My wife and I are using Highrise in order to organize our private social contacts. We do that with a free account and apart from missing a birthday-feature it works fine.

We would love to extend the use of Highrise to our academic work, but for that we would need at least a dozen cases, related to the numerous projects we are involved in (presentations, research, study groups, exercises). The next plan allowing this would be 49$, which is almost 600$ a year. This might me okay pricing for companies, for students it’s not.

What a pity, as we otherwise are paying Backpack-addicts! I too used Basecamp for a book project with a paying account (cancelled it as soon as the work was done, will use it again when needed), but the Highrise pricing/feature relationshop is plainly broken for me.

That being said: The free account is fine for all private contacts and that’s what we use it for! :-)

This somehow echoes the problem I (and others) have with the $29/m “Solo” plan.

This plan would be perfect, if it allowed (like the free plan) for just one additional user (i.e.: two users instead of just one). $49 is too much for that feature.

I understand that 37signals is aiming at the small enterprise market where 50 bucks a month still is a lot but not completely out of this world.

Yet in times when students and families are organizing themselves in the way companies do (because they are small companies of a kind) 37signals is passing out on this market. While using both Backpack and Highrise a lot, I am constantly on the lookout for an alternative for the latter with same or similar functionality but a more fitting pricing model.

(I am not talking about free, as a good product deserves a good price. I am talking about simple, useful and powerful. The pricing model of Highrise is broken.)

Suggestion: 5 US$ per user, which include 250 contacts, 125 Megabyte Space, 12 cases. Period.

This would allow users to slowly grow and evolve their accounts while their organization or needs grows. “Art of the Start” and “Getting Real” both praise the habit of bootstrapping a business. Such an organic yet supersimple pricing model would support this style of work.

37signals is such a great company, I am sure they will correct this flaw eventually!

Greetings to Chicago, Jason, I know you are reading this. :-)

I wanted to chime in here as well as an academic user. I think the pricing model proposed by DW is a good one, and I’d probably subscribe at that rate.

But the other feature I’d add (for using Highrise for teaching at least) is SSL. If I’m going to be storing gradesheets, student assignments & comments on papers etc. on Highrise – which I would love, since it would save me a lot of synchronization btwn. home, laptop and office computers & let me keep all of the info. on a student in one place rather than scattered between e-mail and files on my hd – I need to be sure that the data is going to be secure in transit.

(While I’m ranting…) it bothers me that 37S sells SSL as a feature only available on more expensive accounts. I don’t see how it could actually cost them more to serve pages via https vs http. And – I think – it might be counterproductive:

- Because I don’t have SSL on my Highrise or Backpack account, I’m not going to use it for certain kinds of data.
- Therefore I’ll have fewer files, contacts, pages, etc. than I would if SSL were available.
- And I’ll be less likely to hit the limits of my existing account and want to upgrade.

All the other account restrictions are based on the quantity of use, but not having SSL restricts the type of use.

For two of us who are involved personally and professionally and would like to use HR for most of our projects $49 is steep as well. We already have Backpack ($5/ea) and Basecamp ($24) subscriptions that we shell out for and adding the equivalent of two Basecamp accounts to our budget is definitely pushing it. I’m resisting doing this for as long as I can, which is a shame since otherwise I would love to get more use out of Highrise. It seems expensive considering the pricing differences between Basecamp and Highrise.

Highrise got me hooked on the idea of professionally managing my contacts and projects. Thanks, 37signals, this really makes my life better. Unfortunately the price for the useful Highrise-features (like a dozen cases, saving all letters as pdf etc.) is way to steep for a non-commercial user. So I am forced to look for alternatives. I am checking out Daylite, SOHOOrganizer and Zoho.

So sad, if only 37 could think of a reasonably priced model for “normal people” like students, families etc.

@erikmallinson: There really should be some multi-tool-customer reduction. +1 on that.

OT

@dw

How do you “saving all letters as pdf”

I agree, with some of the posts here about the costs. One of the problems with HR is that it is appealing for both commercial and non-commercial users, although it seems even some commercial users have complained about the high pricing plans. In the commercial space, when you compare HR with the pricing of full-blown CRM systems, their pricing model is not out of line, with the exception of services like ZOHO and HeapCRM. But the simplicity of HR is what draws people to it. I do feel that good products are worth paying for, but I think HR does have a gap in the pricing model. The combination of contacts and cases not only makes HR a great contact management tool, but it also has the potential to be one of the best tools for managing things under the ‘Getting-Things-Done” methodology for families and start-up business (since cases can easily represent GTD projects). Unfortunately the personal and basic plan are woefully crippled with 3-5 cases, or 500 contacts in the case of the basic plan. While others’ opinions may differ on this, I think a family or start-up business could justify paying somewhere between $15-20/mo. for a useful tool like HR, although for students even that might be too much. One option may be to modify the basic plan into the price range above, and decrease the number of contacts to 2000, while increasing the cases to 200-250, and keeping the 6 user limit and 500MB storage intact. At this point you can manage your personal/professional contacts, track anywhere from 100-150 active GTD-style projects + some inactive projects, and cover most family users and start-up businesses and still be getting anywhere from $180-240/yr. subscription revenue per account.

