🚨 Podio's New Business Model Update
Dear Valued Podio customers,
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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.
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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
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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 from August 30, 2023, kindly review this help center article here.
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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
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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
- The final group of customers and users will be moved to the new business model October 11
Thank you for your continued loyalty and support,
Podio Team
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External client = "but won't be able to update other items.". In my opinion this external client should be at least allowed to update items ( like date fields or Category fields)
Or Podio could offer for valuable existing Podio customer an external client Package Price ( example add-on costs $100 per month for the first 100 external users with edit item function).
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Anantha Krishnan A S So basically, for my existing processes to continue working, one's I've spent years developing, I will need to increase my monthly payment by 13x with 1 months notice? This surely can't be right?
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Shir Grantz: I have already had to answer these questions for a federal government client. They checked the platform and the company in detail and are now very satisfied Tape users. The team has been around for about four years and the tool is evolving quickly. Promises are kept, and communication with the team is excellent. Based on my experiences so far and personal contact with the people behind Tape, I strongly believe in the long-term success of the platform and a secure future with them.
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Shir Grantz its ES2021.
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Conor O'Donovan try https://probackup.io/Â they are a subscription service and will, in the next few weeks, be adding funcationality that will download all attachment files as well as the Podio entries, chats etc. Â Probackup don't support backing up to there platform then uploading to a new platform similar to Podio but they do allow download to Google Drive and I am using this to access and restructure the Podio data to get it onto a new platform.
Not a seamless solution  but better than nothing.Â
Even if you only buy a month's subscription to pro backup.io it's not too expensive, worth it for the above reasons and finding a way around the general debacle that Podio has caused for so many organisations. Â Also having a back up of cloud based info is probably a good idea anyway.
My business is only very small so I am transferring away from cloud based to locally hosted, its a whole lot cheaper and its easier to build in data protection.
Â
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You can backup your Podio Workspaces and files using:
https://probackup.io/backup/podio/
We have been using it for many years and it works very well. -
I guess full-fledged free External users was the main features we picked Podio many years ago, as we had up to 300 external people that needed to view our items and sometimes flick a category field, or make a comment.
I agree with some of the above comments that a 15 days notice is unrealistic and although it got extended it would have been better to give customers at least 3 months to figure out what to do. We just deleted 200 inactive external users, defined as anybody not accessing our Podio instance in 2023.
That said, I would have thought it would be simple to keep the free external customers (some of our partners learned about Podio by using our apps and bought their own licenses and implemented their own apps) but have a charging mechanism in which you can buy credits to apply towards edits for these External User accounts, with an auto-renew function. Pretty much like a mobile pre-paid card which has call minutes and auto-replenishment when used.
External users are not going to create workspaces or apps, so maybe have four tiers of users: admin/developers vs. heavy users vs. medium users vs. external users.
Charge more for admin/developers, that is normal. Then have heavy users with unlimited edits and item creation and medium users with certain limits, finally the External Users view for free and pay-per-edit taken from the EditCredits. -
I wanted to restore my question (which I deleted later) about Tape, since I see that it was replied to by Hans and Dirk, so adding it here for reference
Hans LĂĽbken its the first time I heard of Tape! and it looks very impressive. for a while we are looking for something to have the Podio features but just without the problems that exist in the current platform. from a quick view they support easier programming and their calculations support ES6, something that might take Podio a few more years to get to.
Is Tape! been around for a long time? is it a platform you can move to and know it will be there in a few years as well?
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Hi Podio,
the timing chosen to implement a change of this scale and the level it affects companies using Podio is concerning. Some action that our client take that now requires us to pay for them happen very rarely thou they are part of the system we built based on Podio's structure. So I am not sure how this change in your mind can be presented as bringing simplicity and efficiency.Â
This is dissapointing
Antonio
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Been chasing Support for weeks....Â
No complete clarity, other than support originally saying not much will change for me because (as a sole trader ) I only have guest users..(that I generally don't have them changing anything, maybe just accessing info or making comments).. then today for this billing cycle I get hit with a charge for 3x employees - despite not having any employees listed apart fro myself in the user management (everyone else is listed as external...)Â
So am guessing somewhere hidden in some obscure details that there is a 3-user minimum charge?
