Pricing policy - Nothing for small and social businesses?

Account and User Management
#1

Hi Retool team,

I am a sole proprietor mostly developing apps for NGOs, universities and other small and social businesses. I'm working a lot with Retool because it has a lot to offer. There is just one thing I can't really understand and I wanted to bring this up here:

You offer the free plan, then the team plan for 10$/user/month and then the business plan for 50$/user/month. This price jump between team and business is what bugs me. It is a 400% price jump. Now, I acknowledge that you get a lot of features for this, but at the same time the business plan is nothing that small and social business nor NGOs will be able to finance.

What is missing, in my view, is a plan where you can at least decide that user A is a devloper, thus able to edit apps, and user B, C and D are only "operators" of specific apps without edit priviliges. I'm not speaking of granular access control, I get why you would offer this in the more expensive business plan. I'm just talking about a general and simple distinction between developers and operators throughout all apps. In my work with Retool I have noticed that the fact that every user in the team plan can theoretically edit an app will lead non-experienced users to accidently do this, which obviously will create a lot of trouble.

In the last weeks I have started to look into other No-Code/Low-Code providers (e.g. Appsmith) and even though their general range of features is smaller than that of Retool, they all provide this distinction for way lower prices. Thus, I'm currently considering to develop all new apps for customers with some of these other provides and eventually transission all exisiting apps away from Retool (which I personally don't want to). This is just because of the inability to assign simple edit rights to Retool users for a reasonable price (again, a 400% price jump seems not very useful here).

I would be happy to discuss this further and hear what you think about this issue. I love Retool and I would be happy to be able to stay longterm with you.

All the best,
Timo

1 Like
#2

Hey @betternet! Long time no talk :slight_smile:

Thank you for sharing this. We sent this to our pricing team who is actively working on revamping our pricing model.

In the meantime, have you checked if you're eligible for our startup credits? https://retool.com/startups

#3

Hi @victoria, true, but I actually Just didn’t have problems in the last months (which is great!) :slight_smile:

Thank you for forwarding this matter. I know about the program, but for me this is only suitable for (a) being able to test around as much as I want without financial pressure and (b) for ‘for profit’ companies. As I have said, I’m working also for NGOs and for them Budget is always tight. They need long-term financial security.

Best, Timo

#4

Hi @betternet! David here, CEO @ Retool. Thanks for writing in. We're actually just now rolling out a free plan for non-profits and edus. We'd love to have you building on it. @victoria will reach out with more details. Thanks for using Retool, and thanks for the feedback!

#5

I'd just like to echo the sentiments expressed by betternet: separating devs from non-dev users is the most basic of security controls. When I saw 'granular access control' on the pricing page, I misinterpreted 'granular' to mean much finer control.

I love the tool and have been a vocal proponent of Retool in the last month since I started using it. But the 5x price increase for this one essential feature may be outside the budget for me. :frowning:

#6

Thank you for chiming in here, Ben—I passed your feedback along to the team working on our pricing structure. Please keep any and all feedback coming! :pray: