Small business pricing for FileMaker

[Terrible Toll]

I have helped a lot of small and start-up companies with their IT and FileMaker has always been he tool of choice for quick up-and-running databases with the ability to evolve as the business developers.

However, the latest pricing model is now proving quite a stumbling point. If you are a start-up and want to set up a FileMaker solution (I refuse to call them Apps), then what are your options for purchasing software now? Unless you already have 5+ multiple users and can justify a subscription, you are forced to stump up £432+VAT for each individual licence. This is suddenly making a significant change to anyone considering using FileMaker and thinking about the costs of pinning your business to such expensive software in addition to developer fees. I fail to understand the reasoning of the latest pricing change and the dropping of the basic FileMaker Pro product which creates a real financial barrier to any decision maker considering FileMaker as their software of choice. Once they are past this stage and are committed to FileMaker, they are more-or-less hooked, so it seems like a very poor pricing decision that can only result in a poorer take up of the FileMaker platform. Combined with the shorter trial period, it is almost as thought FileMaker (now Claris once again), are deliberately trying to dissuade new customers!

Anyone else have any thought or issues with this?

An additional ramification of the demise of basic FM Pro is the sudden increase in maintenance fees for clients with VLA licencing. I can understand that FileMaker may be trying to get everyone to move over to subscription licencing (for which FBAs suddenly get no percentage), but the net result will be that it will be price advantageous for a client to expire their VLA and then purchase a subscription in several years time, rather than transfer over. Is this really what Claris wants to happen?

Anatole Beams

FileMaker developer since 1991

Edited September 20, 2019 by Terrible Toll

[Wim Decorte]

It's hard to carry a good conversation around pricing since it is extremely relative to the value (actual or perceived) of the solution delivered.

For the last 3-5 years it has been fairly clear that buying individual seats is expensive.  But buying the basic 5-user license is very cheap in perspective: 5 licenses to use any FM client product plus three servers, for the price of basically two and a half individual FMP licenses.

If you have at least two users then buying the basic 5-user license is no-brainer IMHO.  If you have just one or two users then perhaps FMP is not the right platform but here too it depends on the value you can deliver for the 500 GBP plus your dev cost.

For us, the licensing cost is usually not a big factor, the dev cost is.  The combined cost is what gets evaluated against that perceived value.  It's a given that any price increase (whether it be licensing or our own hourly rate) is going to change that equation and where the differential was marginal, some projects will fall off.

I'm not quite following what you say about VLA vs subscription licensing.  You can buy a VLA on a perpetual basis or on a subscription basis, that choice is still there.

[Terrible Toll]

Hi Wim

Thanks very much for the quick reply and apologies for my reply not being quite so quick.

I concur completely with what you say about dev costs and relative pricing. However, for a new FileMaker customer, the price is now quite a fright. I find it hard to understand the reasoning for making individual licences even slightly expensive. All my clients have expanded from tiny beginnings. The value to Claris has got to be in snaring them in the first place so they go on to be larger licensees on the longer term.  

The point I was making about VLA licensing for existing clients, is that they have seen a massive increase in annual maintenance charges:

2018 - 10 FMP + FMS + 5 concurrent connections - £821 each

2019 - 10 FMP + FMS + 5 concurrent connections - £1580 each

This is mainly due to the demise of FMpro forcing all licences to be renewed at FMPA rates.

Continually hiking the costs on your current user base may bring short-term gains, but it erodes the faith that developers and customers have in the parent company, particularly where there are meagre product improvements, despite ever-increasing version number. This seems to have been the major thrust of FileMaker sales for a decade or so now and is beginning to make them very unpopular.

Thanks again, Anatole

 

 

[Wim Decorte]

11 hours ago, Terrible Toll said:

The point I was making about VLA licensing for existing clients, is that they have seen a massive increase in annual maintenance charges:

2018 - 10 FMP + FMS + 5 concurrent connections - £821 each

2019 - 10 FMP + FMS + 5 concurrent connections - £1580 each

This is mainly due to the demise of FMpro forcing all licences to be renewed at FMPA rates.

 

No, I don't think that last sentence is accurate.  What I think is going on here is the difficulty in comparing the old license structure to the new.  Claris is not charging more for FMP because it is now FMPA.  In fact they've done away entirely with the distinction between what client software you use (FMP, Go or WebDirect).

Under the new licensing there are only two models:

- User Licensing

- or Concurrency Licensing

There are different modalities to each such as Maintenance or Perpetual, and there are volume discounts for each through VLA & Site licensing but in the end it really comes down to the two core licensing models and the big difference vs. your example is that there are no more "concurrent connections" on top of a pool of 10 FMP.  Those concurrent connections were for Go and WebD if I read your example correctly?

 

[Terrible Toll]

Hi Wim

Thanks so much for your response to this query. Do you know - it has taken me this long to actually get to grips with this distinction? You are quite right about the new licensing, but FileMaker have completely failed to get this message across to their users and presumably most of the developers too. I don't believe that I can possibly be the only developer to have been ignorant of this.

Of course, it is still mighty confusing as it leaves unanswered questions about this new licensing structure:

In my example of 10 user licences and 5 concurrency connections, It sounds like this client now has 15 connections in total? However, according to Claris (FileMaker sales), 10 off these are 'specified' users and 5 are 'anonymous' users. How does the system tell this? There is no current specific user registration yet linked to the licensing (to my knowledge), so how does the system distinguish between the two? - or is this a 'forthcoming feature' to delight us all in the coming future? I rather hope not as having specified users might not be a very useful thing as many clients have temporary staff and logins for users can change quite frequently.

It also means that now my client is likely purchasing more than they need, since they never have 15 users on the system at one time. ... and of course the net result is an annual 'maintenance' cost that has doubled.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Terrible Toll

[Wim Decorte]

It's a common misconception/frustration.  The bottom line is that at the technical level (FMS) there is no distinction nor an enforcement.  But the connections do get logged and FMS does phone home.

So FMS will not block users if you over and beyond your license, nor does force you to "name" users for your "user licensing".  But obviously going beyond your license puts in legal grey area: you know what you agreed to and you agreed to abide by it.

[Terrible Toll]

That all sounds very fair and reasonable. I'm sure it won't last, but I won't be the one to abuse it. Neither my clients or myself mind paying for services we use.

Thanks again for casting light on this FileMaker grey area.