User Subscription Model Change - Implications on your business?

Debbie Sawyer

Thank you @Genevieve P. (I hope you are enjoying Engage!!)

I hope this helps clarify for you too @Emily T.

Kind regards
Debbie

Cheree Peterson

@Genevieve P. We currently have internal users who use forms, update requests and reports to enter/update information in our sheets. They are currently FREE editors on sheets which from what I understand will automatically? convert to PAID licensed users upon renewal OR we need to change them to Viewers to keep them FREE - is that correct? If we change them to viewers - they will lose the capability to edit data in a report? As viewers will they still be able to use forms and update requests to enter data? Where can I see a list of capabilities for an internal Viewer?

I spoke to our "account rep" who announced this new pricing structure, used a lot of scare tactics and fear to try to get us to add more licensed users and upgrade to Enterprise and that conversation did not go well. He would not correspond with me in email as I requested and insisted I set up an appointment with him because he wanted to discuss "security issues" with our account. Now that I have had time to look more into the change in pricing, he will not answer my email with questions about how this change will affect us - I am guessing because we are not likely to upgrade. How can I talk to someone who can help me understand the changes, who will take the time to understand our needs and help us decide the best path forward without the goal being to upgrade us to Enterprise? Am I able to switch account reps?

Genevieve P.

Hi @Cheree Peterson

Forms and Update Requests do not count as editing the sheet, since the users filling them out do not need to be shared to the sheet to complete those actions. 🙂

This Help Article defines the three user types in the User Subscription Model: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2483260-user-subscription-model-overview

In regards to your account representative, please keep following-up with them via email to make sure they know your questions have not been resolved. You can also contact the Sales team with questions about plan pricing from this page: https://www.smartsheet.com/contact/sales

Cheers,
Genevieve

Debbie Sawyer

@Cheree Peterson

Hi Cheree, I am not a Smartsheet Employee, but I have been able to help a few of our clients pick their way through this change, through the answers in this thread and some email threads that I have had with an Smartsheet Account rep. Sadly though Cheree I am experiencing the same aggressive tone with the sales rep and am finding the whole change quite frustrating, hence me asking questions here.

I must say @Isaac A. and @Genevieve P. have been very helpful indeed, the links in this thread have helped me enormously. Please feel free to reach out and I'll gladly take a call with you and see if I can help point out anything that might be helpful to you and share what I've learnt about this process to date.

Genevieve / Isaac, I have been advised that clients have to buy whatever licenses the Sales Rep deem appropriate and the True Up facility is only available AFTER you are on the new subscription plan. He inferred that we can't use it 30 days prior to renewal (changeover) to organise who the client would like to pay for. Is this correct? The help articles seem to indicate the True Up facility would be available 30 days before renewal, but the rep is contradicting this.

It would be most helpful to a lot of clients to have access to the True Up facility 90 days before switching over. I have found the User Type report to be very valuable indeed (thank you for pointing it out) however it still doesn't identify who the "Members" are. EG I have a client that has 447 "Internal" + "Unlicensed Admin and Editor" users listed that have all accessed in an editor capacity in 2024 in that user type report, but the rep is saying that at renewal he needs to pay for 184 of them. We can't work out what filters Smartsheet are using to identify the 184 out of the possible 447. So using that report is still very difficult to identify who has to be downgraded prior to actually buying the licenses. The rep also said, even if we downgrade some users to viewers, he will not requote unless he is told to by his system and in that case his numbers would be definitive, not ours.

Without the identified Members being visible, this is a real struggle for a lot of people.

Mparker89

Our business is the same. Looking at an increase from 20 to >400. We will never be able to justify this use on users which use the platform a few times a month. We are quickly trying to remove the need to use Smartsheet for more bespoke business process solutions and leave only the outstanding use cases for Projects (which there are many alternatives).

With budgets being agreed, we have yet been given clear pricing, but it is looking more likely we will be planning to phase out Smartsheet going forward. Shame, because the original selling point for Smartsheet just isn’t cutting it with, and on a per user, no free collaborator model there are better products in the market.

Roland Horwood

Hi all,

yep, I cynically believe that when the new subscription model was proposed a calculation was made based on the balance between losing established subscribers and the increase in revenue for new subscribers, and those existing ones who will have no alternative and will just "suck it up", but try to mitigate the increase in costs. I'm not sure which way I'll have to go, but either way it's going to be a shed load of work for me.

Not happy.

Lindsay AR

In agreement with all the noted concern and would like to add my concern with the limited ability to designate creators vs editors. We don't want users going rogue and coming up with their own processes and going off book. With the current model, we are able to curate the experience of Smartsheet, but if anyone who needs to edit is also able to create then we lose the ability to manage roles to the desired detail. It would be an easier pill to swallow if in their new licensing model they offered a creator role and price and editor/commentator role and price.

Roland Horwood

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/455275#Comment_455275

I'm interested in knowing the answer to this too. I can't seem to find an answer. Do "Guests"/external collaborators need their own licence to edit stuff shared with them?

Debbie Sawyer

Hi @Roland Horwood

I believe guests are continuing to be able to edit your sheets free of charge without the need to purchase their own license (or use one of yours).

I found this statement on a Smartsheet Help Article:

Guests

 are users outside of your company, available only on our Business and Enterprise plans, who can edit and comment on items shared with them. You're also not charged for these users.

Does this help?

Kind regards

Debbie

RVgs

Hi,

We are also very concerned. We only have 3 licensed users but almost 300 colleagues who can edit as free users.
My boss will never in his life give me the budget to provide these 300 users with paid accounts.

We are now looking for alternatives.

No matter how this turns out, we now have a lot of work to do with this announcement. We are very upset.

But I was still wondering:
Will it actually be possible to publish sheets in the new user subscription model so that they can be edited in this way by unlicensed users?

Debbie Sawyer

@RVgs

I've heard Dynamic View (albeit a premium app) might offer a workaround for the editors. Alternatively we have a tool that might help you too.

Feel free to make contact with me so I can explain a potential alternative. My contact details are in my profile data.

Kind regards

Debbie

Julia L Rumburg

Hey Debbie & all! 👋 Totally get the pricing concerns! Building on what @Debbie Sawyer said about premium apps, here's a fun scenario (just my thoughts on the user model):

New folks can try out full access for 90 days at no cost ✨, with admins having the flexibility to review/adjust user levels monthly or quarterly

Picture the Turkey Day Planning Committee coordinating their feast 🦃:

• Creating a master dashboard 📱
• Testing premium features for RSVPs/meals 📝
• Getting 25 volunteer coordinators onboard risk-free 🙌

By day 80, they'll know if they need 3 full licenses for core planners while making 20+ occasional volunteers viewers. Perfect for next year's planning too! ✅

Not a Smartsheet employee (but work with reps). I've seen costs go both ways. Happy to brainstorm ideas! 🦃 My contact deets are below!