I know this topic has been raised a few times but I just need some clarity on it. Maybe someone from the glide team can explain some thinking behind the strategy.
Glide pages are currently on a Private Pro Package which essentially makes them an internal tool. Now my question is, how does it help to have this branding “Made with glide” help because it is not necessarily seen by the public but rather the people that are using the page e.g. employees of the firm.
My point is, it would make more sense if the glide pages was on a public Pro package at least that way it would be seen by thousands of users (depending on the popularity of the App) unlike on Private Pro package where it’s only seen by hundreds (at most) of users who may or may not share how their company software was created seeing as most employees are wary of disclosing company information.
I really would love to introduce pages to a couple of potential clients but the branding right now is a stumbling block especially at a hefty fee of $40.
I think it’s important to also bear in mind that not everyone that uses glide is looking to “partner” with glide but rather love the tool they have created and would like to introduce it to their clients without disclosing what tool was used to create that App/solution.
This is only meant to facilitate a discussion around which package may be best for Glide pages and is by no means meant to offend anyone. I am eager to be educated on this subject open to another point of view. Thanks
For my next project I was planning to activate a Pro Page license.
Sorry, I may not have understood correctly … but are you saying that Glide Branding is also present in the case of a Pro license?
Yes, unfortunately for the time being, the branding will remain there even if you purchase a pro licence.
According to @david, they are looking into the price of removing the branding. To remove the branding, it will cost more on top of the $40 that is the minimum payment for the Private Pro licence (Max users of 20).
We are trying to move pricing away from pay-per-app. We want to have an ‘unlimited’ plan where you can create as many apps and pages as you want, but we cannot simply do that for a fixed price, because then we would be giving all of Glide away for, say, $99/mo. We think we could do unlimited apps & pages if we make brand removal an optional add-on. We’re trying to launch these new plans early next year.
Whilst I agree that there should be an option to remove the branding, I honestly don’t get this
Anytime I’m talking with a potential client, I tell them right up front that I’ll be building them a PWA, and that I’ll be building it with Glide. I make sure they understand the differences between a PWA and a native app, and I give them all the reasons why I think a PWA is a better choice for them. AND, I talk about why Glide is such a great tool for building PWA’s. I also explain that there are some constraints, and they may not get the same freedom of design that they’d get with a native app, but I also point out the benefits - the most notable of which is that they will get their app at a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. And that’s what usually seals the deal
My experience is that most customers don’t give two hoots what technology you use. They just want an app that works and helps solves their business challenge.
I get your point @Darren_Murphy and I can understand why you probably don’t get what I mean by that statement.
That statement actually says more about my skill level at the moment with glide than it does about glide as a tool or this community for instance. I am sure in future I will change my tune and apply to be a certified expert or look to partner with glide in some way or another but for now, the fact that glide exists and is such a great tool to work with is “my secret sauce” and how long that will stay secret where I am located, I am not sure but in the meantime I am upskilling so that I get to a point that I don’t have to hide the tool I use to provide the solutions that I do for my clients. Eventually I will get there but for now I am keeping it to my self until I reach your level as well as other great experts on this community.
Removing the branding at the moment is important to me at the moment and I am willing to pay for it hence I would like to have that option on pages too which is also good for them in terms of revenue generation.
I have almost the same approach as you @Darren_Murphy in the sense that my prospect will know that they will have a PWA with advantages / disadvantages over a native one, but only that. Then if the negotiation is concluded my client buys the work from me and then directly the service from Glide, so in the end he will know the service.
In the first phase, the one in which the quote is made, I prefer not to reveal exactly the platform (s) I use because I believe it is part of my know-how, and I believe that the customer must also pay for this in the end. This is the difference.
This happens because customers (at least mine) would not be willing to pay me only for the consultancy in the event that the estimate was not accepted, and then the effort made in research and development would be given away, and I don’t like this; especially because the consulting and analysis phase is very long behind the scenes (I normally have at least 3 meetings with the client where the last one is the realization of the UI demo).
