I am unsatisfied with the sudden and drastic change made by Asana to rectify what is being called a product oversight. I started receiving notifications from the Application about my premium teams being over their team size limit. This was a surprise to me because I closely manage members of my premium teams. According to Asana, due to a product oversight, limited access members (those linked to projects within a team, but not members of the team themselves) were not being counted towards the team size limits. For my teams, this change is requiring me to pay an effective rate increase of 733% overnight. One of the primary factors of going with Asana was their price. I have spent the last couple years making Asana a key part of our team culture and for a couple of my teams I have incorporated premium features like custom fields etc. Believing Asana was a reasonable company, I had anticipated yearly rate increases but nothing to the degree of 733%. Asana as replied to my concerns with nothing but restating the facts of how the product works but has made no effort to provide a pathway to a reasonable rate increase. I will be forced to search elsewhere because the new effective rate is not justifiable. Have others been experiencing this problem?
@Tomlico It looks like back in March Asana did another price jump, and there was no warning given. At that time many people seemed concerned about an even smaller jump than this one (Price increase? - #11 by Todd_Cavanaugh).
These sudden, and significant, price increases make Asana seem much less appealing. The implementation of the increase was not done in a way that was smooth or friendly to current clients. It has always seemed to me that Asana’s focus was on providing a great product at a great price (customer satisfaction). With the way this was handled it makes me feel like Asana’s focus has shifted towards simply making money.
I get that companies have to make money, but the way that happens is making your customers happy. This sudden price increase is not palatable and does not seem justified. What new services were added to justify this increase? Granting limited-access to team members is nice, but not worth this increase. It seems like a way for Asana to get people to add even more members to their paid teams so they can make even more money.
I’m disappointed. Back in March one user posted some alternatives to Asana that may be worth looking into:
@ tomlico It is critical to know whether you are set Up as an organization or a workspace. This change according to support only affects if you were set up as a workspace. If you are set up as a premium organization you should be in much better shape. I had long discussions with Support on this and would like to know a little more of your circumstance so that I can attempt to help you if there is a possible solution
Hey @James_Carl. Thanks for you response. I was not aware that there are organizations and workspaces. I really do not know, but I suspect we are setup as an organization simply because the app uses words like “Organization Settings…” etc. I will have to ask Asana about that. I know that membership is defined by our company domain, not sure if that drives one classification over another.
Asana sales confirmed that I am an organization…
Then are you saying that previous project members with the same domain address were previously not being counted, because I was specifically told by support there was no change to organizations and it only affected workspaces.
I will have to ask support about this then @James_Carl. If that only applies to workspaces then they should able to correct it. I also take it that you are not being made to purchase a team size to fit not only team members but also members of the projects in the team…
@Tomlico I was also told that this only affects workspaces and premium teams, as @James_Carl said. If you’re not currently an Asana organization, you should try to become one to solve your problem
I also want to clarify since I was mentioned above:
I listed a bunch of companies specifically to address their pricing for small teams, but I believe hands down that Asana is a better product than all of those. You would be wasting your time trying to find a better tool right now.
I visited with Support some more and this is the conclusion. Any use of a member that has your domain email address in an Organization,which you say you have will require a seat of your premium organization. Any member without your organization premium account domain email address will not take a seat as they are guests. I believe this to be very fair on Asana’s part and more generous than others as organization as premium organization guests can share many features unlike other software that they are mainly observers. Free workspaces pretty much use up all member seats (15) with any status, member or limited which is also fair. I am not as familiar with free organizations as I operate under a premium account. More and more features require a premium account but when you need them they are well with it and competitively priced.
Thanks @James_Carl. My primary concern remains that Asana changed their pricing rule recently and as a result I am being forced into a 733% rate increase overnight. This is what I find unacceptable. I believe that Asana should correct their product oversight gradually (reasonably) for those who made financial and budgetary decisions based on a totally different pricing model. Does that make sense? Thanks again for your interest and insight.
I understand what you are saying, especially in budgeting. Maybe Asana would transition with you or provide a grace period. To this day, I am still not sure what caused your increase if you have a premium organization. Free Organization can have up to 15 members. Being a small consulting firm I have the 5 person premium package but it is limited to 5 members. The free organization can actually have more members than my paid organization, but there are trade-offs with premium features, unlimited guests, and most important a 37% small group pricing discount up to 15 members. It can become complicated and unique to the one’s organization. Hope all goes well for you and something is figured out that helps you.
Hi @Tomlico - I’m the Community Manager here at Asana. I appreciate your concern and I’ve reached out to my colleagues to see what we can do here. We’ll get back to you with a direct message as soon as possible. With the holiday, I expect to reach out to you by early next week. Thanks for bearing with us!
Hi @Tomlico - Absolutely! I’ve heard back from my team about this today, actually. You can expect to hear from someone soon.
Hi @Tomlico,
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll follow up with my colleagues who should be reaching out to you.
Thanks for bearing with us!