Not sure I have much new to add to the discussion, as most have said it already, but best to add another voice as well, just in case it’s going to make a difference.
I love Coda. It’s amazing. I have been using it for quite a while, but for personal projects only. That is, I wasn’t willing to commit my work to it, nor to recommend it to others or my clients, the reasons being -
- The dependency on Google (I despise google and all that it does, and doesn’t, stand for) - I understand why companies choose the google path (because it’s an easy way to leverage a lot of functionality), but not everyone wants to be tied to google and have their life invasively “strip searched” all the time (personal rant)
- There wasn’t a pricing model - investing time and effort in a product that was eventually going to cost but where that cost was unknown, was too great a risk - as the feedback from others is clearly demonstrating
To use an analogy, this is quite like a roleplaying group, where the gamemaster ends up doing most of the work and paying for all the books - and the players get to come along and enjoy all that. The difference here is that Coda now wants the players to pay them, a lot, to look at and use the books the GM has already paid for! And that is going too far.
The impression I get is they didn’t test this with the market at all! It’s plain crazy.
Hopefully they will take a long, long, long, hard look at the feedback, withdraw the pricing model, and go back to the drawing board.
Important note -
I don’t believe there should be free options that allow people to use 98% of a tool forever and for nothing - that’s just not sustainable and not fair to those who actually do pay, and definitely not fair to everyone working on the product.
I personally believe free tiers should cover minimal use and basically be there as a way for people to try before they buy - but, if you like a product and it is useful to you, then you should support it (when I read complaints saying there’s not enough free functionality in an app, I always wonder - how would you react if you’re employer said you should be doing 90% of your work for nothing???).
I fully expect and am happy to pay for the tools I use - I’m a developer myself and I like to be paid for my hard work too. I’m not looking for a freebie here.
But, pricing has to be appropriate to the market.
My thoughts on pricing are -
Similar to what @Paul_Danyliuk suggested, charge more to makers, but, here’s my take, have tiered pricing -
- an “amateur” level at a fairly low cost per month, maybe $5-10. They get to build any doc they like but it can only be shared with say 1-3 different teams. This is for the small business with a cluey staff member that can put together a doc or two for the business.
- a “pro” level that is quite costly, probably $20-30 per month, maybe even more, but give them a way to sell docs or something, so they can be reimbursed. As a maker, if I had a way to get reimbursed, I would probably be happy to pay a few hundred dollars a year for the privilege.
Then, make the cost of using docs much cheaper. And once you are a paying ‘user’, you can access any docs in any team. There could be a few tiers here as well - if you only need docs with basic functionality, then say $2-3 per month. It increases the more advanced the functionality you need to be able to use in your docs. Up to an absolute maximum of, I think, $10 per month for access to all functionality, packs and automations.
Additionally as @jeo said, find a way to reimburse those who currently spend considerable time for free helping the community (which ultimately helps Coda enormously) - eg. providing x number of solutions per month earns $x or x% off your subscription.
As it stands now, I’m out and likely won’t be investing any or much more time in Coda. But I will keep an eye on it and hope they come to their senses and rectify this.