Can only imagine what's in store for all you fellow podio peeps that have large organizations...
What an absolute debacle.Â
I joined Podio in 2013....Â
Someone make it make sense.... please!
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Dear Podio,
This is being communicated as a benefit to clients. But reality is one of the reasons that most companies choose are not having to charge extra for external users.
We also prepaid for a year in advance.
The current time limit and procedure does;t allow us to restructure our company flow process and communication with clients.
How will we resolve this issue? -
This will most probably push us away from Podio. Looking at the progress competitors are making, with much more default integrations, adding features and improvements non stop, much more updates and better contact with their clients, etc... I don't see a reason to stay with podio anymore after this news and we will have to invest spending time in moving. Also the timeframe is ridiculous just showing us how much you actually really care about your users - and we've been a client for many years. You are basically forcing us to start paying more, breaking your deal with us, and giving us just a couple of days of time in vacation time. This is not OK. If I treated our customers like this I would not have many left.
It also shows you are looking for easy ways to make more money and it would not surprise me if citrix pulls the plug at some point... so I think it would be safer to leave now.Â
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What an absolute dumpster fire, we pivoted away from Podio at the start of this year due to the glacial pace of change and poor support. Seeing this I'm so glad we did, just bite the bullet people and move on, there are much, much better options out there.
It'll be painful at first but worth it.
Good luck!
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Hi all,
im wondering why I couldn't see really all comments of this post.Â
I follow this post about podio's New Business Model, so I receive every comment as an update by email.ÂBut if I click on the email notification "view the comment" I don't find many of the comments online.
Does anyone have the same issue? -
Very selfish, company-focused, not customer-focused decision with little notice and no real solution for those of us who have used the program for many years. I write about this in a blog post about how companies make decisions that benefit them without considering their clients. I am shopping for a new solution. I don't do business with companies that prioritize themself above their customers because they want more money. To get more money a company should offer more value, not less. This is a poor decision, but in a day where there seems to be unlimited demand for products and services, they probably won't care. It won't affect them if a $100-a-month account leaves. Small businesses like mine care about every customer because we need them, all of them.Â
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For those of you with tons of external users wondering how your going to give them access while still being $0 per user - a procFu mini app is going to be your best solution with minimal effort: Â http://help.procfu.com/introduction.php
Super easy and in the end, they offer more customization around branding, dynamic fields, ect. This wont be a perfect solution for everyone, but for some, it will probably be an improvement actually
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Can somebody contact me about the next questions:Â
1) If I go to User Management I can not move externals to employees or change there licence.Â
2) And how does it work if a person needs acces to another workspcae (other organisation). Does it need two licence?
3) what about licence for non-profit organisations?
4) I am developer and work for 6 organisations, do I need 6 seperate licence?
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We just found this out today. Funny how we paid one of your 3rd party deployment staff to build our system and now you think you going to try to bait and switch. I will also say we have a plan that is good until 2024 you may not want to mess with anyone with a current plan with you folks as this may cause a class action. I never received an alert or anything about this new plan/billing program. You will not bully us into stealing our company documents the good thing is we are used to working with criminals. Highly to think twice!Â
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Beware - Podio has not made it clear but related to this new business model seems to be a minimum number of 3 user licenses. This is not disclosed on their pricing page but they will still charge you for 3. They are not taking responsibility for this lack of transparency in billing. I only have one employee - myself - and yet they require a minimum of 3. Very disappointed with how this is going.Â
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So, to be clear, external users are not able to create app items anymore? Or edit them? We are ok paying you more, but not like this, it is the core value of Podio and a example of a great platform! I have almost a decade using Podio... I don't know what to do... Are you going to offer more webinars?