But I honestly recognize that it would be a lack of market exposure for Glide and so I’m willing to pay more for it.
Anyway, maybe I’ll get over this thing that I feel like a problem, but I have to do some math around it.
This is my approach as well. I do explain the PWA portion and the advantages of being able to access the system on any device even on desktop…
I am also willing to pay the going rate to remove the branding for now so that can’t be a bad thing for glide.
If I remember correctly Luther, you’re in South Africa?
Based on Glide’s mission, “to create a billion new software developers by 2030”, I believe they may have to consider different pricing for different parts of the world. I’ve seen independent online course creators do this, following the Purchasing Power Parity index.
Yes you are correct. I am in South Africa but based on prior interactions with David on pricing, I don’t think that is something they are willing to look at for now, which I can understand in a way.
Thanks for your clarification about your roadmap.
So, why you don’t just add this add on for remove glide branding.
In my case, it is strategic not to show which tool I use for security and competition reasons. Honestly, I pause the development of my app on glide pages just for this detail on which I am willing to pay more if I am given the option. I don’t need to have an unlimited plan just to remove the branding. I understand that it advertises you but your tool is enough on its own to bring you advertising and new users, I myself promote it to project developer friends, but when they see that there is branding they do not adopt your solution, it represents a brake for them as for me and other users of the glide community.
This is a big no no for most of my customers. Wether it’s internal tool or open to external users that don’t want glide branding.
Paying 40 USD for pages for 20 users is not chip already and to my view keeping the logo is just plaint not a fair approach.
I can totally relate to having branding on a free version but when a customer is purchasing a pro license he also pays for the right to not have any branding other than his own.
I have rethought the approach more than you can imagine There are many more moving pieces here, most significantly the new pricing we’re trying to roll-out.
When we interview our largest customers, they consistently tell us that they don’t care about the Glide branding, which is one of the main reasons we want to make it an optional add-on.
Our priority is that Glide usage increases within companies, and to do that, people need to learn that the internal Apps & Pages are made with Glide. Supporting people reselling whitelabeled Glide is still a priority, but it is less of one. Most of our customers use Glide to build apps for themselves, not to re-sell.
Can you imagine if when a company buys Slack, the “Slack” name and branding are automatically removed from the app? How well would Slack grow if nobody knew they were using it? This is what happens with Glide today.
Hmmm…I am not sure if this gives me confidence or makes me worry. I mean no disrespect by that though. I can only hope that the brain storming sessions will not result in what is currently working being changed to try and position Glide in some way or another…
What is currently working is being able to purchase a Pro licence and not have Glide branding on it. Also being able to use the free tier and then have the Glide branding. There is a market for both instances and i hope whatever decision is made, it won’t negatively affect either market. I can only hope for a Win-Win situation which is what we all want.
If your biggest clients don’t care either way if they have branding or not…then why not listen to the portion of the market that do care. That’s just something to consider in your further brainstorming sessions.
I am not sure I get this one though. Glide’s mission is to create billion developers by 2030 and it sounds to me that growth within companies is rather a vertical growth strategy than a horizontal growth strategy. I could be wrong though and I am happy to listen to the alternative point of view…
To make big companies the focus of growing glide is in my opinion a mistake. To grow, Glide needs users of the platform e.g. the experts and those that are well versed with Glide to be on social media platforms doing tutorials and showing people how easy it is to offer solutions to some of the trivial tasks they may be facing much like how Robert & Darren are doing with their YouTube channels.
I must also admit that you ha e an unenviable task of trying to please different but very necessary markets for Glide to achieve its mission and I am not writing all of this without taking note of that complexity. I love the tool (Glide) and I look forward to what is next in line and I can only hope that you don’t ignore the “little guys” at the expense of “big business”.
Glide is still a start up and therefore should be a able to identify with many on this platform who are also trying to build or bootstrap their way to the “promised land”.
I hope you won’t take any of my views in any other way than what is meant and that is to give feedback on a tool that is currently great and has great potential.
At the end of the day it’s just my view on this and thank you for reading this far.
