User Subscription Model Change - Implications on your business?

Our company is in a similar situation as yours. We've been using Smartsheet for roughly 4 years now, and we have 11 licensed users and around 30 unlicensed users, all using the same company domain emails. The majority of our unlicensed users don't heavily handle sheets, but they do fill out forms as well as insert comments and complete update requests via automation. From the (many) tabs I have open as I've been working to figure out what this upcoming change will mean for us, I don't think any of our existing users will be able to be Guests and while many of them don't do much in the program, they need just a bit more access than what Viewer allows.

I came in this morning to the new model email, so we're going to be reaching out to our rep to try to get a clearer cost response so we can begin planning appropriately. We'd already been planning to downgrade our plan with our last renewal due to cost but were able to work with our rep to stay with the plan we had, so if this change means a large jump in price I'm not sure what we'll end up doing. At minimum I know I'll be looking through all of our existing users to see how much we can cut out to mitigate cost.

I would 100% prefer to continue using Smartsheet because I like what it offers and it will be a huge hassle to switch to something else, but I'm expecting that it will come down to cost.

We're waiting to see how this affects us. We have had Smartsheet for about 5 years and are on an annual plan that renews soon. We have 65 licenses, but more than twice as many free users. Our current plan suits our needs, as most of the free users only need to view and edit data. We just started adding on advanced features, such as Data Shuttle and Data Mesh.

I am concerned about a few things with the new model, and have asked my rep about the following:

— Can admins no longer assign internal and external free (guest) users?

— Can free (guest) users no longer be sheet admins?

Much like others have mentioned, the value of the new model would need to exceed the new cost.

At first glance, this does not bode well for our organization. We rely heavily on our users being able to comment on sheets and it is sounding like were are now going to have to pay for each user to continue to do what they have been able to do all along as unlicensed users. I am still not 100% clear on what, exactly, all of the changes are (I have been unable to get clear, definitive answers to my questions) and what the potential financial impact these changes will have on our organization. I am waiting to hear more from our Smartsheet sales rep before I make any decisions. But, I have begun researching other options as a precautionary step so we don't have the rug pulled out from under us, financially. We have utilized Smartsheet for well over 10 years and I don't know if my budget will be able to accomodate any further increases. Unfortunately, with the recent talks/aquisiton of Smartsheet (Blackstone/Vista Equity), their switch to a dual President model coupled with yesterday's resignation of COO Stephen Bransetter, my instincts are telling me that this will not be the last major pricing change coming our way.

We are likewise concerned. We also collaborate heavily with external partners and were told that external collaborators will not need a license, but we want to verify this with the community.

Can anyone confirm whether external collaborators will still be able to view/edit things shared with them for collaboration, like a dashboard or a project plan sheet, without needing a Smartsheet license of their own?

We have 55 licensed users and over 300 non-licensed editors. This will cause us to audit our usage, but I believe you also have to have a license to fill out a form, which is a huge issue for us as we use that as part of a PMO intake process. This will cause us to either look at other alternatives or double some of our work as we may need to move to Google forms and then manually move the data to Smartsheets. This pricing model is forcing us to create new time-consuming processes instead of streamlining for the end-user, as we will not be purchasing a ton of licenses in the event someone from management may want to input a project request.