I'm hoping getting some money out of PT would make them act faster on the things most in demand in their user feedback site. http://community.pivotaltracker.com/pivotal [It appears as though] they've not been doing anything at all on these fronts for many, many months:
I'm a huge fan of Pivotal Tracker and I'm delighted they are going to be charing a reasonable rate for this valuable service. Also delighted they are keeping it free for open-source, non-profit and individual use.
However I read that they are going to require you to pay for the upper tiers to use JIRA sync and other such features... wasn't JIRA support built into Pivotal Tracker by the community/3rd party or is this now their own implementation?
It would be wrong, imo, if they were charging a higher tier to use a community built plugin.
(why anyone would want to use JIRA is another matter, however)
It would be wrong, imo, if they were charging a higher tier to use a community built plugin.
The nature of contributing to OSS is that you are spending your time for the benefit of for-profit companies. That is, very possibly, a poor business decision if you are not being compensated directly while doing it. If you aren't being compensated, then you should expect to receive everything the MIT license lists under Section 42: Stuff The End User Owes You.
I actually prefer JIRA. I find tracker to be exceptionally difficult to use when trying to organize a large number of tasks and bugs. Turns out I have a lot of problems with my code :).
Integration with JIRA is a built-in feature (not community contributed), along with Zendesk, Bugzilla, Lighthouse, and Get Satisfaction integration. More are coming, but these tend to be the mostly costly to support.
And the idea with these integrations is that your team can do focused collaboration (with Tracker) on some subset of issues/bugs that are stored in a larger, more widely used tracking system at your company (eg JIRA).
As a recent PT convert, I am really starting to get into the workflow their app allows. It is certainly much better than basecamp or lighthouse.
That being said, they put a heavy penalty on having clients on board as part of the process. I have three projects, five part-time coders, five clients, and 1 virtual assistant to keep it all running. I have to pay $100/month to keep going?
I don't need Jira or Zendesk, so why should I pay $50/month? I could probably setup two $7 accounts and one $18 account and be fine - but then I have to deal with the pain of logging in and out just to do work?
I would happily pay $25-$30 a month, but $100 seems off the mark to me.
Heh. Fascinating how they used to say that they could afford to keep Tracker free because their meat and potatoes was "software consulting":
How can you afford to offer such a service, completely free? What is your business model?
Pivotal Labs is a software development consultancy, we get paid to build software, from web applications for startups to large-scale enterprise systems. We built Tracker to support our own projects, and now share it with the agile community, but it is not a primary source of revenue for our company.[1]
Making money with a product >>>>>>> making money with consulting, and I say this as an owner of a consulting company. If we had a product like PT (which is excellent, and we use it daily on all our projects), we would stop accepting new clients and gradually make a switch to a full-fledged software product shop, which is what 37Signals did, and looks like PL are doing. Best of luck to them.
This is a little self serving, because I make/sell a PT competitor (http://trackjumper.com), but I'm curious - how much is a bug tracker worth to you?
I'm charging $20/month for unlimited everything (users/projects/storage/etc), and can't shake the feeling that some customers find this to be a hefty price tag and others would pay $200 or more.
BTW - I'm glad they're charging - it's a great product and they deserve to make some scratch from it.
Split test it dude. Just split test it. My guess is that you would be better off getting more people in the door with a $5 a month account and then having them upgrade to $18 then $50, but for something like this you can't afford not to test test test.
Pricing starts at $7 for up to three collaborators, so does that mean individuals and up to two others? Looks like they'll stay free for public projects, but I don't see any mention of individual accounts save on the pricing page's "free for individual use (no collaborators), with up to 2 private projects."
Interesting timing, as my team was about to start using Pivotal Tracker for our project. Hopefully this encourages them, and the fact that they'll have to pay $50/month after July doesn't scare them away. Not really a big price tag, but any money over free is the hurdle.
