Reply to Message

Re: Not good enough

mammerman Updated - 14th Jun 2010

@wayne62682

Hi Wayne62682,

I'm Matt, VP of Client Services at Apprenda.

Generally, youre right, the full version of SaaSGrid can be expensive for a bootstrapped startup, which is precisely the impetus for us to release SaaSGrid Express to the masses. Id like to point out that your number on the SaaSGrid server license is a bit off (perhaps you were quoting the SaaSGrid license + a fee from a hosting company?). That said, in order to bring SaaSGrid Express to the market we chose to focus on functionality that would make most sense to certain business models for example: a startup building a B2B app charging $30.00 per user per month could net $324,000 per year with SaaSGrid Express (30 customers with 30 users each). Not too bad for a bootstrapped startup! It might not be a perfect fit for certain freemium models, sure, but hardly a joke! The branding limitation is referring to our out-of-the-box portals. Your app is your app with no questions asked we dont inject any branding into your app, ever.

Note that those ISVs pursuing capital or building early customer traction can use SaaSGrid Express precisely for what you mentioned: POCs, demoes, customer evaluations, etc. They can build a product atop SaaSGrid without significant capital investment early on to prove out the technology choice. Furthermore, as highlighted above, an ISV can grow substantially before graduating to a full version of SaaSGrid. This gives them a very decent runway.

Lastly, your comment on the price modeling is simply a misunderstanding of SaaSGrids vernacular. The use case you outline is completely supported in SaaSGrid Express. Each price model is composed of multiple price plans (think Basic, Pro, Enterprise, Ultimate). So, the one price model you define can contain any number of plans allowing you to monetize your app in a variety of ways to meet customer demands. This gives you the same killer flexibility in pricing your app that you would get with the full version of SaaSGrid. Being limited to a single price model simply means you are limited to one set of price plans.

Hopefully this info helps clarify a few things.

Cheers!
Matt