see this. Its starting to give clients a push back from switching from on premise to cloud applications - especially with such core applications like a low code platform... and being a fan of SaaS I can even understand them, when rules like "free guest accounts" completely. -
Hi Rainer Wilton, sure thing, we will have a team member follow up with you Monday.
/Sara - Podio
-
Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen, we have already pre paid for a certain number of users until June 2024.
How will this affect our user case?Â
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
188 comments