I share what @Luther said, plus I would like to add the following.
Here in this community I seem to see some independent developers, loners like me or part of agencies, who do their job by offering fast solutions at low cost thanks to the fantastic Glide platform. I assume, and of course I can’t say for sure, that most of them are dealing not with large customers but with micro and small businesses.
Small businesses, I believe, mainly outsource the software development function because they are very focused on developing and maintaining their business as they cannot invest in internal IT personnel. Here then, an expert user of Glide (where by expert I mean one who can go beyond just the preparation of the CRUD tables that really can be done in 5 minutes) can work well for these companies because preparing an effective solution means integrating existing processes without upset existing workflows (which still today can be based on old software with which you have to interact or which may even exist in paper form). There are regions in the world where excellence is represented not only by large companies but also by small ones operating in a smaller and very specialized market, and there are so many and most of them do not have a good enough IT culture to deal with the development of an APP even if it is nocode. In Italy, where I live, the productive dominance is characterized precisely by this type of enterprise, perhaps even in a too exaggerated way because in no other advanced country is there a degree of productive fragmentation equal to ours; but the situation is not all that different in Spain, France and the rest of Europe.
I (rightly or wrongly only my clients can say it) I consider myself an IT developer / consultant who can work well as an external resource especially for that range of micro-small businesses that I have just described (therefore not large companies); and now the question I ask you, @david , is whether in the future there may be a workspace for me again through your platform.
I love when people speak out and I respect corporate visions: every company has its own and it is right that it should be this way.
Thanks for your eventual considerations and for Your work.
Hey,
Maybe you should consider that type of plan. My 2 cents, base price plus pay as you grow would be interesting.
Free,
Internal app with glide logo,
Reseller with discreet Glide x ABC.com in footer or menu,
Reseller with Whitelabel
I don’t speak for David nor the Glide Team. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. The mission of creating 1 billion developers by 2030, I assume using Glide, is no simple mission. For comparison, how many people use Excel? I have no clue but probably less than a billion. An Apple product? Maybe 1-2 billion? Slack? Surely far less than a billion, Slack is a baby brand compared to Excel and Apple. And yet, these are highly, highly recognizable brands.
It seems to me that in order to achieve something as ambitious as a 1-billion user base, Glide needs to ride a wave (software does seem to be eating up the world) and somehow achieve widespread (worldwide?) brand recognition. I would argue that it’s not about the Glide products, it’s about the Glide brand.
The Glide team is surely grateful to the Glide community for the enthusiasm and helping shape the products. The fans and evangelists contribute to the brand image. But does it help enough? (rhetorical question)
If I were the Glide team, I’d put the Glide logo everywhere and especially at the launch of every app. White labeling and removing the logo might be a feature, but definitely not a priority. Yet, the Glide team has been so accommodating so far.
At the end of the day I think it is in everyone’s interest – independent developers, loners, experts, agencies, Glide the company – that we one day say “I’ll glide this” just like we say “I’ll google/slack/photoshop this”. And if you happen to be a developer who uses Glide, it could be like being a designer who uses Photoshop and InDesign (i.e. it doesn’t need to be a secret, on the contrary).
I like to think of the Unity development platform as an example. I’ve come across several independent apps, games, etc. that have been developed by several different companies using Unity as the underlying platform. Every time you open one of those apps, you see the following or something similar.
It definitely creates a strong marketing and branding image that bolsters the platforms brand. When I open an app and see ‘Unity’, then that gives me a strong impression that the app is built upon a strong platform due to widespread brand recognition.
To be clear, my apps are for small groups of users or personal projects. I don’t build whitelabled apps for others or do any sort of contract work, so understandably, I don’t have the same concerns as those that do. For my uses, I have no problem seeing the Glide logo or promoting it. I see it as an indication of a solid platform that I use to apply my skills to develop a functioning app on top of.
That’s just my personal view. I see several non-glide apps that show which platform was used to build it.
as well as other great experts on this community.
There are many more moving pieces here, most significantly the new pricing we’re trying to roll-out.