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Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

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Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#61

Post by jdrock »

PanMan wrote: post #57
jdrock wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We increased prices at 80legs from on-demand ($2.00 per million pages) to subscription + on-demand (starting at $99 per month + $2.00 per million pages). It was a success for us. Here's why: 1. It was early on - just a few months after our public launch. 2. We offered a limited free version in conjunction with the price increase. 3. We lost some customers, but they were only worth max $10 per month. We were able to w…

Well, it might have been a success from your point, but I liked your service a lot better on the previous level. I haven't had the need to scraping LOT's of pages yet, but one the previous plan, I felt like I could experiment with it for almost free. Now it's too expensive for that...

You can still experiment with pretty much everything except the API using the basic (free) plan, as long as you crawl fewer than 100,000 pages per job.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#62

Post by danielha »

We used Zendesk over a year ago with about 4-5 agent accounts. We cancelled it because no one wanted to log into it and we were having a lot of support issues. Fast forward some time and we start up an account again because our support definitely grew beyond a shared support Gmail interface.

We're still using it now but we're also using Assistly.com in tandem. Assistly is in beta but there are great guys behind it and they listen very closely to product feedback. I absolutely expect a full transition from Zendesk in the near future.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#63

Post by [deleted] »

ryan-allen wrote: post #58

ZenDesk pricing has always confused me. They always pitched themselves as 'for the small smart guys' with all the 37s type philosophies that were popular at the time. And I looked at the product and thought "Wow, this product is actually quite nice!". But we had 5 staff and only one full time support person, but everyone needed an account. The starting price was a bit rich for how small we were and I met the head eva…

[deleted]

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#64

Post by X-Istence »

robryan wrote: post #9

This seems to be a good example for the idea of setting your prices at the right level from very early on. Much better to err on the expensive side then drop them later than significant rises like these. Or initially offer a special deal so people know it will eventually cost more. Similar thing happens when going from freemium/ indirect revenue to charging. There was a big backlash when invision board did that, even…

Well, the backslash against Invision Board was mainly because the main guy that was working on it had promised that the product would stay free forever, and suddenly he started charging for it.

I have two licenses from 2005 and 2006 respectively and each one of them was fairly cheap compared to the $149.99 that it costs now, also I've got a perpetual license meaning I get free support, and free downloads of the latests versions for life, whereas the new ones are for 6 months of support, and for 6 months of new downloads, after that you are stuck on whatever version you happen to have purchased.

$149.99 is pretty expensive for a piece of software, considering I can get an entire OS upgrade for $129 from Apple, which does MUCH more than a forum. I'll just keep my luck and my grandfathered accounts alive, knowing I am going to get the value I want out of those accounts.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#65

Post by John212 »

koenbok wrote: post #47
tyrelb wrote: post #2

Alternatives: http://www.activecampaign.com/help-desk-software/ http://www.kayako.com/ http://webhelpdesk.com/ http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/default.jsp http://tenderapp.com/ http://www.cerberusweb.com/ http://www.thevisionworld.com/ http://www.autotask.com/software/service_desk.htm

Anyone tried out http://www.assistly.com yet?

Yup, but it is still very much in its in infancy as far as features are concerned.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#66

Post by mikeryan »

paraschopra wrote: post #14
patio11 wrote: post #6

Do my eyes deceive me or are companies with 20 employees at their help desk complaining that a thousand bucks is a lot of money? I think we are seeing a later day MMORPG forum. At some point, it is easier to argue for a patch for your class than get 1 pct more stats, so you stop playing the game and start playing the boards. ZenDesk is the vendor most likely to drop prices by 1k for a single fauxraged posting, so sta…

If there is one thing that I have learnt from "Predictably Irrational" book, it is that humans make their money-related decisions by having a reference point. Zendesk could have always been priced at thousand bucks and no one would have complained. But once you set the price, you provide your customers with a reference point which they are going to use. You can't run away from that. For example, even though Microsoft…

Its funny as we move to SAAS models this seems to be a bigger issue. With Desktop apps you could just stick people on a version and let them keep their existing pricing plan with some sort of dedicated EOL. Anyone wanting a newer/better/prettier version would need to pay for the upgrade.

This breaks down severely on these web models, where you're more inclined to start out with a lower price and feature set while you gain customers, but want to increase the price as you add features (and value)

Its sticky and makes setting your first price point a more critical game.

I wonder if people have thought about "versioning" their SAAS apps. (do they? I don't have a ton of familiarity here). Personally I think Zendesk has to reward their early customers by keeping them at their current rate.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#67

Post by megamark16 »

ryan-allen wrote: post #58

ZenDesk pricing has always confused me. They always pitched themselves as 'for the small smart guys' with all the 37s type philosophies that were popular at the time. And I looked at the product and thought "Wow, this product is actually quite nice!". But we had 5 staff and only one full time support person, but everyone needed an account. The starting price was a bit rich for how small we were and I met the head eva…

"We ended up using eSupport (which is a complete piece of shit)"

Whenever I read something like this I can't help but think "Here's a potential customer to whomever can get this right and at the right price". It seems like there's still a huge opening in this market for someone to come in and take all of ZenDesk and eSupport's customers.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#68

Post by johns »

patio11 wrote: post #6

Do my eyes deceive me or are companies with 20 employees at their help desk complaining that a thousand bucks is a lot of money? I think we are seeing a later day MMORPG forum. At some point, it is easier to argue for a patch for your class than get 1 pct more stats, so you stop playing the game and start playing the boards. ZenDesk is the vendor most likely to drop prices by 1k for a single fauxraged posting, so sta…

It's not just your help desk though. If you want to escalate tickets to other teams or have your whole company be responsible for customer service (like ours) having users for 20 people isn't that extreme. We have <20 people and everyone has a Zendesk account because we all do customer service. Plus we use it to track resumes, sales opportunities, etc. The users add up fast.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#69

Post by megamark16 »

Kaizyn wrote: post #59
ghshephard wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jira. It's an issue tracker that: o Our legal team uses to track contracts o Our helpdesk uses to track 20-30 requests a day. With SLA Timers. o Our Project Teams use to track $20-$30 Million Dollar Projects, with 30-50 subtasks each with independent dates. And, oh, Yes. o Our engineering team uses to track software defects (It's original purpose) The 4.0 product is mind blowingly awesome, particularly with it's _sup…

JIRA is horrible. Don't use it if you can avoid it. While it kind of works once it's setup, the software really is terrible.

What's horrible about it? I ask because I really want to know, not because I'm defending JIRA (which I've never used).

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#70

Post by ekanes »

jonknee wrote: post #11
patio11 wrote: post #6

Do my eyes deceive me or are companies with 20 employees at their help desk complaining that a thousand bucks is a lot of money? I think we are seeing a later day MMORPG forum. At some point, it is easier to argue for a patch for your class than get 1 pct more stats, so you stop playing the game and start playing the boards. ZenDesk is the vendor most likely to drop prices by 1k for a single fauxraged posting, so sta…

It could be 20 third-world employees. A client of mine uses ZenDesk and staffs it out of the Philippines. $1,000 is a ton of money in that regard especially when the hefty increase comes out of the blue. It's also straight users so if you have part time people it adds up quickly. Especially so when you factor in management that have accounts just to check up on staff. However I think the biggest thing is they didn't…

Right.

And there's nothing wrong with raising your price by a large amount, even if people are locked in with your product - you simply grandfather existing users.

You accomplish what you want, and your existing users win too because all of a sudden they're getting a great deal.

Nobody leaves. Nobody complains. Everyone's happy.

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