ForumsGeneral Off Topic Chit-ChatA-la Carte Pricing Model ?
A-la Carte Pricing Model ?
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Ummagumma |
I just signed up for 2 years of Silver, just because I've been using TD Basic for years and feel the need to contribute.
I am not using task collaboration - I work for a large corporation and we're using Outlook for that. I would like to get task attachments but am not going to pay $30/year for that. Especially since I can't use that feature at work (yet can use Wunderlist) and I can't use it on mobile. Outlines, Habits, and Lists are quite honestly very basic compared to Onenote and Excel / GDocs. It's far easier for me to use a GSheets spreadsheet & embed a link to it into my task note than to try & use List So, really, the only paid feature I am going to be using extensively is Nested Tasks. And this heavily depends on another paid program (Informant) that most people would likely not want to invest into. If I was basing my decision purely on cost vs features, I'd honestly stay with Basic. And that's probably how many users see it. I think Toodledo would get far more subscribers if they offered an a-la carte pricing model. E.g.in the Silver plan, allow subscribers to chose between Attachments and Collaboration. After all, three new Silver subscribers are going to bring in more money than one Gold subscriber. |
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coolexplorer |
The suggestion makes sense.
I am a Silver subscriber. I don't need Collaboration at all, but could use Attachments. I have found a work-around for attachments, but its a bit tedious. If space on the TD server is too costly, you could offer a way for Silver subscribers to link to documents in the subscribers own GDrive, Dropbox, Onedrive, etc. This would be accessible across desktop and mobile OS. Evernote has recently collaborated with Google to link to documents in GDrive. |
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Ummagumma |
You can easily link to the outside cloud files already - it's just a web link.
But there are instances when you may not want an extra layer of services - e.g.it's far easier to snap a photo and attach it directly to the task than to mess around with sending it to GDrive, getting a link etc. |
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M |
This is becoming a bigger issue for me, too. I remind myself of a LOT of things by snapping a photo. I've bought another app to accomplish this, but I hate having these "bolt ons" for Toodledo, which will likely always be my primary "to do" list.
I backed down from the level of subscription that gave me attachments in the past because, even on the web, I remember finding it a bit unwieldy. I had no idea you couldn't even view them, from the app, which is really where I spend about 75% of my Toodledo time. |
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Olivir2015 |
I suffer the Silver>Gold>Silver>Gold syndrome:-) Mainly because I don't have need for uploading files, on the other hand linking to Notes/Outlines/Lists is so much usefull... Now I am on Gold, but who knows...
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boydston01 |
An entirely different approach is to start charging for basic accounts (stop giving away free services!). This could eventually allow them to lower the cost for the upper-level memberships and still come out ahead.
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Ummagumma |
>An entirely different approach is to start charging for basic accounts (stop giving away free services!). This could eventually allow them to lower the cost for the upper-level memberships and still come out ahead.
Yes, this would work wonders given Toodledo's huge market lead and name recognition. /s Here's the problem. Only a relatively small % of people use any kind of task manager. Only a fraction on them need an advanced task manager, or employ any kind of GTD-like system. Only a subset of that fraction are going to jump through the hoops required to keep a wholly different / isolated set of tasks outside of their organization's email system (Outlook, Groupwise etc. - Outlook being the most common). I just stopped using my paid Silver subscription in part because I grew tired of not being able to simply copy an email into a task with one click. (Forwarding to Toodledo address is not the same, besides not all emails can or should be forwarded to an outside server). I am now using Outlook tasks synced to iOS Reminders, which unfortunately leaves Toodledo out (gSyncit never worked well for me). And finally, there's really no good calendar applications that Toodledo can be used with. I want to open one single app and see my day at a glance, with all the tasks and all the meetings. The only one that works with Toodledo and is not severely limited or ugly as hell is Informant, and they just introduced an expensive subscription model and a terrible new interface. That's what is holding TD back, in my personal opinion - it is too insular, too isolated, not integrated enough, depending too heavily on 3rd party tools for anything outside their fairly limited interface offerings. Plus, it still lacks in the visual design department, especially on mobile. It's the best task management system by a long shot, but also one of the hardest ones to use with ease. |
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boydston01 |
Yeah, if the user base that would subscribe for $5-10/annually is very small, then it's moot!
