Dear dropbox team, I am glad and proud to be one of dropbox's member because of the simplicity and sharing capability dropbox brings me. As for a student working aroud, it is very important for me to have such cloud storage so I can access files anywhere. But as time past, the amound of storage space is getting lesser. Indeed I am looking forward to upgrade my account to Pro but considering I am just a student with no income at this moment I felt that the only package available (1TB for $99/yr) is quite unaffordable for me. Plus 1TB might be too much for me to use at this moment. So i was wondering if by any chance that dropbox would consider implimenting other package choices that are much more affortable for us? Please do not misunderstand my intention as I am not just speaking on for my own benefits but also for others that might want a Pro account with affordable storage space.
What I have in mind if maybe the sales team could consider options such as
100GB $1.99/mth
250GB $3.99/mth
500GB $5.99/mth
750GB $7.99/mth
1TB $9.99/mth
or something like that. These packages are more affortable and users may select the amount of storage they wanted and upgrade to a higher package in the future if they need it.
From the business POV, insead of allocating 1TB for 1 user (which I believe most of them barely use up 50% of it) you can seggregate the space out for other users to be more profitable. For example 1TB costs $9.99/mth and 500GB cost $5.99/mth. So instead of 1 user hogging up 1TB of barely used storage why not selling it to 2 users which uses 500GB of storage space hence giving you more profit? Last but not least I really look forwared to hear from your team if such idea will be applicable and I am really interested to get a Pro account which is much affordable to me as a student.
Dropbox is sold to customers based on space, but much of dropbox costs are based on traffic.
If you had a 100GB account or a 1TB account, on average you will produce the same amount of in and out traffic, hence costs to dropbox are the same, so no smaller size accounts with price breaks are likely to appear as costs to implement them dont reduce.
FYI the 1TB account used to be 100GB and then they just x10ed it out of the blue one day, which sure points to space is not a driving cost factor.
Note: 1TB accounts do NOT get pre-allocated space, space is consumed as required, and any content data that appears in more than one account is cross referenced and stored only once, this is an additional under the hood saving that DB make which I expect significantly helps them to supply free accounts to users.
@dave and @robert thank you so much for taking the time to explain some of the inner workings of DB. Much appreciated and I am happy that I can learn so much from you guys... Anyways I really do want to get myself a Pro account but sadly I couldn't afford it at this time... (I'm from Malaysia btw so it cost me about 450MYR/yr)... Hopefully someday in the future I can be a part of the Pro team too... Cheers 🙂
No problem, competition is a wonderful thing. Unlike Dropbox, MS are in a position to subsidise their price plans from other income streams in their business. Dropbox has never, ever been the cheapest amongst its competitors, its never had feature parity with competitors, its never had the most free space, and yet year on year it grows in user base and revenue. The point is that Dropbox is not an à la carte service - it doesn't have to cater to everyone individually - there is a paid account option available to all, some people won't avail themselves of that option but that doesn't mean Dropbox has to cater for those people. Seems to be working for them.
I agree with the comments about too much and too pricey so it is time to go back or further to what you were or wanted to when you had those GB back then. You have very tight competition when it comes to price so I am planning to try something else if you don't have better options soon.
No problem - you aren't required to buy an upgrade.
Dropbox has never, ever been the cheapest amongst its competitors, its never had feature parity with competitors, its never had the most free space, and yet year on year it grows in user base and revenue. The point is that Dropbox is not an à la carte service - it doesn't have to cater to everyone individually - there is a paid account option available to all, some people won't avail themselves of that option but that doesn't mean Dropbox has to cater for those people. Seems to be working for them.
It seems to me that you work for Dropbox and I was just looking for another way you guys might include because I have enough space for now but I wanted a stable service before my capacity expires or so. Thanks for your quick answer.
Juan, with all due respect, what competition are you talking about? All the most reputable companies are charging pretty much what DB is. I'll prove it.
Xiaowei, I won't use the word "fact" when I show the actual current screenshot from Google's website about their official Google Drive Storage plans. I'll just say, once again, I can prove it.
Bart, I'm glad you and your family (looks like all of us here, actually) love DB. Or at the very least really like it. Or even less than that, we all actually use it. That's safe to say.
Well, to stay in business don't all of you agree they have to charge something for what you all admit you actually use? Can't they charge something so none of us have to put up with flashing ads and such when we use it?
But even Google has learned what DB did. That offering such lower storage tiers for under $10 doesn't work. They lose money. That why Google doesn't offer those plans any more. So on top of what Robert already told you, DB isn't alone.
Here's a screenshot of Google's Storage Plans (click link to visit the page and see for yourself):
Please notice this is actual proof, not opinion. Through the years a mere 200 GB would cost you$50 a month! Then the next year it became 200 GB for $9.99 a month.
So, my fellow community members, I hear you. I see your reasoning. I understand what you want. But those days are long gone and behind us. We've moved on and got better. Yes, better!
This is an improvement! You're getting more online storage for less money! What I'm paying for right now, which is DB Pro at $9.99 a month, would have cost a total of $600 in 2014!
We shouldn't take advantage of that? You want to go backwards?! Are you kidding me?!