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Portal, you are making a SERIOUS mistake
This thread has 323 replies. Displaying posts 16 through 30.
Post 16 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 08:37
andrewinboulder
Select Member
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1,518
Yeah, $50 is a big jump. However, I always look at these things in terms of time savings. Does it save me enough time to justify the expense? Oh, and does it make me feel "warm and fuzzy" when I use it. I would say Portal comes close on time saving (once the bugs are worked out). If they just had some additional features that made proposals that much more snappy to put together and alter I would consider it. All you have to do is save me about 1/2 hr of time and it's worth it. The product lookup on Portal is impressive and I haven't had any problems getting distys and manufacturers listed. If you think Protal is hard to use, I don't know what the hell you're doing cause that s$%t us dirt simple LOL.
Post 17 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 08:59
Ranger Home
Super Member
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3,486
On July 9, 2018 at 19:56, Mario said...
You obviously don't know how tax deductions work, it's not a dollar for dollar.
For a company that does 60k a year with 10% margin, this simple $600 proposal software just cut into 10% of leftover yearly profit.
At 33% tax bracket, this software is still costing me $400 a year

I assume those are just arbitrary numbers. None of us only do 60k a year and live on 6k profit for yearly income.
OP | Post 18 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 09:28
3PedalMINI
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On July 10, 2018 at 08:59, Ranger Home said...
I assume those are just arbitrary numbers. None of us only do 60k a year and live on 6k profit for yearly income.

I’m not going to speak for people on here but there are quite a few guys I know on here that only do 60-100k a year.
The Bitterness of Poor Quality is Remembered Long after the Sweetness of Price is Forgotten! - Benjamin Franklin
Post 19 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 09:31
andrewinboulder
Select Member
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On July 10, 2018 at 08:37, andrewinboulder said...
Yeah, $50 is a big jump. However, I always look at these things in terms of time savings. Does it save me enough time to justify the expense? Oh, and does it make me feel "warm and fuzzy" when I use it. I would say Portal comes close on time saving (once the bugs are worked out). If they just had some additional features that made proposals that much more snappy to put together and alter I would consider it. All you have to do is save me about 1/2 hr of time and it's worth it. The product lookup on Portal is impressive and I haven't had any problems getting distys and manufacturers listed.
Post 20 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 09:43
InVision Systems
Long Time Member
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119
On July 10, 2018 at 09:28, 3PedalMINI said...
I’m not going to speak for people on here but there are quite a few guys I know on here that only do 60-100k a year.

$60-100k in gross profit, maybe. No way that is their revenue number. And 10% margin? I'm not sure you could accidentally make only 10% in gross profit margin. Maybe a huge outfit's net profit is 10%.

Look, we are a small outfit ourselves $250k last year in revenue and that's simply not enough, even though we run a 45% gross profit margin. This year we are looking to add another 100k in revenue and that will start to put us where we need to be as a minimum. I can't imagine operating on anything less.
Elevate Technologies
Nashville, TN
Post 21 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 11:13
Malcolm013
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461
Wait a sec, people actually pay for TeamViewer? I use it a couple times a month and don't see the benefit of paying for it. What am I missing?
"Was it for this my life I sought? Maybe so, Maybe not...
Post 22 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 14:49
MNTommyBoy
Senior Member
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1,060
On July 9, 2018 at 22:00, Stryker said...
Increase your margin. Up your rates. Sell more. Sell Less at higher profit. It’s not that it’s a tax Write off. It’s a business expense. So figure your business out accordingly. Teamviewer costs $1200 a year. Dtools $5000, new computer hard ware $10000. Tools $5000. Office space $14,000 Build your business to cover expenses and make a profit.

There's a lot of one-man shops on here and I guarantee most, if not all, Do Not pay any of the expenses you list above.

The problem with these things is that they change. So maybeeyou had no money budgeted for proposal software because Portal was free. Well stupid you. Budget for the unforeeen. Adjust move on. If you like portal service then pay for it and get to work

More like stupid Portal. I couldn't care less about $50 a month in the grand scheme of my business. However, once the "free" genie is out of the bottle, there's no going back...

BTW, for $50/ month I want the Catalog search function to search when I hit Enter rather than when I type in 3 characters. #annoying
"There's a big difference between winging it and seeing what happens. Now let's see what happens." ~MacGruber
Post 23 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 17:21
Kirk_SS
Long Time Member
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22
Hi Brendon (3PedalMINI), Kirk here with Portal (founder and CEO for those I haven't met), thanks for getting a conversation going. It a bummer to read, I hate when any of our loyal users are unhappy, but perhaps I can shed some light on our decision and answer any questions directly.