Thumbs up on the suggestion for $5/user/month. Similar to the suggestion I made a while back here: http://forum.37signals.com/highrise/forums/14/topics/1159#posts-6827. I would subscribe immediately, two users. It could even have a ‘Family Plan’ license, i.e. Not For Commercial Use. I’m not a business, I can’t afford to use it for commercial use, but it’s a great tool for organizing vendor relationships for projects we’re doing around the house.

SSL costs real money because it either adds CPU load or you need external hardware accelerators. In my day job at a Fortune 1000 company, we used to charge for it for an online service, but then dropped it as a SKU because it was confusing to people as to why it wasn’t just included for free. Of course, that was for a product that was typically 4-6 figures. For one that’s 2-3 figures, I can see why you might make it an add-on.

ET

Thanks for the info. on SSL – I had no idea. I’d love to see SSL “sold separately” on Highrise (and Backpack)—say an extra $3-5 / month.

I have to say…I’m a little confused her on this one….

Here’s how I use HR….

I’m a new manufacturer and exporter of accessories for Billiards. We started with $25 and no clients. We now have 12 products and clients all over the world and I’m searching out software to implement parts and inventory management and this of type software ‘isn’t cheap’.

I am the most UN-organized person in the world and when getting started making cold calls to potential clients I spent I think about $30-$40 for ‘Red Book Organizer or “RedBox’ as some may know it. I HAD to have something to organize myself that didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out or hours upon hours of learning how to use it and I needed to have everything clearly out in front of me. This was the simplest software I could find to manage my contacts and trust me I need something ‘simple’.

Then I stumbled upon HR and WOW, what a life saver. And FREE no less…Yes, I’m a ‘free loader’ (at the moment, we’ve 94 contacts, 2 users (I don’t understand why people up above mention not having a second user, maybe I’ve missed something) and 1 case to manage clients who print catalogs every year.) and the money I’ve saved/made from the abilities of HR is amazing, not to mention the mental anguish of remembering who I called last, what I said, what they said..When was I suppose to call that guy back? What about those emails…didn’t he say something about that in an email? Yes, I am just overwhelmed with Joy as to how helpful HR has been.

I don’t have any need for cases at this time so I don’t miss them, my clients are building progressively as our inventory grows and we grow. I have to say… I will have NO problem paying half the amount of money I blow on a dinner and a movie( and that’s if I go stag) to upgrade.

As for the ‘student’, ‘educational’ or ‘family’ account…I have to agree…personalization of accounts would be a good option…the not for profit idea is good also… As for a small business having a hard time with $50 to manage the mouth that feeds you…No sympathy here. You blow that much money at the bar watching Monday night football. 20,000 contacts? 15users? You should be making enough money that $50 is nothing.

Well, that’s MY 2cents… Anyone got some spare change?

Doug

20,000 contacts? 15users? You should be making enough money that $50 is nothing.

+1

+1

I am part of a student organization that puts on a digital media conference called >play. We would like a way to manage our relationships with attendees and participants from past years. With 100 student organizers, $150/month is a bit obscene. I wish there was a better way…

+1 for a Duo option

If you are using any paying highrise account you can’t afford to downgrade to the free because it’s impossible when contacts are populated, files are uploaded and cases created. It’s a long term service and I can’t find any intelligent reason on why 37S don’t offer quarterly, semiannually and annualy subscription plans that include a discount unless they are thinking to change the price. Here’s the link to my feature request
http://forum.37signals.com/highrise/forums/9/topics/4662

“Prepay and Save” would allow many users to feel more committed to HR and spend less in return 37S cash inflows will dramatically increase and would be more predictable. I would really love to see it although I understand that they have the right to choose whichever billing timeplan they want.

Now if they don’t want to commit to a certain price as it may increase or decrease in the feature (in which case the monthly alternative seems right) well I think you could do a system where you can fund an account and get a discount based on the amount you put in, similar to when you refund a prepaid cellphone service depending on the amount you add you get free dollars. Please consider this 37S.

I personally cannot see the logic behind the plans that are offered. Why do you get only 1 user for $29 when you get 6 users for $24!? That’s odd…. I think that pricing should reflect understandable measures and the old model of “user-based-licensing” just makes less sense on the internet than back when a user was tied to an installed software license (and a shipped CD-ROM, etc.). Instead Highrise pricing should lean up against the same model as Basecamp: 3 plans to choose from (3 is the magic number, Apple has this philosophy as well with their products). And only differentiate on number of cases and storage. Contacts/users should be unlimited (as with Basecamp), which would also make it easier to integrate the two later on down the road.

• Basic: $24, 15 Active Cases, 3 GB storage
• Plus: $49, 35 Active Cases, 10 GB storage
• Max: $149, Unlimited Cases, 50 GB storage

And the off course there is the free model: $0, 1 Active Case, no storage

Now THAT would draw in customers (don’t ya’ think)

Why do you get only 1 user for $29 when you get 6 users for $24!?

Because 37S greatly (IMO) overcharges for SSL.