Details on the New Pricing Plans

Info & Announcements
1

Important Note Before Reading: These plans are NOT live today. If this is your first time you’re hearing about our new pricing here’s a blog article that we previously posted to catch you up to speed.

:pray: Thanks For Chatting with Me So Far!
I first wanted to thank you all for your continued support and conversations through all of this. It’s been amazing to speak with so many of you 1:1 and this has certainly inspired me to continue doing that (beyond just talking about pricing). Hearing your stories was truly inspirational!

:clipboard: The Details
As promised, I wanted to share the details now that we’ve had time to get feedback from you all and work out what we believe is the best solution moving forward.

Here’s a look at the new plans:

Adalo-Pricing-Chart
Adalo-Pricing-Chart2000×1393 200 KB

:raising_hand_woman: Some FAQs
While I’m sure there will be a number of questions, I wanted to try to answer some of the specific questions and details that might be on your mind.

What counts as a Published App?

  • In the future when the new pricing is live, there will be a way to mark which of your apps are ‘Published.’ By marking your app as published, you will unlock the ability to publish that app to either of the App Stores (Apple or Google), or by applying a custom domain. Publishing to all of three of those with the same app will only count as one Published App.
  • If your app shares a database with another app, that will also only count as one Published App.
  • For makers that are already on a paid plan and have published apps, there will be a way in the future to mark which ones are published.

What happens if you reach your App Actions limits on your current plan?

  • The last thing we’d want is for your end users to feel the impact of a limit being reached and your app to stop working. So once you exceed the App Actions limit for your plan, we’ll add a package of 15,000 additional app actions for $8. This happens each time you need more app actions. At the end of that monthly billing cycle this will be reset back to your plan’s current limit.

What if you need A LOT of App Actions?

  • During my 1:1 conversations with you all, there were some of you that shared your concern of your apps having a lot of App Actions (think more than 500,000 per month). While I can’t promise one specific solution that works for everyone, what I can say is that we truly don’t want this new pricing model to stop your app from being super successful. So on a case-by-case basis if your app has that many App Actions, I’m happy to talk with you and figure out something that works.

Can I add on Published Apps or App Editors à la carte if I reach my plan limit?

  • Yes! We’re going to be having the following add-on options for each paid plan:
    • Additional Published Apps: $25.00 per published app per month
    • Additional App Editors: $15.00 per app editor per month

What if you need A LOT of Published Apps or App Editors ?

  • Again this question came up in a few of my chats with you all. I do think there are a couple of use cases where this might happen. Let’s say for example you’re a school or a large organization and you have a lot of App Editors working on something together or you need like 20+ Published Apps; in these cases, we’d love to provide some sort of bulk add-on option. Please reach out if you think this is something you’ll need and we can work it out on a case-by-case basis.

:date: Timeline
These changes are NOT live today. We wanted to share these with you all as soon as we could. We’ll have more details about when we’ll be rolling these out shortly.

And again, please keep in mind, any makers on either the Pro or Business plan will be able to remain on those plans for the next 12 months. Your monthly bill with Adalo will stay the same during that time, unless you choose to move to one of the new plans.

:handshake: Book a Meeting With Me
I have opened more slots on my calendar to speak with more of you about the upcoming changes — if you haven’t already, please book some time.

:man_technologist: Some Final Things
Yesterday we posted an updated roadmap with one of the major projects that we’ll be working on next. We’ll have more to share soon about some other things as well.

Later today we’ll be filming the Community Town Hall. That will get posted next week!

I realize that this topic is sensitive and we’re really trying our best here to communicate with you all. Please try to be respectful here with your responses.

And finally, thank you all for creating new things with no-code!

7 Likes
2

That’s very bad to be honest, well I work on more than 5 project and apps for clients, need locations, need stuff, need the editor. What’s your plan regarding this?

4 Likes
3

Hey Jimmy, if you haven’t yet please book a time to talk with David.

Obviously we’re trying to make a solution that works for everyone’s use cases and learning how to make a freelancer like yourself who works with many clients see the changes to our pricing in a positive light can benefit the whole Adalo ecosystem.

4

That’s nice to hear, at least there is something on to be worked on from you regarding this… Thank barrett

1 Like
5

Thanks, I’ll add your question to the townhall as well.

2 Likes
6

this seems mostly ok, however, charging $100/month for the collections api is going to piss many people off, I don’t recommend that.

14 Likes
7

I don’t recommend that.

1 Like
8

Ultimately, I’ll be leaving Adalo for fresher fields on the basis of this. When so many things are broken or poorly thought out, how can you even think of raising prices?

