Appsheet Pricing

[alperensimsir]

Hi. I have couple of qq. Thanks in advance. 

- If my app is a subscription app with a week of free trial, does this mean I would be paying $10/m per user for the users that won't be subscribers to my app in the future?  If yes, that would be a huge cost.  

- Do the users have to sign in every time they launch the application?  Or is it done at the background?  

[WillowMobileSys · Accepted solution]

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@alperensimsir wrote:

If my app is a subscription app with a week of free trial, does this mean I would be paying $10/m per user for the users that won't be subscribers to my app in the future? 

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I assume the "free trial" is something you are doing to attract customers?

Licenses are floating and are "consumed" for each user that accesses any of your deployed apps within the monthly billing period.  If a user accesses your app for only one day in the first month, they would consume a license for that month. Should they NEVER use the app again they would no longer use up any of the floating licenses and there would be no charges incurred.

Users can access a single app or access 100 apps during the month - its still just a single license consumed.

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@alperensimsir wrote:

Do the users have to sign in every time they launch the application?  Or is it done at the background?  

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AppSheet leverages authentication services (Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, etc) for their default login capabilities.  If a user logs out of their preferred authentication account each day, they would be asked to login to authenticate before they are allowed to use the AppSheet app.  However, many users stay logged into their authentication accounts for long periods of time and in these instances they will not be asked to authenticate before accessing the app each day.

[alperensimsir]

this is very helpful, thank you!

[WillowMobileSys]

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@WillowMobileSys wrote:

they would no longer use up any of the floating licenses and there would be no charges incurred

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I've just realized I wasn't entirely clear on this point.  By saying "no charges incurred" implies there would be no bill from AppSheet.  This isn't what I intended.  I simply meant that the fictitious user wouldn't result in a license being consumed.

The expectation is that you purchase the number of licenses for the number of expected active users.  You will be billed for this set number of licenses each month.  AppSheet will warn you if you exceed the number of purchased licenses BUT they will not notify you if the number of actives users is LESS than the purchased licenses.  Nor does AppSheet reduce charges if the number of active users is less than the purchased number of licenses.

It will be your responsibility to reduce the purchased licenses if you have a drop in users.  Until you know your app's usage pattern, it is hard to predict the number of active users monthly.  I advise to start off with about 30-40% fewer licenses than you think you need and buy additional licenses as needed.  Watch it closely over the first few months, adjusting license numbers, up or down, as needed until app usage stabilizes.

[alperensimsir]

I understand, thank you.
The problem is the free trial period which would be for attracting customers.  On average 3-5% of the freemium users end up subscribing to similar services.  If I charge $15 per month, it would take me years to breakeven because of that 95% that would never pay me. That makes no sense.  (ex: 1,000 users download and sign in, 50 subscribes, I would be paying $10K to Appsheet and making only $750 (if I'm lucky)).
And I don't think any of the users would be willing to commit to a monthly subscription if they don't see the app in action.  
So for these reasons I can't use Appsheet for my apps.  
I think the service is great if you are designing an app for your employees or a small group of users but not if you are trying to target a big population.     
Unless if I'm missing something....

[WillowMobileSys]

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@alperensimsir wrote:

I think the service is great if you are designing an app for your employees or a small group of users but not if you are trying to target a big population. 

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AppSheets' target customers are indeed businesses and corporations.  However,  AppSheet does have a Public Apps  plan (under the Publisher Pro plan) that costs $50/month.   These apps are not secured and do have functional limitations but may work for you depending on the app you wish to build.

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@alperensimsir wrote:

Unless if I'm missing something....

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Maybe?

For the volume of users you are talking about you may be able to get a volume discount with AppSheet where the cost per user is much less.  You will need to talk to their Sales depart.