My hopes are high for Informant. As long as the UI is practical, I don't care what it look likes. I am looking at syncing with Toodledo. I am also ok with the price--as long as it works really well. Right now it is terrible (they really botched it by combining an astronomical price increase WITH a product that didn't even work) but I am being patient with them. I agree with you about TD being held back because of it's lack of native integration. When tasks are not tightly integrated with communications and calendaring, they can only go so far. |
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Ummagumma |
>I am also ok with the price--as long as it works really well.
Well, I am afraid I'm not. The app I switched to (Calengoo) is $7, single payment, no subscription, supports start and end dates for tasks and a "today" feature via Top priority, and is using Apple Reminders directly so I can create tasks from emails and sync them straight from my desktop Outlook. So,the alternative is $25 /yr for Informant, another $15 /yr for Toodledo Silver (just to get subtasks and some additional features) and no direct sync to Outlook. I do get better task filtering. But since I spend more time in front of Outlook anyway, and it has superb filtering, there's really no incentive for me to pay $200 over 5 years for some additional features on mobile, combined with a healthy dose of hoop jumping required to get my emails into tasks. I really wish the Informant new owners to succeed, but I'm afraid they will not be finding too many people lining up to pay for their extra overhead. And this means Toodledo will be that much less interesting, for the lack of proper calendar supporting it. This message was edited Apr 30, 2017. |
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boydston01 |
Posted by Ummagumma:
So,the alternative is $25 /yr for Informant, another $15 /yr for Toodledo Silver (just to get subtasks and some additional features) and no direct sync to Outlook. I do get better task filtering. But since I spend more time in front of Outlook anyway, and it has superb filtering, there's really no incentive for me to pay $200 over 5 years for some additional features on mobile, combined with a healthy dose of hoop jumping required to get my emails into tasks. Informant plus Toddledo is exactly what I am doing and, I agree, it is too expensive! But alas, it's what I need—TD with calendar integration (as you said). Yeah, to me the price increase of Informant is insane. As a user of 10+ years, I calculated that it is like a 500% price increase for the next 10+ years. Assuming I use Informant that long! |
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Ummagumma |
Depending on what features you use, there are other calendar programs that support TD. I think I've tried them all.
PlanBe - supports start / end dates and separate alarms, has a very simple and logical interface, and is inexpensive. But no "Today" feature. I guess I could use Start date as "Today" feature (i.e. set it to today for the tasks that I want to work on) but that's a bit too much work. ActionAgenda - it supports most of Toodledo features - or so I think - but I hated the interface and could never get over it. Mainly, the font was too small, there was too little visual difference between tasks and meetings, and overall the interface felt confusing. But it's a very subjective opinion. Try their Lite version, see if you like it. For me, trading PI+TD for Calengoo+Outlook.com+Outlook worked out the best. Also, I am worried that PI is not there to stay. If you read through their new owner's blog posts and disregard all the fluff and niceties, he's basically saying they have far too much overhead and can't continue developing PI in the long run without a major price increase. The problem is, most of their competitors don't have that kind of overhead - they are either being developed in countries with cheaper cost of living, or by a single developer, or both. Over the years Alex had built PI into a small business, unfortunately there's no market expansion to sustain even a small dedicated team anymore. Calengoo, for example, is being maintained by a single developer with a day job. I would hate to build all of my workflow around a specific program with a unique set of features, pay for a few years of expensive service, then see it going belly up. Things like Starred tasks or custom task filters and custom views can't be easily replicated in another app. Instead, I changed my workflow to a different model, where I can basically take all of my tasks into a different calendar program with very little adjustment to how I do things, and more importantly none of the task properties that I use would be lost if I stopped using Calengoo. There's no things like Stars or custom tags that are specific to just that program and will get lost if using a different one. All of the task properties get synced to Outlook in one way or another, and can be reused. This message was edited May 05, 2017. |
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