SaaS Subscription - Caught between a rock and a free place

[adampk17]

First off, hats off to the developer(s) who have created such a useful product for administrators of small home networks.  It's top notch in usefulness, honestly.  To me, PC Monitor and Teamviewer are the two software godsends of my home network.

 

My issue is this.  I have about 6-7 clients that I would like to monitor, ideally.  Currently, I only monitor the 5 most important because that's where the free ride ends.  Five clients is all you can monitor for free, which, honestly, is generous imo.

 

The problem starts here.  I would gladly pay the €9 per year to monitor additional clients.  But in doing so I give up my 5 free clients.  Suddenly those five clients start costing me €45/year which is hard to swallow when they were free, and would remain free, if I just didn't want to expand the use of your product.

 

This seems a silly subscription pricing model, to put up a giant pay hurdle between the 5th and 6th clients.  Surely you'd rather get my €9 or €18 per year rather than €0?  Because I'm afraid €0 is what you'll get from me with your current pricing structure.  I just want you to realize that's what you're leaving on the table with me.  I imagine there are others like me.  Common guys, make it easier to make yourselves some more money!

 

 

Sinverely,

 

Adam

[Marius]

Hi Adam,

 

Thank you for your feedback. There's a significant difference between free and subscription, even for 5 computers:

http://www.pulseway.com/home/pricing

 

For example, when you do get a subscription the daily notification quota is increased from 25 to 500; all the server modules are activated including other features like screen viewer and user chat.

[Paul]

I've been there too Adam. It's a big step from 0€ per year to 45€ per year. However in my quest for alternatives I couldn't find any proper alternative for PC Monitor in terms of pricing and features.

 

I believe that PC Monitor have very competitive prices, I can't name one product that can match PC Monitor's features that offers five computers with 45€ once a year.

[GTDFW]

We all have been there. The bottom line is you have to spend money to make money.  The small cost of paying for the PC Monitor client will be greatly offset by how much work it can generate for you at your clients.

[adampk17]

Marius -  Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.   I can also appreciate what you're saying about a paid subscription offering additional features.   Perhaps PC Monitor could offer a fork in the subscription path, one for those who would use and appreciate those additional features, and one for those who like and are satisfied by what the free client offers but simply want to expand their monitoring past the 5 client pay hurdle.   The latter would be me.  I do not want any of the additional features, I am content with feature set the free client has.

 

Paul - Thanks for your input.  I just can't swallow what is, in essence, a 60€/year (now) penalty for wanting to monitor more than 5 clients.

 

GTDFW -  I don't use PC Monitor in a business setting, I only use it on computers that I personally, or my immediate family, own.  I will not generate any income using PC Monitor so I'm afraid your point does not apply to my situation.  I thank you though. 

[adampk17]

Back here again to reiterate my situation.

 

I had a coupon from late 2013 until just a week or so ago that allowed me to monitor 8 PCs for $48 for the year.  I found that reasonable, obviously, because I bought it.

 

Now I see that the price has gone up even more from what it was when I originally made this thread.  8 PCs now cost $128 at regular price or 2.7 times what I paid!  Holy cow.   

 

I love Pulseway but damn, you continue to shoot yourself in the foot with the pricing.  Perhaps this application isn't really meant for a person who strictly uses it to manager their own home network and nothing else?

 

Please reconsider making a cheaper personal version that scales down the features to what the free version offers.  I'd surely subscribe again.

[Chris]

Hi Adam,

 

We continuously add new features and more servers to our Cloud infrastructure. Just to name a few here are our recent feature release highlights: Remote Desktop (beta - 1 concurrent connection for all subscribers), new Reports (Local Storage, Windows Updates, Antivirus and Executive Support + more coming soon), Group Policy support for Storage and Event Log Notifications, Autotask integration, Login to console and the list goes on.

 

The only price change we did since last year was changing the monitored system price from $ 1USD to € 1EUR per system per month.

 

We regularly host discounts and other events which are a great opportunity for purchasing Pulseway at a reduced price but you'll have to stay tuned as our last event was at the "Black Friday" in 28th November 2014.

 

Unfortunately, we don't want to create more subscription plans as it would create a confusion for our clients at purchase time, not being sure which one to use. We recommend you get in contact with one of our sales representative by emailing sales [at] pulseway [dot] com for more information.

 

Regards,

Chris

Pulseway Support

[adampk17]

 

 

Unfortunately, we don't want to create more subscription plans as it would create a confusion for our clients at purchase time, not being sure which one to use. We recommend you get in contact with one of our sales representative by emailing sales [at] pulseway [dot] com for more information.

 

 

 

That's disappointing.  So I guess the answer to my question is 'Yes'.  This product is not meant for the person who just manages a home network.  It's priced too high for that.

 

I think Pulseway is leaving a lot more money on the table than they must realize. 

[loversama]

That's disappointing.  So I guess the answer to my question is 'Yes'.  This product is not meant for the person who just manages a home network.  It's priced too high for that.

 

I think Pulseway is leaving a lot more money on the table than they must realize. 

 

I agree, its a shame really, good software but very limited use for free users.

 

I use it to monitor my media server mainly, but I can only do so from my iPhone, there isn't a stable way to do anything from a desktop and when looking into subscription options I was scared away by commercial pricing structures.

[Marius]

Free is not really a sustainable business model. Unless we start showing ads in the systems list and every time you view some computer details. Not very elegant or professional in my opinion. 

Without the support from all the paying customers Pulseway would not have existed. 

 

As for the pricing, if you look around you'll see $8-15 per server per month. We're $1.20 per server per month and we have also included one Remote Desktop concurrent connection in all the plans.

The solution requires a lot of traffic, traffic that we must pay, we surely do not get it for free. Same goes for all the cloud servers we use to support the solution.

 

Hope it makes some sense.

 

Marius