10 Likes
9

Thank you for the update & being proactive in answering FAQ. Concerns would be around incentives caused by this more complex pricing structure.

I can see how it’s a tough nut to crack; not easy for you. The $8 for more actions is encouraging, in the sense that its a few bucks for a lot more value.

I don’t know if it would work; there’s a lot of details, but charging based on users, not actions, still seems more aligned with value & MUCH simpler.

Finally, just an opinion here, as someone NOT creating components, I hope that the percentage that Adalo is charging component makers, doesn’t stifle quality production and competition in the market place. Steve Jobs said he was going to keep app fees, in the app store, low. Tim Cook broke that promise. Look at the results. (Maybe this will help you make the best decision)

Thank you & the team for all the HARD work!

2 Likes
10

So up until now I’ve been generally supportive of Adalo (at least in my mind). But this pricing is not good and I think is going to upset a lot of people. I have one published app with almost no one using it yet (I need fix a lot of things before I want to go public) and here are some thoughts:

  1. I just looked at my usage stats, and in a month where I did a lot of testing (by myself!) I used 15,000+ actions and the following month over 10,000 actions. That was before I went live!

  2. I use Make (Integromat) as I’m sure a lot of people do (or Zapier) to update my Adalo database to handle scenarios Adalo can’t support. So now I need to be on a $200 a month plan?? That’s 4x what I’m paying now just for API access? I can guarantee you that I won’t continue with my app and Adalo if I need to spend $2,000 a year just on Adalo for my “hobby”. I think this is pretty outrageous.

I’ve been generally pretty happy with Adalo, even with all the issues that have occurred, but having to pay $2K on top of that is just a bridge too far unfortunately… I’d be happy to pay a bit more but not 4x more.

11 Likes
11

Prices seem too high given the ongoing issues with components failing and builder glitches. The price plan for using Collections API use is way too high.

Some of my clients will definitely shy away from Adalo once the new prices take effect. Many of my clients only need a single app with many features. This plan pushes them to a much higher price tier than they previously would need to be.

9 Likes
14

Those at the top of Team Adalo don’t seem to understand the first thing about running a business. First of all, you cannot even dream about charging premium prices for something that is, to be kind, very much a work in progress, or at best, a beta.

You need to understand that your existing customer base is gold. Chase them away and Adalo will collapse. I’ve seen this happen again and again. You need to grandfather your existing customer base in, establish a two-tier structure that, on the one hand, preserves the existing base while encouraging new subscribers. What you have revealed today will foment a mass migration away from the framework while providing absolutely no incentive for new subscribers to jump on board.

Can anyone who reads this say, uncategorically, that they would sign up today as a new subscriber if they saw this pricing structure at the front gate? Can you?

9 Likes
15

Hi, I’m Brazilian and the dollar against the real is a very high value for the monthly plan with API.

I’ll need to use API and then pay for it.

my app is in production and I plan to switch to the paid plan soon, precisely because I need to integrate some third-party api and publish it soon.

2 Likes
16

Today is really a SAD SAD day for ADALO.
Not one of the Adalo staff, including the CEO understands the implications of the juvenile fabrications around the updated unclear pricing plan for Adalo. All I see is a quest to be too greedy over an app tool that is still at a beta phase. I got me wondering what they used the $10M raise for.

What you are looking for, you will get it and don’t be surprised when it happens…

6 Likes
17

I have one customer paying me $34 per month… their usage is generating 80,000 actions per month and potentially growing. I also pay AWS for relational DB and lambda functions to support this customer on my Adalo-made app.

With Adalo charging so much per action, this might not be profitable for me under the new pricing. My guess (Adalo should provide a tool for this) is that most of the actions are API calls to an external AWS DB because Adalo’s DB was not responsive enough. This does not feel fair to me. Two requests:

  1. Please help us identify our actions which contribute the most to the count. Maybe I can manage things better, but maybe not.

  2. Please indicate Adalo’s desire to be a production app platform for large apps. Praise for Adalo is usually the ease of building a prototype, but the $/action pricing structure seems to discourage long-term use of Adalo for a production app and to encourage migration to another app once established.

As a point of comparison, I am executing 160,000 AWS lambda functions per month and that costs me $13.50. Adalo is saying $8 per 15,000 actions. Thus, Adalo is $0.53 per 1,000 actions and AWS is $0.08 per 1,000 actions.

