Trying to understand the new subscription model

Hello all,

I'd like to preface this by saying I've reached out to my account reps several times by email and gotten no reply, so I'm asking/venting here.

I've recently been made aware that after selling my company the business plan with one of the core selling points being unlimited free editors, Smartsheet is now removing this feature with no intention of grandfathering in existing users. That alone is pretty frustrating considering it was one of the main marketing points my rep used to sell me the plan and is listed first on the promotional card they sent me only 1 year ago.

It also appears that in order to operate a business plan you now must have at least 3 paid licenses, despite my company only needing one. This part I'm not sure of, but it looks like that's the story. If so, this feels like I will need to pay triple the price for less functionality than I had before. Paying for 3 licenses when I only need one seems silly, and now my viewers won't be able to edit either. I can't just drop down to pro either because I use the dashboards and other features that come with Business. I'm really disappointed in Smartsheet for not grandfathering existing customers with the old system. In our case, I've got my entire company procurement system set up with Smartsheet and switching to another service will be a huge inconvenience and drain on my resources. They also essentially sold me the promise of a feature they announced was getting removed right afterwards, and when I asked them about it my emails are all getting ignored. Feels really dirty of them.

Is anyone else experiencing the same reaction to this? Am I mistaken on how I'm understanding all of this?

-Ethan

Note: None of the categories I'm allowed to pick for this post have anything to do with the user subscription model and there's no global discussion thread for English so I'm just picking basics for now.

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Comments

Sandy Drew

Hello Ethan,

You are definitely not alone in your frustration, however I hope it's not all doom and gloom. While Smartsheet did implement this new user model, they did also adjust per license fees, so that it's hopefully not tripling your costs. Also, if you use dynamic view, that is still available for users to edit within, without needing licenses (or becoming paid members). The help article below has a handy table to quickly reference what actions will or won't trigger provisional status. I also included another link added where you can register for a webcast to hopefully help answer other questions you may have. Hope this helps!

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2483478-understand-provisional-access

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&eventid=4846327&sessionid=1&key=547EDA0225A2788CE03641C154BD8908&groupId=5883113&sourcepage=register

Ethan T

Hello Sandy,

Thank you for the reply. You're correct, they did lower the fees. After some quick calculations it will cost me approximately double what I paid for one license before to have 3 licenses now. I'm still confused as to what I'm supposed to do with these extra two licenses since I don't need them. I'm still trying to get in touch with my direct contacts at Smartsheet so I can get these questions answered, but I'm having no luck. Hopefully someone gets back to me soon.

Thank you as well for the links. They're helpful for me to understand what I need to do moving forward.

-Ethan

ESD

Also, per my CSM, Users entering data via a Form or in response to an Update Request are also not charged a license.

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