As an Entrepreneur I use several Cloud Services which charge monthly fee for the service they provide.
Different subscriptions like basecamp,wufoo, blinksale, highrise, mailchimp , lynda, aws and these are just paid ones.
I spend few hours evaluating the product and most of them have amazing pricing plans where the mix is such that you will require to upgrade to next level only after you have certain amount of usage.
I am horrified by Pricing plans of Slideshare and how it is trying to extort money and Force me to upgrade to the more expensive plan without even me trying out the product !!
Following are pricing plans for subscription based service used by us and among the top services in their respective categories with thousands of paid users. :
Basecamp – Prices increase as number of projects increase
Wufoo – Pricing increase as Number of users or entries increase.
Blinksale – One plan. All benefits
Slide Share pricing Plan – Firstly I took 2 hours to just decide which plan to go for. But still not happy with what I am getting.
– Firstly 5 presentations a month !! Not sure if this means that next month I can upload 5 new presentations or I will have to go to 49$ for the 6th one over all.
– However the biggest issue is that Slide Share is forcing me to upgrade to new plan without even trying the product by not making available all features. All the services mentioned above do not force you to go to higher plan based on features but based on usage.
Slide Share is charging for lead capture but not making Geo Targeting available at 20 $ plan , I mean as Tekno Point my courses are relevant for audience in India , you are going to charge me for generating 30 leads , let them at-least be from the region I want !!!!
I find this really more of an extortion and not at all consumer friendly way of charging a customer.
If someone at slideshare is listening , Can you please check the fallout’s of users from your pricing page ? You have made the plans too complicated and unfair. I feel cheated by paying 19 USD.
Just because you have mentioned all details does not make you a fair player.
If you are entrepreneur planning to start a SaaS , please learn from this , this is exactly what you should not do with your customers.
If you know anyone from Slideshare , please share the link and will be happy to know their views on this ridiculous pricing plan.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
I have a very different take on this.
If you cant even afford 75 US$ to spend on capturing LEADS for your business, then your business is not worth it.
Himanshu Mody
Where does my ability to afford or not afford come into the picture ????? I have given examples of worlds best SaaS products. I was talking about being asked to pay even without trying the product.
Besides, You have VC money to blow up. I don’t.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
its not that. I think each business has its own pricing methods. check out linkedin pricing (owners of slideshare) – they are also high (and also makes linkedin the best performing internet stock in the USA)
Himanshu – VC money is not given to blow up! Its meant GROW a business – and advertising being the last list on that checklist.
At 50 US$ you get 75 leads = Rs 40 per lead. If you convert even 2% = 1.5 deal
Are you telling me that 1 deal will not make you Rs 40 in profit?
If not, then switch to Google adwords / fb ads = why blame slideshare.
If they dont work, then you need to really figure whats wrong? A physical person will cost MUCH more than Rs 40 per contact!
when people like you switch, slideshare will realise and fix their pricing!
Your post should have been ‘cost of leads’ on web platforms vs. ‘pricing plans’ coz each company you have compared is different!
Himanshu Mody
Alok you have completely missed the point.
First , Slideshare does not guarantee leads. It is just that their form will allow up-to X no of leads. So I might end up paying slideshare money for the whole year but not get a single lead. So your cost per lead calculation does not hold true.
The point I was trying to make is that the worlds best SaaS players increase their price as the user increases the usage. I am using some of the SaaS products since 5 years.
SlideShare’s pricing plan is prohibitive in terms of allowing me to become an addictive user and then pay them because I love the product. They are like 100 years behind when it comes to their pricing plan for Cloud based services. Instead of all that feature based pricing.
Imagine the following plan – which has ALL features.
5 presentations – US 20 | Upto 15 presentations – US 50 | Upto 100 – US XXX
Instead of spending hours juggling with features , I will straight start with a plan and move to the next level as I start using the product more.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
well, all i know is that there is no slideshare competitor yet and they are almost ‘default’ in terms of ppt hosting
Maybe its time we entrepreneurs get used to becoming uncomfortable with prices?
its like your adobe licenses – they are prohibitive but cant be avoided?
in the end, market dynamics play a big role in price correction. most people in the western economies will not care for 50 bucks a month
– we see that with mobile games on kindle! people in India would NEVER pay Rs 55 bucks for a 5 level game – but folks in the USA do, and they love our games!!
so why should we bother when the going is good?
Himanshu Mody
With Creative Cloud Adobe Licensing is actually cheaper then slideshare. 🙂
I dont care for 50 bucks either.
I am sure you would have played Temple Run,
Temple Run allowed you to buy coins and then you can do what you want with those coins.
Now instead of that they had Red Coins , Green Coins , Blue Coins and you can do different things with different coins. What do you think will be the result ?
Simple pricing makes it easier to buy.
Vinay Chhoda
Himanshu,
Have you looked at edocr.com?
Seems similar to slide share and offers unlimited leads with a simpler pricing structure.
Himanshu Mody
Hey vinay,
Nope, will check it out. Thanks.
Ross Mayfield
Hi Himanshu,
Himanshu Mody
Hello Ross,
Thank you for making an effort to reach out.