For those who haven't seen our announcement, you can read it here:
[Link: help.portal.io]

We really didn't want to start charging, but it's something we've been wrestling with for the past year and decided we had to do in order to remain sustainable. Many of you remember that we were never a proposal tool. We started out as a catalog and purchase order tool and then we added on the proposal tool because you all asked for it. We started seeing growth in our "proposal only" users and we've been tracking it closely because, as stated here, those users are a cost center for us. Our primary business model is the same as Expedia, we get paid a small commission % when we deliver orders to certain suppliers. We were fine subsidizing the cost of proposal-only users because we expected that many of them would start ordering from us. That did happen, in fact close to 80% of you DO place more than $5k in orders every month. So you might say, why not just continue to subsidize the small 20% group then? The answer to that has been, "absolutely", for the past 5 years, but now that small 20% represents over 500 companies!!! That's a problem because we refuse to lower our quality of service and running this company requires way more people than you might think. We have over 25 full-time staff to make it all work properly. We are a data aggregation company (think BlueDog or other services) we are a proposal company and we are running a marketplace. Many companies claim that they care about their customers but it rarely feels that way. I know that if I ask any of you who have interacted with us over the years, you will tell me that you have had a great experience with our staff. "Care" is something we've built our entire culture around. How many other software companies can you say that about? Go ahead, send a message to one this afternoon and ask a random question, then try the same with us. You can get a human on the phone anytime at Portal. We care deeply about our users, which is THE reason we are charging. We want to keep it going and we refuse to lower our standard of service. This new $49 fee is merely a subsidy, it doesn't generate any profit for us.

One other update from today... Many of you running smaller companies brought up the concern around sporadic ordering. Some months you place lots of orders and other months maybe none. We listened to that and updated our program earlier today. If you don't hit the $5k PO threshold in a month, we will look back over your last three months and see if you exceeded $15k in aggregate. If so you'll get proposals for free. Believe it or not, we don't want you to have to pay!

-Kirk
Founder & CEO
Portal.io
Kirk Chisholm
Founder - Portal.io
kirk at portal dot io
Post 24 made on Tuesday July 10, 2018 at 17:48
juliejacobson
CE Pro Magazine
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3,032
Good for you, Kirk.
"CEPro: your website sucks!" - Fins
www.cepro.com
[Link: twitter.com]
Post 25 made on Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 09:39
sceneselect
Long Time Member
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425
Jetbuilt is $25 per month and has great management features...
Post 26 made on Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 10:10
Kirk_SS
Long Time Member
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22
On July 11, 2018 at 09:39, sceneselect said...
Jetbuilt is $25 per month and has great management features...

$49 for Standard (includes proposals), $79 for Enterprise (gives you integrations and more) and then $29 to add on Project Management.

[Link: jetbuilt.com]
Kirk Chisholm
Founder - Portal.io
kirk at portal dot io
Post 27 made on Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 10:15
Kirk_SS
Long Time Member
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On July 10, 2018 at 17:48, juliejacobson said...
Good for you, Kirk.

Thanks, Julie. The $49 will go straight to our advertising budget ;)
Kirk Chisholm
Founder - Portal.io
kirk at portal dot io
Post 28 made on Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 11:05
tomciara
Loyal Member
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7,958
Brendon, ya gotta get over it. No one likes a price bump, but this is business.

I use an online app that just went from $30 to $50/mo. Big jump. No likey. But...

Here’s what you have to do. At $50, that’s a half hour of labor per month. For you, 20 minutes :)

Does it save you 20-30 minutes per month? If it does, then shut up and pay up, because it is like a Festool, it’s not costing you money, it is making you money.

If you have a better way to do quotes, then bail on this one and “save” $50.

Something tells me it is making you money...
There is no truth anymore. Only assertions. The internet world has no interest in truth, only vindication for preconceived assumptions.
Post 29 made on Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 12:07
Mac Burks (39)
Elite Member
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17,515
A few years ago Adobe started their subscription model. We have been paying $50 (or so) a month since then.

One project pays for the software. One user interface. One brochure. One photo edit. Its all paid for...for the entire year. We couldn't function without it anymore than we could function without a van.

The sting hurts right now because you didn't expect it.
Avid Stamp Collector - I really love 39 Cent Stamps
Post 30 made on Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 12:25
Ryan_SD_CA
Long Time Member
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July 2004
104
I've been using it for some time now and I like it.

Proposals look nice and your clients can e-sign right there. Super easy.

Setup your vendors and purchase orders are simple.

Also, you only have to do 5k in purchase orders to avoid the $50 a month.

Just my .02
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