Have been a very loyal user of pivotal tracker, I have 11 projects with 12 collaborators. The smallest plan I could choose is $50 per month. That was shocking me a bit, before I knew I can archive my old projects :P
"Choose a plan with annual billing on or before February 19, 2011, and receive an additional 20% discount for the first year. That’s 18 months of use for the price of 8."
Its a great thing that they are starting to charge for their service, but I wish they would charge a certain amount per user with an option to pay for each additional service the team would need.
I just hate paying for more users than I would need or, integration with JIRA.
[+] [-] rubyrescue|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pistos2|15 years ago|reply
* markdown (code blocks, anyone?)
* editing or deletion of comments
* grouping stories
* replying to comments by email
[Edit: list formatting]
[+] [-] dotBen|15 years ago|reply
However I read that they are going to require you to pay for the upper tiers to use JIRA sync and other such features... wasn't JIRA support built into Pivotal Tracker by the community/3rd party or is this now their own implementation?
It would be wrong, imo, if they were charging a higher tier to use a community built plugin.
(why anyone would want to use JIRA is another matter, however)
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
The nature of contributing to OSS is that you are spending your time for the benefit of for-profit companies. That is, very possibly, a poor business decision if you are not being compensated directly while doing it. If you aren't being compensated, then you should expect to receive everything the MIT license lists under Section 42: Stuff The End User Owes You.
[+] [-] jmtulloss|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pivotaldan|15 years ago|reply
And the idea with these integrations is that your team can do focused collaboration (with Tracker) on some subset of issues/bugs that are stored in a larger, more widely used tracking system at your company (eg JIRA).
[+] [-] joshowens|15 years ago|reply
That being said, they put a heavy penalty on having clients on board as part of the process. I have three projects, five part-time coders, five clients, and 1 virtual assistant to keep it all running. I have to pay $100/month to keep going?
I don't need Jira or Zendesk, so why should I pay $50/month? I could probably setup two $7 accounts and one $18 account and be fine - but then I have to deal with the pain of logging in and out just to do work?
I would happily pay $25-$30 a month, but $100 seems off the mark to me.
[+] [-] ambirex|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aditya|15 years ago|reply
How can you afford to offer such a service, completely free? What is your business model?
Pivotal Labs is a software development consultancy, we get paid to build software, from web applications for startups to large-scale enterprise systems. We built Tracker to support our own projects, and now share it with the agile community, but it is not a primary source of revenue for our company.[1]
Wonder what changed?
[1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V05_lTO...
[+] [-] maxawaytoolong|15 years ago|reply
They generally do a mediocre job at best, so their clients didn't renew their overpriced consulting contracts.
[+] [-] zavulon|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damoncali|15 years ago|reply
I'm charging $20/month for unlimited everything (users/projects/storage/etc), and can't shake the feeling that some customers find this to be a hefty price tag and others would pay $200 or more.
BTW - I'm glad they're charging - it's a great product and they deserve to make some scratch from it.
[+] [-] 3pt14159|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taylorbuley|15 years ago|reply
Pricing starts at $7 for up to three collaborators, so does that mean individuals and up to two others? Looks like they'll stay free for public projects, but I don't see any mention of individual accounts save on the pricing page's "free for individual use (no collaborators), with up to 2 private projects."
@rubyrescue: agree with you 100%
[+] [-] rudd|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xinuc|15 years ago|reply
Have been a very loyal user of pivotal tracker, I have 11 projects with 12 collaborators. The smallest plan I could choose is $50 per month. That was shocking me a bit, before I knew I can archive my old projects :P
[+] [-] speby|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KevBurnsJr|15 years ago|reply
"Choose a plan with annual billing on or before February 19, 2011, and receive an additional 20% discount for the first year. That’s 18 months of use for the price of 8."
[+] [-] dangrossman|15 years ago|reply
$7/mo * 12 * 80% * 80% = $53.76 with the discounts. Price of 8 months without the discounts is $56.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tomjen3|15 years ago|reply
I just hate paying for more users than I would need or, integration with JIRA.
[+] [-] peterarmstrong|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toadi|15 years ago|reply
They have a good tool and don't have problem paying a reasonable price for it.