Dev Mode licensing needs a review

It’s fine if DEV mode is an editor feature for those who want to connect to Github or their IDE, but please Figma bring back the “Code” inspect as a free option if only for the colors! Forcing orgs to pay full price for devs is OUTRAGEOUS!

My main issue with the new way to access Dev Mode is that I use a third party dev team. I ABSOLUTELY do not want them to have access to modify the pages that I have designed. This is a HUGE over site and I can’t believe that Figma did not think about businesses that use outside contractors. At the very least we should be able to restrict editing access to files for people with Dev Mode access.

When you share a file, there is an option to choose a DevMode link – I’m not sure though, if it actually restricts other paid users from modifying the file or only defaults to DevMode upon opening.

Maybe before the pricing change over, but there is no ‘Dev Mode’ option now when sharing a file that I can see anymore. I would love to have that feature, but I also agree with other users that if someone is Dev Mode only, why should I have to pay for a full seat? At this point I’ll take what I can get to restrict access again, but charging for a full seat just seams like a money grab that has caused this whole permissions issue in the first place. They are trying to justify the price by saying,“But look! you’re getting editing permissions too! That justifies full price!” when no one asked for that.

I absolutely agree, we did the same only to find out it doesn’t work that way. As a freelance designer (with a team of 1), I work with three devs in one external company. They also purchased a Pro plan thinking it would mean I could share my files with them and they could access dev mode, but no. I now need to potentially add all three of them as full editors and pay for each monthly – as and when they need access. It sucks big time. The only work-around suggested elsewhere is to ‘give them’ my design file and add it to their team. They have given me member access to their team, costing them another full seat. That requires me to be a member of their team and they would also need 3 member seats for their developers. So, I am still trying to work out whether this means they don’t need their own paid plan after all. I haven’t tested this yet, I am about to do so! Very very frustrating and lack of transparency from Figma is really annoying.

I’m not seeing much response from Figma across these related threads. Has anyone heard back on what we can expect regarding the problems many are having with Dev Mode? Thanks! 🙂

I know they are reading the forum, because some of us have received direct contact in order to gather more information of particular cases. As far as I know, Figma didn’t expected such bad feedback with this, and they are thinking what to do next, but no promises made. I guess (and this is a personal opinion) they want to see what happens at the end of the month (or next months) when they review the consequences in their monthly income.

I have to praise the job of Figma’s designer advocates, because I think they are trying to do their best at something is not their fault, and who knows what’s happening behind the scenes. Probably they were told not to answer too much until CEO or Product Department decides something. What is clear is that somebody completely failed at their task of foresee customer’s behaviour.

Thanks for the update @Rafastesia! Totally understand Figma has a bottomline to manage, but I think this is a big opportunity for Figma. imho, they have a chance to earn trust back with many users if they can show they are listening and will make a reasonable choice that benefits the community.

And yes, 100% on the advocates doing a great job engaging in a difficult situation. 🙂

Hi @Sasch thanks for you comment. You basically nailed it.

It was hard enough to get buy-in from the developers even without having to run it by the CFO first. Why isn’t the basic Dev mode just a part of the subscription for Pro and above? What justifies quadrupling the monthly cost of Figma (1 designer for 4-5 developers) to get functionality for people who spend less than 5 minutes in Figma per day?

I work as a freelance designer on Figma (1 seat), and when I share it with the development team, I purchase a second seat so they can use the ‘development mode.’ For the year, tax-free, it costs me 360€.

Are you sharing with more than one developer? Or a development Team account? I am also a freelancer working on two projects with different developers (for each project) in the same company. Sharing with two developers costs me $15 per developer = $30 per month plus VAT (UK). Is that your experience?

+1. There is no way most teams can justify adding a new editor seat (full seat) just to be able to view variables and inspect stuff. The pricing is insane. I have 7 designers and 20 developers, this does not scale at all. And the developers should not be able to edit design files, they should have seats with only developer features.

It would make them a lot more money if small companies, studios and freelancers could adhere to this as well. But they will be moving to other tools like Zeplin or paying for third-party plugins instead.

I found a workaround to this ridiculous and greedy seat requirement. Once you have been given editing access/permissions to the design file, export a local copy then import it to your own team. You will need to “move” the file from drafts to your actual paid team. You can now share the link to that file and your team will be able to access Dev Mode. YW.

Most of the time I just want to see css in inspect panel instead of having to copy css for each component and pasting it in notepad every time. That’s just ridiculous:person_facepalming:t6:

As a freelancer to convince my client to pay 3000$ for a subscription…
guess it is time to start considering another alternative. or to find a solution to add other documentation to help the developers at least for now

For us in a large company we would have double our costs with end of dev mode beta and calculate that this pricing strategy would lead three to five times price increase as one ux designer supports a lot of developer …

this is just against Figma manifesto! About Us | Figma

Adobe being Adobe…

As a freelancer collaborating with numerous small clients, I find the current pricing model to be impractical. It’s challenging to explain to my clients why they should pay for a developer seat on my behalf. However, I would gladly pay for a professional license myself to access all the features.

After years of being accustomed to Adobe’s pricing model, I believe the creative community expects professionals to be able to pay for their tools outright. To address this, I suggest considering additional pricing tiers tailored for freelancers and small teams.

For instance, unlimited revisions may be a feature that comes with significant infrastructure costs but is not necessary for small teams. I would be willing to pay for a “Freelance plan” that includes limited revisions while still allowing me to access professional features in all my projects, including those I have been invited to.

Only by offering a more flexible pricing structure that caters to the needs of freelancers and small teams, Figma can credibly get back to fulfil their stated mission of “making design accessible to everyone”

FIGMA Can you please break out the pricing for dev mode!!! It’s so hard to understand the way you have it lumped in with design seats. I just need a clear way to tell leadership what the cost is and what is included in the pricing, and why we need it ASAP!! This is a major set back to my team. A little more warning would have been nice as well. Now the team is scrambling to figure out how to hand off to dev with out dev mode. If this isn’t fixed you will definately loose customers we will go to other tools for devs. The bonus of Figma in the first place was that we didn’t need to have extra tools for devs it was all in one tool. Seems like that maybe ending now. 😡 😡 😡

Dear Figma:

Your pricing structure is now bass ackwards. I literally spent 18 months selling Figma to my managers. They finally signed off. It was going well until this little ditty popped up. If I’m a developer, I don’t care about design, I care about the code. All I care about is the inspect tool and the ability to spit out some CSS. Pricing structure needs to be revisited. $15/seat for a Dev Mode only seat for pro, org, or enterprise is the max you should be charging. And that Dev Mode seat still would include view-only of design files. The price of a seat needs to reflect the number of features that are included. I’m already having a hard time selling this to my manager. I shouldn’t have to spend 25% of my job trying to sell a necessary tool to my managers who are concerned about the bottom line. I refuse to use any Adobe products for anything web-based (besides Illustrator and PS for my own personal projects) and Sketch is DOA in a few months.

This was just a terrible roll out. Transparency on the inspect items being stripped and reused behind a pay-wall many months ago would have lessened the blow and prepared SMB and enterprise-level teams much better.

major regressions in dev mode today - not sure if its just me here
added more price hikes and broke it.

It’s not just the pricing, for smaller agencies and consultants with lots of clients and dev teams that come and go, the UX of having to seat and un-seat random accounts is an undue complication. This pricing model is only practical for long-term in-house design/dev teams; the additional features don’t justify the cost. Most of us just need a simple inspect mode like XD has that anyone can view once a file is shared.