7 Likes
18

Hi,

Honestly, this new pricing plan will not work according to my understanding because the current pricing makes adalo different from other no-code tools instead of charging for the above-mentioned features you should charge for or introduce new plans in the existing one like -

  1. Charge for database storage like 5 GB - $50 and if the user reached this limit then $5-10/GB for more.
  2. Add maintenance costs of $10-15 to existing ones.
  3. Charge for adding more than 2 team members
  4. Take a small commission on every external developer (not from adalo) component purchased by users via the marketplace.
  5. Build and offer more components some free some paid ones as well by adalo team.
  6. Earn via Adao App Academy
  7. Also if possible build your own ad component and offer that component for free to users but if makers use that component in their app they and you can make money.

How - You can place your own ad mob/sense pub id, sponsors ads & also we as a maker can place ads in that component.

Now how Adalo & Maker will earn - If the maker uses that component in the app your ad network will run ads randomly few ads via google ad mob/sense, your sponsor’s ads & maker ads. Adding all these together let’s say you make $100 then contribute that 100 in a 70/30 ratio, 70 to Adalo, and 30 to Makers. For this, your ad network will be needed which should be accessible via Adalo account and may be a separate section to run ads as a maker.

Advantage of this component - You’ll earn, and makers will be able to get app installs.

Keep in mind unlimited app publish & app actions are the power of Adalo and differentiate adalo from other tools. Why I’m mentioning this because every time I introduce Adalo in front of others the customer are going crazy on the keyword unlimited and they always say this tool is amazing in terms of pricing and visuals. But they also ask what if I reach 5 GB? I reply pay as you go they will charge you per GB and they reply that’s totally understandable and also ask me if there is any maintenance fee from adalo?

This is my experience rest is on you Adalo. I hope my experience will help you to modify the existing pricing.

I hope this will help @David @barrettnash

Thanks

1 Like
19

Hi,
What if I have more than 10 published apps or need more that 300,000 actions/mo ? btw this limit is very small and cannot be called “Business”

and again, I would like to stress on the performance point which is related to latency, Adalo’s structure is already on cloud, so I believe it is doable to have Adalo’s services on multiple Geo location and anyone can choose which location to host apps, in my case this is the only point which will make me eventually leave Adalo if it is not become available very soon, not increasing the price, since as I mentioned before, Adalo is giving us a lot of services that worth much more than 50$, but it should keep up with the expected performance.
Thanks @David

2 Likes
20

You’re correct. No.

22

with webflow which will soon natively allow to create applications, (which is already possible by using solutions like Wized), to name just one, I think adalo is going to suicide with this pricing. I really liked Adalo, but now I will be forced to give it up.

4 Likes
26

Oh boy…. Well, at least we got our answers to that particular question, so the anxiety of the unknown has shifted to the sheer anger of the known that should never exist.

This is financial suicide on Adalo’s part. I suspect a good chunk of current Adalo customers are going to migrate away if this plan actually moves into production, myself included, which is pretty sad to see. Such measures don’t just affect all of the app builders here but the guys and gals who have invested immense time and created a business model around developing components and themes for use with Adalo will see their profits collapse as well, as either the Adalo base flees for the hills or Adalo customers can no longer afford both Adalo’s service plus buying extra components.

This pricing model is going to hurt a lot of folks who have built their business around Adalo’s services, but mostly, I believe this will see Adalo disappear as a “top” choice for no-code editing. Perhaps as you make this transition, you should consider documenting the results so you can sell a “how to collapse a business in one move for dummies” series to offset funds lost from your existing customer base.

I haven’t looked at my actions usage recently but the last time I did, I would be pushing that $200+ plan and I haven’t even published a live app yet! Those actions are merely from testing, since the editor does not actually reflect what’s seen on a real device.

You keep saying those who are already paying for the service will stay on the current plan for a year. Ok. Cool. What does that actually mean though? Because my current plan allows unlimited published apps, no restrictions on actions, etc. Does that mean for the next 12 months, I can still publish as many apps as I want and to pull unlimited actions, or will I just continue to pay $50/month but be restricted to the new tier that closely matches that price point?

Who, exactly, of your customers have you been talking to that seem to agree with this direction? Because I mostly see pissed off customers on this forum; whoever you’ve been in talks with obviously don’t represent the active user base here.

Personally, if you’re going to move forward with this, anyone already paying should be grandfathered in with your current structure, and implement those changes to new customers. This is a huge slap to those who have spent time with your company, and invested a lot of money to fill the MANY gaps in Adalo’s offerings (components, automated workflows, external DBs etc).

Some of your competitors would be smart to take advantage at this particular moment to adopt those fleeing your platform for safer waters.

Sad day all around.

7 Likes