Unclear Figma billing practices

This has been a known issue with Figma for a very long time, there is no way they aren’t aware of it, they just know that it will result in actively harming their revenue so its probably very far down their roadmap to actually improve upon. It’s grim but unless an alternative product that has a more ethical monetisation UX, they won’t change this.

Yes agreed 100000% percent. Everything else about their software is really really well thought out. I think their subscription model is an insidious extension of that. It’s honestly predatory and anti-collaboration. Figma’s still cheaper than Adobe XD, but it seems like their sneaky billing makes up for that “loss in revenue.” I work for a small agency and my boss was emailing with Figma for over a week to reorganize our licenses. Frustrating to say the least.

Was having this same issue - when trying to upgrade my own individual plan, the pricing page was trying to charge me for 2 seats, even letting me know that 1 seat was empty. Yet nowhere am I seeing a way to reduce to 1 seat.

I had to click the “+ Add seat” button to access a page that then let me manually decrease from 2 seats to 1.

This is very toxic design. The fact that I have to click a link that does the opposite of what my goal is makes zero sense. The fact that it was suggesting I even purchase 2 seats when I had only ever shared a file with a team member, again, makes zero sense.

Hard not to think Figma is just trying to get free unintentional income through this. Absolutely shameful design. The only reason I’m still staying with this product is because the software is just too good, and my team uses it. If this weren’t the case, I wouldn’t hesitate to stop supporting this company for ethical reasons. Huge bummer.

Figma, please get your act together.

I have also been charged for extra seats without realizing. It’s not the first time that this has happened and the last time that it did I made sure to make a mental note not to give design permissions to anyone else… somehow I have still managed to get charged! Ok, so I must have made a mistake, but it really does seem like Figma could inform me with a pop up when I’m about to get charged for an extra seat. Almost every service in the world informs their customers when they are about to incur an extra charge. When they don’t it is generally considered to be a shady business practice.

Figma is a really well designed tool - very user friendly. Therefore I find it hard to believe that their billing system could be so lacking in transparency without it being by design. Could the development team please fix this? I’m pretty sure it would take them an afternoon to sort out. It’s not a new feature or even a bug, just a small tweak that would have saved me from being unfairly charged at 3x the rate I should have.

this sounds like an unfair practice lawsuit waiting to happen. the same thing happened to me.

Hi all,

Also having the same issue, the setup of getting multiple users into a single team is not clear so I’m currently talking with support to get it fixed - really poor show, especially with how good Figma is to use.

Please Figma, fix this and create some transparency so users are clear when setting things up.

Thanks.

This is so annoying. If I do freelance work as a dev for 10 different companies using Figma they would each need to pay a monthly subscription?? It’s such a ripoff, as I can clearly only be workig on 1 project at a time. Surely when adding an existing member to a team you just adopt their license for the time they are on the team - just like Canva or most other collaborative system?

Totally agree - The seat rule is costing me a fortune to collaborate with clients - we all already subscribe to the licence - charging for seats in addition seems a little greedy. One or the other is completely understandable.

Also please make warning notifications if i’m accidentally adding news seats to my account, and make it easier to find and manage the seats if this is a chargeable feature. Thank you.

I cant simply find where these Figma jam bills are coming from or where to stop them. It is totally unclear you will be billed when you add some one to view/use. I have an annual fee and additional $25 a month I cant stop for months now please help. I have no clear options in the UI to stop this billing or clearly how to control it

It’s disheartening to see that so many individuals are experiencing this issue, yet Figma seems to be ignoring it. This certainly appears to be a deliberate tactic by Figma to exploit its users for financial gain. There should be accountability, and someone ought to take legal action against Figma