Hey @Mike_Clark, thanks for reaching out!

You can invite guest editors to collaborate on your files, but even if they have a plan of their own, it does not transfer their editor role in their plan to another’s plan.

If you still want this external collaborator to edit your file, they will be billed as such to your plan. However, two weeks before the end of your quarter, we will send you an email asking you to confirm any new editors. This will give you the opportunity to determine who you want to include in your billing. You can then downgrade or remove them as an editor before confirming and being billed for the quarter.

This is a dishonest money-making scheme and I’m shocked Figma do this.

We have 100+ clients, once we’ve added a client (who already has their own paid Figma plan) to a document, we are lumped with paying monthly for them to have editor access. We can’t retrospectively restrict their access to viewing only as it makes us look unprofessional.

Maybe it’s time to look at another product, I hear Lunacy is great at importing Figma files!

I need to understand how to share my final Figma design file with my client, without being charged by Figma.

I have a subscription. My client already has a subscription. I do not want to add them to my account. How do I do this?

A post was merged into an existing topic: Unclear Figma billing practices

I am having the same issue here. I have set the “share settings” to “anyone with link can edit” and when I share the link, the other person still cannot edit and it wants me to upgrade their account (which I will be billed for). Has anyone been able to share a file (in their projects, not drafts) and the other person was able to edit? Even in the share settings it shows a little message that the person can edit due to the share permissions but the truth is that the other person cannot do anything on the file. This is super frustrating as I need to use this with my clients

If you don’t want to pay for extra editor seat, create a new team with Starter plan, move file there and share it with edit access. It will be free.

well I have a paid plan and if I go to the starter plan I will only be allowed to have 3 files. I have many clients and thus need to have more files. I thought that if you simply changed the file´s settings to “anyone with link can edit” then anyone with the link would be able to edit…is this not the case? because if its not then I will have to cancel my suscription. Thanks a lot for your response!!

Well, that’s correct, if you share the link with anyone can edit access — anyone can, but you will need to pay for each one.

The Professional plan price $15/month is a price for one editor seat, not for the whole team.

so even with those settings (anyone with link can edit) you still need to pay? the settings say “even people outside your organisation”. I also watched some youtube tutorials where teachers shared their boards with many students and they used this feature. So basically you cannot share your boards even with those settings, with anyone to edit without having to pay for them?

Yes, you need to pay for every editor in Pro plan.

But all options of Professional plan is free for teachers and students after verification.

Probably people in youtube tutorials used Education plan.

I agree, it absolutely ridiculous.

How did you go with Lunacy?

Very wild how Figma still does is despite promises “to fix this” for years. Such scumbaggery

Truly outrageous and gouging behavior on Figma’s end — this is wildly complicating being able to collaborate with clients as a 1 person studio.

What the actual donuts is going on here? I’m seeing 1000+ dollar subscription for 3 designers. 

I just came across the same issue:
Figma released their new Figma Buzz feature, that is specifically designed for marketing teams.

Our agency is collaborating with multiple firms on their design assets - so naturally the feature sounded like a dream come true.
Currently our clients don’t have access to Figma, as it’s too complex of a tool. But with Buzz templates, they could easily switch our texts or images for their most common assets. For this,  our clients would be willing to pay seats for their inhouse marketing teams.

However, because there is no way to collaborate on files, we can not do it.

The workarounds don’t work for us:
1. Option: The client marketing team invites us to their team. We have a set of multiple designers working on client projects. They would need to pay for every single editor, which is not feasible.
2. Option: We invite them to our team. Every marketing team member from our clients would need to have access, which means a huge increase in subscription fees. Additionally, they would also not really own their templates that we created for them, because they would always be housed in our templates.

I understand that Figma is originally focused on inhouse teams. But this seems like a huge missed opportunity to spread Figma to inhouse marketing teams of agency’s clients.

Dear Figma, I’ve been a long-time fan of your software, but I’m really disappointed with the current pricing model. It feels unfair and honestly like a misuse of your dominant market position!
 

Freelancers like myself shouldn’t have to pay for our clients’ editing rights, especially when those clients already have paid licenses. This setup punishes solo professionals and creates unnecessary friction in client collaboration.
 

Please consider at least a bit ethical approach for independent designers.

Hi ​@Piotr Kmita and all here.

Thank you for your comment! We understand the challenges freelancers face with subscription costs, and I'd like to highlight a solution that may address your concerns.

Figma recently introduced Connected Projects, which allows two separate teams or organizations—such as a freelancer and client—to collaborate using billable seats from their respective plans. This feature eliminates the need to purchase additional seats while still enabling seamless collaboration, resource sharing, and file handoffs.

For more detailed information about this feature, please visit: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/30124855491863-Guide-to-connected-projects

If you have any further questions about implementing this solution, please don't hesitate to ask. Happy to answer.

Thank you for your feedback and patience! 

Toku

Why is the limit so low ? Several people in this thread are saying they have 100+ clients and the maximum number of connected projects you can have is.. 15?

I’ve just faced this issue, and to be honest I still think even with the new Connected Projects feature, this is still forcing extra costs unnecessarily.

I’m a designer and I often need my clients to write copy in the wireframes I design in Figma. I’m left with either getting them to have to pay for a Figma subscription, when Figma is the new industry standard for web design, you’d assume it shouldn’t cost anything for your average business owner (who of course is not going to have their own paid Figma plan - why would they, they’re not a designer). As an example, Google Docs are the new industry standard word processor - you don’t have to pay to invite someone with edit access there?

Or, I have to pay an additional cost for another Figma seats. With 4-5 projects on the go, as a sole freelancer, that really starts to stack up costs (about an extra £90 per month for 3 months or so, I’m looking at a £270 bill). Add on my ongoing support clients, I’m spending double that. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for businesses with 10s - 100s clients...

Perhaps I could pass the cost on to my client, and bake it into the bill for my services?

But that’s just passing on costs so Figma, a market leader, can squeeze out some extra cash from small businesses.

I would be super grateful if Figma could reconsider how they handle this part of their amazing product!

I am sure the person who came up with this concept got a promotion, but as a company with an excellent product this is just a big fat middle finger to all paying users. Why the hell would I pay for another paid user to share my files?

Anyways - I really hope the connected project will work as described.