Ross things like 30 day money back guarantee is standard operating procedure across SaaS providers.
And that is why I finally chose to sign up as Pro subscriber.
Right now your pricing model is doing both – charging for more presentations and at the same time features are significantly varying at different levels. When you have such a large base of users , even greater the reason of giving most features to paid users and they pay more as they use more.
You want Customers to pay for specific features or you want them to pay more as they use it more. ?
However I would like to specifically know what is the logic of Charging for lead capture in the 19 USD per month model and not allowing Geo-targeting ?
-H
kanchan.kumar
Himanshu,
If I understand your concern correctly – your issue of pricing boils down to :
– Pricing is a combination of feature based (no geo tagging v/s geo tagging) + volume based (no of presentations + no of leads)
– You expect it to be based on ‘no of presentations’ + unlimited leads + all features (including geo-tagging)
Pricing decision for SaaS products aren’t that easy. On track various metrics to ‘arrive’ at (over a period of several months/years) at a perfect pricing which works!
One certainly can’t copy/paste the pricing model from one product to another – unless they are competing products jostling for the same customer need/budget Also, to my mind, it’s unfair to say that this pricing model is unfair or bully – it’s a choice which they have made to price it like this and it’s a choice that we got to make as a customer now.
PS: I run a SaaS company myself!
Himanshu Mody
Hey Kanchan,
No. I do not have problems with No of Leads + No of presentations model and even other features getting varied for that matter.
My specific problem with SlideShare is that they are charging for Capturing leads but not allowing Geo Targeting.
How many businesses can you think of will capture leads irrespective of Geo of their prospective clients ?
How many advertising platforms do you know that charge additionally for Geo Targeting ?
To me they are forcing me to move to the next plan.
And who is asking them to copy paste the pricing model ? ( I am not dumb 🙂 )
I gave examples where best of the SaaS products have a PATTERN , they charge more as you use more.
The features that are added at higher level are reflective of more usage of the product.
What Slideshare is trying to tell me is that If I need 30 leads I do not need Geo Targeting and If I need 75 I need geo Targeting !! But the fact is If I need lead capture , geo targeting should be a given. What will I do with leads from different parts of the world?
And I posted this on rodinhoods as something we entrepreneurs can contemplate….
50 million users…….. Simpler plans …… small increase in conversion rate…. revenues multiply.
Just because they are slideshare , they are right ? I do not agree to this at all. And We both do not know the fall out from the pricing page and how much Slide Share is suffering because of this complicated pricing plan.
I am surprised that you run a SaaS company and yet do not relate to what I am saying.
kanchan.kumar
Himanshu,
My point is not that Slideshare is right and you are wrong. My point is that they would have their own reasons for arriving at this pricing and that they’d have arrived at this after multiple iterations and measurement of impact it has on people opting for a-particular-price-point.
With my experiences of the iterations and what-if and A-B-testing we do with pricing to see the impact of each change and how it affects our sign-ups, I can say with reasonable confidence that they would have evaluated the option of ‘simpler pricing’ at some point in time.
While you believe that with simpler pricing plan the conversion goes up (you aren’t wrong because it is a commonly understood belief in SaaS world anyway), the definition of ‘simple’ itself is subjective.
But then I don’t hold brief for Slideshare; I can’t say with absolutely certainty on why they chose what they chose 🙂
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
let me take one last shot.
Every game is different! We price ‘in-game’ items separately given demographic, geography, type of game, sex, retention stats, level design etc etc
Heck – the same game is free on android, semi paid on iTunes and fully paid on Amazon!
Now, is that a conflict?
Himanshu Mody
Certainly not a conflict at all.
I am sure that all the other gaming companies have similar pricing structure for each platform , and all successful game creators have a ‘pattern’ for each platform. Keep apps free on android and paid in iTunes etc.
Be it Commando or Temple Run all the games which are hugely popular for in-game buying have a Pattern , you buy credits ( coins/cash) and then you go to a store where you buy stuff , new items get unlocked as you play more.
You arrived at the pricing plan for each model based on what works for the particular platform.
In SaaS the most successful companies have a Pattern of charging more when the usage increases and new features are reflective of more usage and not arm twisting techniques to make the user pay more.
Now do you get the point?
Manoj Ranaweera
Hi Vinay, Thank you so much for mentioning edocr – do you have an account with us?
Manoj Ranaweera
Hi Himanashu, thanks for checking us out.
Manoj Ranaweera
Hi,
I’m the founder of http://www.edocr.com, and this is my first time here. Instead of trying to turn this into an advertisement for edocr.com, I wrote a detailed response at https://www.quora.com/Software-as-a-Service-SaaS/What-do-you-think-about-Pricing-Plan-of-SlideShare-Will-Simpler-Pricing-plan-increase-conversions?share=1 at Himanshu’s request.
Happy to give any further information you need.
One of the most inspirational SaaS pricing plans is Mailchimp. In fact, their pricing for MandrillApp is even better. You pay less per unit as you consume. On the other hand, Saleforce’s pricing plan works in the opposite direction, which may have influenced SS’s thinking. I bet all this will change when LI fully integrate SS and eventually expire SS as a separate brand.