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Don't think of it as $795/year. Think of it as $13.25 per user per month. And it comes with 200GB per user and the unlimited version history feature turned on,

Don't think of it as $795/year. Think of it as $13.25 per user per month. And it comes with 200GB per user and the unlimited version history feature turned on, so this is actually cheaper than five 100GB personal pro accounts ($19.99 per user per month) and it comes with twice the storage and the Teams features! A bargain! The only remaining question is why Dropbox presents the data as they do. Perhaps they did some A/B testing? My hypothesis would be that individuals and companies simply think of prices in different units. I predict that the discussion here on HN will bear this out: Someone will complain about $795/year but be happy to pay $13.25 per month. ;)

nobody314 15y ago
So what's the difference in me just buying a single 50Gb $99/year account with a shared team@whatever email address and have all the team login to it?
- mikeklaas 15y ago
  950GB, for starters
  - BrandonM 15y ago
    This is inaccurate, isn't it? The whole point of working in teams is to share files. Any file that is being shared with everyone is being counted against everyone's space. At least that's my understanding of how Dropbox works based on sharing a few folders with friends on free accounts.
    - nobody314 15y ago
      Yes we initially did that, bought a 50gb account and shared that folder with everyone, but it counts against their free 2Gb shares - so everyone needs their own 50Gb plan
- T-hawk 15y ago
  One limitation of non-team accounts is that you can't easily run multiple accounts on one machine. (It's possible with some hackery involving multiple OS user accounts.) I would hope that Dropbox for Teams makes it easy to run the team account in parallel with a personal Dropbox account.
rufibarbatus 15y ago
That's actually a very good point. If they presented their plan the way you just laid out, I wouldn't be so ill impressed with it. I still think this plan isn't for me, and I still think they should've been more flexible with the package and pricing, but it makes a bit more sense now that you put it this way!
kamkha 15y ago
> Think of it as $13.25 per user per month. They really should advertise it as such.
- gabaix 15y ago
  I think their reasoning is they want people to commit to a full year rather than one month. I agree it's not a good way, really. They should start with $15/month and suggest $795 yearly for discount.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  So, I just saw several nice talks about A/B testing, one of which was by our very own patio11. And the way A/B testing works is that you have to take the data. Hypotheses are just hypotheses. They can be wrong! They can be really wrong! The data will surprise you sooner or later. Here's a hypothesis: If you put up this chart instead of the one that is there: 2GB: $9.95 per month 100GB: $19.95 per month 200GB plus Teams: $13.25 per month per user, min 5 users Here is what might happen: A. On the margin, people with very small companies will tend to buy more Teams subscriptions. B. However, that effect may be partially canceled out by the large companies that are subliminally turned off by a page that mentions only monthly pricing, not other kinds of pricing. Monthly pricing is great for individuals with credit cards, but company purchasing departments can work... differently. It might in fact be much easier to buy a year at a time than a month at a time just because of the administrative overhead and the culture of purchasing departments, and you'll absolutely have to use purchase orders and invoicing and get approvals, and if the vendor isn't set up for such a thing the whole process will be a huge ball of red tape, and gosh look at the time let's go out for lunch and talk about Dropbox tomorrow, or maybe next month... C. Meanwhile, some of your potential 100GB customers will be furious that they are being charged so much money! They will stomp their feet and emit furious tweets and threaten to hold their breaths until they turn blue unless they get the $13.25 price. D. And other potential 100GB customers will look at this and say "hey, bulk discount!". And they'll figure out how to band together with four trusted friends, and pull together a year's worth of cash at once, and buy a Teams account instead, and whoops now Dropbox is making less money on one Teams account than five 100GB accounts. ...and thus I wouldn't be too surprised if the results of A/B testing say: Leave the pricing page as it is. ...or, maybe Dropbox didn't actually test this page, and the more-straightforward hypothesis is actually the one that is right, and they could make even more money by switching to all-monthly pricing. ;)
sjs 15y ago
CrashPlan displays pricing in exactly that manner: https://www.crashplanpro.com/business/store.vtl https://www.crashplanpro.com/business/store.vtl

nobody314 15y ago

So what's the difference in me just buying a single 50Gb $99/year account with a shared team@whatever email address and have all the team login to it?

mikeklaas 15y ago
950GB, for starters
- BrandonM 15y ago
  This is inaccurate, isn't it? The whole point of working in teams is to share files. Any file that is being shared with everyone is being counted against everyone's space. At least that's my understanding of how Dropbox works based on sharing a few folders with friends on free accounts.
  - nobody314 15y ago
    Yes we initially did that, bought a 50gb account and shared that folder with everyone, but it counts against their free 2Gb shares - so everyone needs their own 50Gb plan
T-hawk 15y ago
One limitation of non-team accounts is that you can't easily run multiple accounts on one machine. (It's possible with some hackery involving multiple OS user accounts.) I would hope that Dropbox for Teams makes it easy to run the team account in parallel with a personal Dropbox account.

rufibarbatus 15y ago

That's actually a very good point. If they presented their plan the way you just laid out, I wouldn't be so ill impressed with it. I still think this plan isn't for me, and I still think they should've been more flexible with the package and pricing, but it makes a bit more sense now that you put it this way!

kamkha 15y ago

> Think of it as $13.25 per user per month. They really should advertise it as such.

gabaix 15y ago
I think their reasoning is they want people to commit to a full year rather than one month. I agree it's not a good way, really. They should start with $15/month and suggest $795 yearly for discount.
mechanical_fish 15y ago
So, I just saw several nice talks about A/B testing, one of which was by our very own patio11. And the way A/B testing works is that you have to take the data. Hypotheses are just hypotheses. They can be wrong! They can be really wrong! The data will surprise you sooner or later. Here's a hypothesis: If you put up this chart instead of the one that is there: 2GB: $9.95 per month 100GB: $19.95 per month 200GB plus Teams: $13.25 per month per user, min 5 users Here is what might happen: A. On the margin, people with very small companies will tend to buy more Teams subscriptions. B. However, that effect may be partially canceled out by the large companies that are subliminally turned off by a page that mentions only monthly pricing, not other kinds of pricing. Monthly pricing is great for individuals with credit cards, but company purchasing departments can work... differently. It might in fact be much easier to buy a year at a time than a month at a time just because of the administrative overhead and the culture of purchasing departments, and you'll absolutely have to use purchase orders and invoicing and get approvals, and if the vendor isn't set up for such a thing the whole process will be a huge ball of red tape, and gosh look at the time let's go out for lunch and talk about Dropbox tomorrow, or maybe next month... C. Meanwhile, some of your potential 100GB customers will be furious that they are being charged so much money! They will stomp their feet and emit furious tweets and threaten to hold their breaths until they turn blue unless they get the $13.25 price. D. And other potential 100GB customers will look at this and say "hey, bulk discount!". And they'll figure out how to band together with four trusted friends, and pull together a year's worth of cash at once, and buy a Teams account instead, and whoops now Dropbox is making less money on one Teams account than five 100GB accounts. ...and thus I wouldn't be too surprised if the results of A/B testing say: Leave the pricing page as it is. ...or, maybe Dropbox didn't actually test this page, and the more-straightforward hypothesis is actually the one that is right, and they could make even more money by switching to all-monthly pricing. ;)

sjs 15y ago

CrashPlan displays pricing in exactly that manner: https://www.crashplanpro.com/business/store.vtl https://www.crashplanpro.com/business/store.vtl