A quick idea to improve pricing for individuals

First of all I have to clearly point out that we love abstract and it definitely changed the way we handle design files and collaborate. Thanks for that 🙏

I totally get that this whole pricing thing is quite complicated and there are many voices from many sides raining down. I also think that the new pricing plans are an improvement overall.

Abstract Pricing — https://www.goabstract.com/pricing/

In your latest blog post about the new pricing you write:

When you create an Abstract account, you automatically get a Free account for your own solo work and small projects. With a free account, you have access to Abstract essentials and 10 GB cloud storage.

True and fair enough!

As long as I work alone and only for myself the free plan is just perfect. But inviting someone to one or more projects would mean each of us would have to pay 9$ / per month, right? Just to work (maybe temporarily) on one project together? This makes total sense for small agencies with employees or even temporary freelancers. But not for me as freelancer.

… Numbers 🙄

Project A:
Designer Joe works on a small personal website and wants to temporarily collaborate with designer Jane.

Project B:
Designer Jane works on a personal project to learn how to design an app. She invites designer Joe to help her and comment on her work.

Project C:
Jim works on a small side project that he starts with two of his classmates. Just for fun and to improve his sketch skills and to learn the versioning workflow using Abstract.

• Project A: 2 x 9$ = 18$
• Project B: 2 x 9$ = 18$
• Project C: 3 x 9$ = 27$

That’s 63$ for a single person in total, right? I personally think that’s not your target group to get the money from. That’s the Agency world. To use a Git workflow just alone is fine but the solution must be get the people early into the workflow. But to do that we need a fair pricing model for individuals as well.

Github Pricing — https://github.com/pricing

We think github is a very good example for a more flexible and single-user friendly pricing.

A humble suggestion

Additionally to your free and starter plan, what about an “individual” or “freelancer” plan?

The conditions

Let’s say I pay 5–9$ / months. I can invite up to 3 members and unlimited projects + all features you’ll get with the current starter plan. Deal?

With this additional “individual” plan you might make us freelancers and side giggers happy and still gain paying customers as well. I’d be happy to pay anyway 💸 😜

But maybe! We just got this completely wrong? Maths is definitely not our favorite subject ✌️

Written by David Hellmann and Justin Schueler.