11/20/19 Update: These changes are now live! See latest on coda.io/pricing and coda.io/invite.
Hi everyone -
We launched Coda 2.0 three weeks ago and received a lot of positive feedback - and also some concerns. My team and I have spent the last couple weeks unpacking those questionsーtaking over 100 in-depth calls and conversations, trying to better understand your unique circumstances. Thank you to everyone who made time for that. I’ve said it before, but I am really so impressed by this community’s energy to collectively and constructively make Coda better for everyone.
TL;DR
After much reflecting, brainstorming, and analyzing, we’ve arrived at a set of specific updates to our pricing modelーwhich will go live late next week. I’ll go into more detail below, but here are the highlights:
- We’re making all editors free.
- We’re bringing everyone a version of Cross-doc.
- We’re introducing a Coda referrals program.
- We’re piloting a new program for students, educational organizations, and nonprofits.
You only pay for makers. Pure and simple.
When we started our pricing discussions, we laid out two guiding principles - (a) make it easy for anyone to start with Coda and get to know it well, and (b) make it easy to share Coda with your team. The result was a broad free tier and a pricing model called Maker Billing where you pay for doc makers: the people who create, organize, and manage docs for the team. For many, the benefits of both were clearーthe free tier meant the vast majority of Coda docs could stay free, and for teams, it was cheaper to pay for a subset of doc makers than for every team member. This aligned to how we saw Coda spreading.
That said, our proposal came with an asterisk, since each plan limited the number of free editors per maker. We heard questions like, if someone is only pushing a button, does that make them an editor? If I’m a freelancer who shares Coda docs with clients, do I pay for all of them? Or conversely, do they all have to pay for me? Others pointed out that they would have to stop and contemplate the cost implications before sharing a doc ー that felt unfortunate, and definitely not in keeping with our guiding principles.
We spent a lot of time debating the options and asking ourselves, if we really wanted limits that fit most teams, why have the editor cap at all? So with this update, all editors are free. And you only pay for doc makersーsimple as that.
Now when you’re sharing a doc, you never have to worry about incurring a payment. We think this update will make Coda better for freelancers, cross-company sharing, and for collaborating with friends/family/colleagues in general.
This plan does have some risk though. We realize that in some cases, large teams will be supported by a single maker. And we’ll see teams stretch the definition and consolidate down makers. As we considered these tradeoffs, we decided it was worth it. Having watched Coda spread, we believe that as teams adopt Coda, the desire for editors to become makers is high. And the ability to make alongside someone is the best way to learn to make yourself. We think that the gains in simplicity outweigh the risks of (either intentional or inadvertent) mis-use of the policy.
Note: This change will be updated in the pricing page and checkout process next week - at that point, all tiers will have unlimited free editors.
Making Cross-doc more accessible (and better!)
We knew Cross-doc would make a big splash, but your level of excitement exceeded our expectations! Many of you wanted to try Cross-doc in your free docs or had great use cases but weren’t ready for the Team tier. And many of you really wanted 2-way Cross-doc.
As we brainstormed how to address this, we decided to do the following:
- The Free tier will get limited Cross-doc Tables: The same feature but with a table limit of 100 rows, and manual sync. This will help test the feature before upgrading and also address some of the more lightweight use cases.
- The Pro tier will get full Cross-doc Tables: Pro users can now link full tables across docs and use automated sync for their more robust use cases.
- The Team tier will get Cross-doc Tables ー and Cross-doc Actions! We will (soon!) be adding a new feature for supporting action buttons across documents. This will allow scenarios like pushing buttons across docs, setting up actions to update data across docs, etc. Note that this isn’t quite 2-way sync (this is tricky for a few other reasons), but will cover a lot of the 2-way cases that we heard.
From the earliest Coda users, Cross-doc has been a perennial top request. We’ve even built versions of it in past hackathons, but it took some time to get it right. The community (rightly) pointed out that Cross-doc is a real building block for Coda - and I’ve already seen it reshape much of how I use docs, and our early testers have said the same. Given this, it made sense to pull this fundamental building block through all tiers so it could grow with our makers.
Announcing a Coda Referrals program
Going through the feedback, it’s obvious that the value this community adds to the Coda ecosystem is far more than just makers converting into paid members. Many of you are public advocates for us, jumping into forums and Facebook pages and spreading docs within your own networks. And you’re also helping new makers succeed ー answering questions here, making docs for friends, and in some cases even turning doc-making into your own business.
In that spirit, late next week we’ll launch the Coda Referral program: When you refer another maker and they sign-up and start using Coda, you’ll both get a $10 Coda credit to go toward a paid plan. And for the first two weeks, we’re doubling the referrer bonus to $20. More details to come.
Upcoming Special Programs
One last thing. There were a few callouts for specific groups of people using Coda that often qualify for discounted special programs. While we still have details to sort out, it is absolutely our intention to give back to our broader communities by supporting students, educational groups, and non-profit organizations. We’re working on the specific plans, but in the meantime, please contact support@coda.io.
Closing
Big thank you again to everyone here who sent us thoughtful, constructive feedback, talked with us on the phone, and convinced their friends and coworkers to give Coda a try. We couldn’t make this new doc without you. I look forward to your thoughts.
Thanks,
Shishir
!
and absolutely fantastic 
!
and the hard work you’ve put into this 
