Confusing subscription pricing info

1

What page are you referring to? Something on the website, or something in the product?

🌼 Fibery strategy 2026
2

The good ole Pricing splash page: Pricing — Fibery

I think your strategy of targeting tech savvy leaders is going to have you running into this:

  1. Tech-savvy User at Organization discovers Fibery, obtains single license, begins using it
  2. Confirms org-wide benefits, desire for more licenses
  3. Other Organization employee not using Fibery searches for Fibery - Subscriptions - Pricing, using search engine, lands on Fibery’s website
    1. For this person/use - Fibery’s Pricing page needs something about “If your organization already has an account and you want to add more users”. I think it’s not clear the difference between signing up a new account/workspace vs. adding more paid users to an existing account.

I think the way it’s currently set up, you guys are assuming that all Fibery-related decisions at an organization are filtered through the tech-savvy user.

So while you might have this:

desire for new licenses → tech-savvy User who is architect of the workspace → invites new users

You are also going to have this:

desire for new licenses → Organization admins, procurement department, people who have never seen Fibery before → Fibery Pricing webpage

Edit: I didn’t intend to turn this into a personal customer service/troubleshooting post!! I think it speaks to Fibery’s overall strategy though to pay attention to how to communicate to both their tech-savvy user base, and all of the people that support us tech-savvy users :slight_smile:

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3

Why do you think this?
The pricing page only refers to users, it doesn’t talk about accounts per se.

In other words, starting a new workspace with 5 users on the Pro plan costs the same as adding 5 users to an existing workspace on the Pro plan.

Are there other pricing pages for similar SaaS tools that you think demonstrate a clearer explanation of per user pricing?

4

My understanding of Siara’s comment is not that the pricing per se is a question, but how to pay. In other words, the page answers “how much will I have to pay” but doesn’t make it clear “how do I get you the money to add 5 more users (vs 5 new users)?”

I’m not sure if other software makes it more clear, but I do know I was also a little unsure how to add another user. I ended up just ‘adding’ the other user and then got billed. Makes sense, but if you’re shooting for enterprise, don’t make it hard for the AP people to give you money because they don’t have any reason to love Fibery - they love the companies that make it easy for them to pay and record!

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5

Well, see, this is already a bit confusing. :joy: I don’t agree that these are the same thing.

Scenario 1: A new workspace with 5 Pro users = 5 licenses

Scenario 2: An existing workspace (which implies an existing Pro user) + 5 users = 6 licenses

Even if we’re talking about the same number of licenses, while the total price might be the same, the method of purchase is not. The operational aspect is very different, depending on how purchases are handled by your organization.

timothy:

Makes sense, but if you’re shooting for enterprise, don’t make it hard for the AP people to give you money because they don’t have any reason to love Fibery - they love the companies that make it easy for them to pay and record!

@timothy says it much better here!! The inability to produce an invoice prior to the transaction is also an issue.

6

I meant, scenario 1 = +5 users and scenario 2 = +5 users, so the cost of creating a 5-user workspace is the same as the cost of adding 5 users.

Why not? Subscription is paid by credit card, managed in the billing section.

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7

I think the point is getting missed here – scenario:

  1. Nerd sets up Pro account on Fibery. Loves it.

  2. Nerd asks Quant (AP) for authorization to add more users. Quant has to actually make the payment.

  3. Quant goes to Fibery.io and looks for how to add more users → there needs to be an instruction with a screenshot that says “this is what you do to add more users to your EXISTING subscription.”

The checkout screenshot you showed is misleading for existing users for 2 reasons:

  • It mentions checkout → they start looking for checkout. They accidentally buy another workspace of Fibery instead of adding users to the existing workspace.
  • It also tells WHAT you can do (you CAN make a bank transfer payment) but not HOW (how do I do that?)

Just to be clear. I’m not saying Fibery’s webpage is bad. I’m just trying to explain the very valid point that Siara is making.

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8

Maybe this is a cultural thing, but for many large organizations in the US (especially government or government-adjacent organizations), purchases are just not that simple!

If you are envisioning me sitting at my computer with a credit card in my hand, unfortunately that is not the case. :laughing:

  • Our “credit card” is a procurement card which is managed by a different department
  • This card is “locked” and only approves specific transactions
  • Procurement requires our security team’s approval for all software purchases
  • Procurement also requires written proposal/justification for every purchase
  • Procurement requires an invoice prior to the transaction

All of these factors depend on if we are making one purchase or multiple purchases.

All of this also means that someone new to Fibery and seeking information about subscriptions is likely to become confused. This means they might give up and go for a product that is simply easier to throw money at. I’ve been using Fibery for almost 2 years and this conversation is starting to confuse me. :rofl:

So, respectfully, let’s not pretend that something is simpler than it really is!

