Introducing user based pricing for Strapi Enterprise Edition

What you need to know: 

• Strapi is moving to a new subscription model based on the number of admin users (who have access to the Strapi admin panel, not frontend users). 

• There are no more limitations on the number of custom roles for Bronze customers. 

• There is no minimum number of users for the Bronze plan but a minimum of 5 users for the Silver plan.

• Current customers have until their next renewal date to transition (see transition offers section below). 

• Strapi Community Edition continues to gain major features for free such as Content Internationalization.

A little over a year ago, in July 2020, we released the first version of Strapi Enterprise subscription plans. A LOT has happened since then. We have seen significant revenue growth in the first half of the year, growing customer count by 20% month over month with many Global 2000 companies such as IBM, Rakuten, AECOM, Toyota, and eBay across all industries and geographies. Our strong sales momentum together with the support of our investors is what allows us to invest more and more on the upcoming v4 of the Strapi Open Source project.

While we are very proud of our growing customer base, our mission is to empower the broader Strapi community to build millions of Strapi projects. To succeed on that mission, we will continue to release as many new features as possible in the Community Edition. That's why we decided to release the Internationalization (i18n) feature for free and without any limitations in Strapi v3.6 back in April, 2021 and offer free Strapi Bronze Edition for students, Open Source and Nonprofits.

Why switch to per (admin) user pricing?

Based on extensive user research over the last few months including dozens of phone interviews and a survey with hundreds of respondents, we came to the conclusion that per user pricing is what makes the most sense given the nature of the product. On one hand, it allows customers to pay a fair and predictable price indexed on the value they get out of Strapi. On the other hand, it makes Strapi more affordable for smaller teams.

Most of our competitors use lots of different variables (entries, content types, locales, users, API calls, storage, etc.) as part of their pricing. Some of these metrics, like API calls and storage, are less relevant for us since Strapi is self-hosted while the number of content entries doesn't necessarily reflect the criticality of their project. More importantly, at Strapi, we are committed to keeping things simple and predictable by using one single value metric.

It also brings a number of benefits to our users / customers: 

• More affordable for smaller teams with a Bronze or Silver plan.

• Painless upgrades for smaller teams going from Bronze to Silver.

• Pay as you go: users only pay for what they use.

There is no minimum number of users for the Bronze plan. However, the Silver plan includes a minimum of 5 users for the Silver plan to account for Customer Success Management and Support costs.

Timeline and transition offers

This new pricing is effective as of today, September 2nd, 2021. We understand that this change could be disruptive for some of our current customers, which is why Strapi is offering a grandfathering option and price discounts for customers with a large (10+) number of admin users.

By design, this new subscription model means that Strapi Enterprise Editions will become more affordable for many customers with smaller teams. That’s great news and you will be able to benefit from this new pricing upon renewal. Note that Strapi will not issue any refunds for companies that purchased a plan before (J-1 month).

If you are a customer with more than 10 admin users, the new pricing is likely to make your Strapi Enterprise Edition more expensive for your company. If that’s the case, we invite you to get in touch with our Customer Success Team at support@strapi.io to get access to volume-based discounts that will allow you to match our old pricing model for current projects upon renewal for one more year.

If you have any additional questions, please see our Customer FAQ.

The future of Strapi pricing and subscription model

In the future, Strapi Enterprise Edition will mostly include features for advanced content collaboration, security and analytics. Feel free to visit our public roadmap to upvote or submit new feature requests as you see fit.

For now, the Open Core model (Community Edition + Enterprise Edition) allows us to generate the revenue we need to continue to invest in the rapid development of the Strapi open source project. In the long-term, we anticipate more and more of our revenue to come from the hosted version of Strapi.

More information

Please find more information in the Customer FAQs, or contact Strapi support - support@strapi.io

To address your questions and feedback, we have created a space in the Strapi Community Forum, which is actively monitored by Strapi team members involved with this change.