Free Account Editors vs Paid Account Editors

Beth M

I recently upgraded to a Pro account to help my husband with his business. In retrospect, it doesn't appear I needed a Pro account...

I've created two sheets, one report, and one dashboard. I need him to be able to edit one sheet when there are updates to his deals. I was able to share the sheet with him, but he cannot edit anything on the sheet and Smartsheet says I will have to purchase an additional license if he needs to edit that sheet. However - and this is where my confusion is - if I had stayed with the Free account, I could have myself plus two additional free users who could edit the sheet and no need to purchase any licenses.

Am I missing something? Is there another way to allow him permissions to edit one sheet rather than purchasing another license? And at this point it will be quite a pain because I've been advised that when I downgrade, my sheets will be locked as read only for 30 days. Would it be better to just start a completely new account with a different email address and duplicate my two sheets, report, and dashboard?

It seems odd that the best solution would be for me to downgrade to the Free account. Why wouldn't the paid accounts offer at least the same amount of editors as the Free account?

Thanks in advance!

dereksemmler

It does appear as if it will only be the two of you that use Smartsheet, you may have been better off on the free plan as long as you only needed the two sheets. The free plan allows for the two users to be Viewers or Editors, whereas the Pro plan requires each Editor to have a license. It does seem odd that upgrading to Pro would actually limit your ability to use the tool the way you were on the Free plan, and I thought that must be incorrect. However, the following link does appear to confirm this is accurate:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2482496-sharing-and-widgets-in-the-pro-plan

Maybe someone else will chime in and explain something that both of us have missed.