9

OK, there are a couple of issues here:

  • Does the website for pricing make it unclear how much you pay for users? I hope it’s not too bad, and not significantly worse than other similar SaaS tools.

  • How does a new user get added? and how are they paid for? (two separate things)

In your example, I think the flow would more likely be:

  • Nerd sets up Pro account on Fibery. Loves it.
  • Nerd asks Quant (AP) for authorization to add more users.
  • Quant has to green light this, and will probably update the payment card to be used (to the company credit card, instead of the nerd’s credit card.
  • Nerd adds new users (now that the green light is given) and the company cc gets charged

So, the AP needs to know how to set up a new CC (= “How are users paid for?”) and the nerd needs to know how to add users (= “How are users added?”)

I think maybe the issue lies here

Quant goes to Fibery.io and looks for how to add more users → there needs to be an instruction with a screenshot that says “this is what you do to add more users to your EXISTING subscription.”

Fibery does not have the concept of licences which can be bought and then subsequently attributed to users. You don’t pay for X floating licences that people then can use.
You pay for specific users.
So it’s not possible for the AP to generically ‘add more users’.

But they (or more likely the nerd) can be the person who sends the invites to named users.

AFAIK this is not a universal model, but is very common across similar SaaS tools.

10

Yep, and Fibery won’t work for this model of paying.
We don’t typically send pro-forma invoices unless by prior arrangement.

(we do it when the account size makes it worthwhile - typically the paperwork effort is not worth it for a handful of licences. Also, since usage often varies over time, it results in needing to generate corrections - extra invoices, or credit notes - if/when the actual usage does not match the planned)

11

If you think you are likely to be ‘throwing money at us’ reach out in chat and we can discuss an invoicing option :slight_smile:

12

This sounds very decisive! Perhaps this is information Fibery should be upfront about, if there is no interest from Fibery in pursuing the broad swath of users who work for an organization with this payment model?

This conversation is feeling a little strange. :sweat_smile: Weirdly personal? We do already pay for Fibery.

I think reading over this conversation speaks to my point, to be honest :laughing: One typically does not need to spend a lot of words explaining something if that thing is self-evident to begin with.

Respectfully, the reason we chose Fibery over Airtable is because Airtable said the exact same thing–they refused to help us unless we were an enterprise account of a certain size. Not really the position I would’ve expected from Fibery!

My feedback boils down to this: I, and my coworkers, find Fibery’s Pricing page, payment process, and subscription model confusing.

Do what you will with that!

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13

Sorry if it took me a long time to get to the nub of the problem.

Very happy to have that feedback, and we’ll try to make things as transparent as possible.

I wasn’t overly familiar procurement processes for government orgs in the US, and indeed, we’re not well set up to serve these processes as I now understand them.
It’s nothing personal I promise.

If you want to transition to invoicing, then just reach out and we’ll see what we can do.

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14

Just a little extra thought here. I’m a big fan of Fibery, and I
recommend Fibery everywhere I think it makes sense.

If you’re targeting enterprise customers in the USA, I’m aware of very
few (I am not a large entity but I do business with multiple large
entities) that don’t have some sort of process like this – it’s all but
required for proper accounting controls according to US standards.
However, I also know that almost all of them at some level will accept
deviations - especially for software - because that’s how software works.

HOWEVER – I also know that some companies refuse to deviate, or require
a very influential person/team to be very in love with the software in
order to wheedle or command such a deviation. This adds a significant
level of friction to adoption.

I wonder if there could be some sort of a Purchase Order concept – the
Nerd adds 5 users in ‘tentative’ status. Fibery generates a Purchase
Order (or Quote etc). That gets approved – but it’s not an invoice and
doesn’t usually carry the same level of absolute reconciliation
requirements. Then, the Nerd can go in and convert the users to ‘Active’
status and the payment gets charged. I’m sure the enterprise accounting
people would want to tweak that some, but it’s similar to a process I’ve
been able to use getting paid with some enterprises companies. Just a
thought because I’d love to see Fibery be used by more enterprises.

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15

One more thing to add to this with the updates to the User’s database coming soon.

Right now only admins can add new users, it would be nice to be able to control who can invite users, but then also limit the number of users who an be invited. Importing a CSV of users is ideal for larger companies, but if done by accident, it will immediately bill the user lots of money.

Paying for a specific number of seats, then buying more seats before inviting users I think makes sense. Or at least having the option to pay like this.

16

This is likely coming in the next few months.

We would rather do an occasional refund than introduce a limit on the number of users.

Enterprise customers have an option to pay like that, even today. For everyone else, the overhead from both sides is almost never worth it.

Note that most B2B SaaS products used to charge customers as you’ve described, but now only the most upmarket ones do that.

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