What is the reason behind not allowing capturing real email address on the free plan?

I love the idea of the login with a pin - this creates an opportunity to capture only “real email address”. For people who would like to use an app as a “lead magnet” - this would be incredibly enticing - I can see so many ways of creating an “app funnel” where you can have various types of “funnel apps”. This could really be a game changer over typical ways people are using current lead magnet approaches. In order to convince my audience that this can work, they really need a “free way” to try it - but the free plan only allows the fake email names. I guess I could have the user “reconfirm” their email address after login to unlock the content as a way around this, but was just curious why the team decided to not have this feature on the free plan.

Here is where the original announcement was made:

and here is the announcement that was made when it was made the default (you’ll find the answer to your specific question in this thread):

You’re not the first one to wonder about this, and there have been several related topics/discussion threads since the feature was introduced. Search the forum for “anonymization” and you’ll get dozens of hits.

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People were making free apps that collected email addresses and shared those email addresses irresponsibly. Making it a paid feature dropped this abuse precipitously. This was the main reason.

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Thanks for the speedy reply and background @david and @Darren_Murphy I understand the reasoning. I serve the online course and membership space and am drooling over the possibilities here. I am in day 4 of discovering Glide and already built an app for my membership that my members love.

My 1-on-1 clients are mostly established 7-8 figure entrepreneurs and recognizable enterprise companies who I would love to pitch this to, but not clear how the enterprise plan works in relation to the Pro plans.

They other part of my business is providing products to smaller business who love to have an app that complements their online course experience. I see ways it can help in getting them to sell more easily, but also to make their members’s course experience a better one. I would am still not 100% if this platform will work for my scenarios I am thinking about. I see some cases that it does (generally smaller scenarios) but am concerned over my audience quickly reaching the 25K row limit (even ones with just a “one course app”.

I will reach out via the Enterprise “Let’s Talk” form and see if we can talk directly about my scenario.

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@ian is the man to talk to about Enterprise.

I wouldn’t be too concerned about the 25k row limit, especially if you’re considering Enterprise.

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@Darren_Murphy I just clicked on the App Script link in your profile and :exploding_head: - this opened up a whole new way of thinking about how to connect the Glide App to my course platform. Amazing - did not think about using Apps Script in conjunction with this - since I am looking to have a “template” Glide app - does the App Scripts “come along” for the ride if someone purchases the Glide App?

Glide most likely will not except a template that relies on scripting or CSS, or anything else that’s not natively part of the glide platform. You have to sell it privately outside of the template store.

With that said, I don’t think google scripts come across with a copied app/sheet.

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haha, I’m an Apps Script junkie :crazy_face:

I was a GSuite user long before I became a Glide user, so I have an Apps Script function for just about everything you can imagine. Every time I start a new project, I drop a few hundred lines of utility functions in before I even get started.

But yes, as Jeff mentioned, Apps Script is a strict no-no when it comes to Glide templates. And the same applies with CSS, although there has been a recent hint that this at least might change sometime soon.

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They do when a sheet is copied outside an app, but not when a sheet is copied as part of an app duplication.

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Thanks for the insight - I did not realize it can be sold outside of the template store. I will have to look into this some more - only in day5 here with Glide and trying to absorb as much as I can as quickly as I can

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These people “need” a free way to try a $30/month product? That surprises me. There’s no way it could be a cost issue—is this a procurement issue? Or were you referring to a different customer for “lead funnel” apps?

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I personally would never ever ever sell my apps as ‘templates’ on the Glide store. Not that it is wrong… it is just a different business model.

Why offer an app template for 200 bucks, or 50, or 500… and then spend hours on time-consuming questions (why can’t I see data… ah, I turned on row owners for the ‘date registered’…)

Best to make your own business, bundle things up so you can sell them nicely at a goodly high price, and work out how to get the code / package to the client in a way that may make you even more money (i.e. you charge extra as a full service package).

I will be making templates of my telemedicine app - covid testing by video. In different languages. And for different use cases. A bit of customization and ta-da!

There are well-meaning hoops to go through to go on the Glide Store, and I fully understand them. I have also bought a few templates to unpick them and see how they work. Great value to spend $100 on someone’s 300 hours’ worth of work project. Then I have paid Glide experts in here their hourly rate to get them to help me address my specific issues, rather than generalized solutions. Money very well spent!! Even if the answer is ‘glide cannot do that’. And ok, I might ask someone else, and then we figure out that it might be able to solve the problem just fine after all :wink:

Good luck on your project! This community is brilliant too - makes Glide a great platform to build on :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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It is fun to think about business models. I once was ‘gifted’ a $40K 10 day course at Harvard Kennedy School on global leadership (a donation from an alumn for a particular program, a guilt-ridden hedge fund manager).

So how much is something worth?

The $30 a month is a brain-hack (it is usually the annual price / 12, but the monthly price is more…). But, depending on who you are and where you live, you can spend that on lunch and still have enough for an espresso.

I’m sure I could do a course on ‘selling to value’… now I could charge an hourly rate for that, taking my yearly need, divide into hours somehow… or I could think a) how much is it worth to someone and b) can I get them to pay it, and then ok c) how many people can I get to pay at this price point.

I am sure I could come up with something for less than $40K. Cheap at half the price!

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David - the 1-1 clients/enterprises are not the ones looking for free - I would charge handsomely for app development and they would gladly pay the higher end of Glide services.

The “other end” of my audience are the “soloprenuers” that are looking to build and grow their online course business. Many course platforms do not come with “an app” and I would like to offer them an “easy’/low cost” way of creating one as either their primary mode of delivering their course or as a “complimentary” experience to their main course that they can offer as an “extra reason to join the course/membership”

Great feedback and glad you pointed out some of the challenges - you are way ahead of me on this platform as I am only in week one of discovering Glide. Essentially I am looking at various angles of offering services in this space: high end clients will charge high $ for developing apps for them - low end customers, was considering offering a template “to get them started” and then complimentary training/course to have them build out/tweak from there

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