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Hi everyone,
Sharing an update to the roll-out timeline of the updated user permissions in workspaces to ensure we are able to meet the needs of our customers in active discussion with our team in Sales or Support to ensure we assist and accommodate your business.
Roll-out timeline:
- We will initiate rolling out new workspace user permissions August 30 for only 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 - this means the majority of our existing customers will not be enforced with changes on August 30 but only later during the month of September
/Sara - Podio
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Admin UJ, sounds like you are working as a partner and developer and need to be invited to our partner program so you can access our partner license to service your customers, please add your company details here: https://podio.com/webforms/13567095/917519
John, the 3 user license minimum is not yet actively enforced for all customers but it is a part of our license and service model available here: https://www.citrix.com/buy/licensing/product.html - over the next year this will be communicated to customers at renewal to ensure everyone is moved to the new model. This is being communicated to affected customers individually and only at time of renewal.
Roberto, external users can continue to create items for free using webforms or if invited as Guest users to single items. To be able to edit items and apps in workspaces they will need to be upgraded to a paid employee license in the future. Read more here: https://help.podio.com/hc/en-us/articles/201019898-Member-roles-in-workspaces
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This is such a farce. I'm a micro business and have been a Podio user for what feels like the best part of a decade and I'm only finding out about this 3 user minimum requirement in this thread. I've built my business around podio but I'll be transitioning off it after this debacle.Â
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Sara
Sorry to say it’s a little disingenuous to suggest that the user minimum is being communicated.
I had an open support ticket with this very question and it wasn’t communicated ! It wasn’t until I was actually billed for the 3 users on renewal that it became clear and the only way I could actually confirm it was by going into my account to see if I could adjust the user licence down to one and alas you can’t..
Nothing was communicated it was only that I had read all the comments on this thread, and that It was buried in a response to one comment that I even sought to ask the question.
And then in a follow support ticket, after I had been billed, the support response was magically that they only “just confirmed” it to be true (the 3 user minimum) the day after I was billed ….
The transparency is just not there, and an absolute insult to someone who has been with Podio since 2013.
Absolute contempt for your customers is a terrible business model.
Making statements that are categorically untrue in a forum (about communications ) is certainly even more interesting… (especially when I have the receipts!)
This whole thing just seems like Podio trying to lighten up the load through discouraging smaller operators and we’ll I can’t even comprehend what the larger operators are facing
Not cool at all. -
While this is a start, a better process would be to have a transition period for a least a month where instead of being denied to use a function without a license, the user gets a message that performing that function will require a license after XX date. That way users and organizations will have a good idea which of their users will need to get a license and which can get by as a guest. Based on the comments I've read here most commenters seem to be in the dark about the actual impact of the change. I realize this requires a little more coding but since the updated system will trap for non license users this shouldn't be too difficult.
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Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen
Can you elaborate on how this new licensing works when (some) of our external partners have bought their own Podio licenses (after having experienced our applications)? Will those 'external clients' to our environment be able to use 'external' apps i.e. our apps using their own Podio license, same for us: Can we access other Podio apps at 'external' workspaces using our own Podio license? It makes sense, as it only makes sense to pay for one Podio license if we or they already have paid for their own license.
Thanks -
Teele Horstra
The license is determined at the organization level, not the user level. So, if the user is part of two organizations as an employee, each organization needs to pay for 1 license fee. -
Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen the 3 user minimum isn't being communicated until after we are billed.
I just so happened to have upgraded to a Podio Premium account the other day. Before making the decision to upgrade I reviewed the pricing options. Nowhere does it say that when I upgrade I'll be required to pay for 3. As I am the only employee in my organization I was expecting to be charged for one. The communication about the 3 user minimum was communicated when you charged me 3 times the amount advertised. That is not communication.Â
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