+100 on this. Hiding annotations behind the Dev-Mode paywall turns a collaboration feature into a silo. In a normal sprint our designers leave implementation notes, PMs add business context, and QA flags edge cases—yet the moment any of them can’t read an annotation the whole chain of trust snaps and we’re back to screenshots in Slack.

Annotations need to be visible (even if read-only) to anyone who can open the file. Until that’s possible, we can’t roll Dev Mode out to the broader org, and that’s a missed win for Figma and for cross-functional teams like ours. Please prioritise this fix!

Huge fan of the new Annotations release—it’s headed in the right direction—but a few pain-points are blocking full-team adoption:

• Visibility: PMs, QA and execs need to read annotations without a Dev-Mode seat. Duplicating notes elsewhere just to keep everyone in the loop defeats the purpose. forum.figma.com

• Re-usability: Custom categories don’t persist across files, so we rebuild the same taxonomy every sprint.

• Discoverability: Quick keyboard shortcut + a toggle in Prototype view would make annotations feel native to everyday reviews.

Solve those three and I’ll be a happy customer again :-)

Okay so I think I might be running into this bug now as well. However since it’s 3 months on from the original question and it appears that this is indeed a `bug` that someone with `can view` access should be able to see annotations. 

So do we have a fix yet or is it still on a backlog? 

It's not a bug... it's a paywall.

​@djv wrote that to read the annotation, the user needs: "Full or a Dev seat and at least can view access to a file."

In other words, the feature could be released to everyone immediately (especially since, when they launched, it was already accessible to everyone), but they chose not to do so.

For some reason, with strong competitors arriving to completely transform the way designers create interfaces, they think frustrating us with meaningless decisions in an attempt to make a few bucks is the best option.

p.s.: However, I think the idea of ​​paying to WRITE annotations is acceptable.

Omg Rodrigo, thank you for clarifying that. I totally misread that!!!

So jumping on the bandwagon and saying that paying to SEE annotations is unacceptable. This is so annoying and now I have to completely rearchitect my approach to current work. 😑

Adding my voice here even though I don’t expect anything to be done about it. It feels  disengenous to gatekeep even just viewing annotations. Back to manual annotations for me, and sending good designer-vibes and energies to everyone else doing so as well. I hope I’m proven wrong and this is adjusted soon.

+100000000

Thanks, Figma, for this lovely little paywall surprise!

agree. this is absurd. annotations are a nice feature but also a basic feature, they should be available to everyone who is able to view a file.

I spent AGES adding annotations only to realise they are not viewable by view users.  It’s nonsensical.  These annotations are as needed by our business teams (whom we encourage to use Figma) as they are by our developers.   PLEASE resolve this Figma
 

So, I just spent 2 months adding annotations using Figma’s feature.

Before, we created a “notes” component and everything was fine.

Today, we discovered through stakeholders that they cannot see. It’s more than 10 people, which supposedly needs to pay $25/month each to just view our annotations.

Trying to get money for such a simple functionality is such a bummer. Please review this business choice asap.

We have been using annotations heavily for the past couple months. While Fima may have intended Developers to be the primary audience for annotations, Product Managers / SMEs, Reasearchers and other stakeholders who are not designers or developers still need to see annotations. Annotations commonly define behavior and conditions that need to be verified against product requirements and overarching goals. Because they are part of the file and visible outside of Dev Mode, they should be visible to anyone with view access. Requiring a paid seat just to read annotations feels like Figma is exploiting an opportunity more than supporting the users needs across the community.

Annotations are a must for all stakeholders not just developers

This is horrible, Figma! As many write here, I also just found that viewers that were intended to read my annotations, cannot do so. It costs us time!

3 months ago a rep wrote here that the bug (is it?) is being fixed. I work with developers. This should not take 3 months.

Be better to your paying customers. 

+1 for annotations being visible to all. It doesn’t make any sense to limit it! People that have a VIEW-only license should be able to VIEW EVERYTHING!

Dear dev mode team,

PLEASE allow viewers to see annotations notes. We are pushing for designer and develop adoption of annotation notes but with the current permissions, it falls flat.

Scenario:

As a designer, I hand-off designs to engineering on a call and share figma with all the beautiful interaction, content and functionality notes. I go on vacation. While away the PM runs a testing party on the new feature/changes and can’t see the annotation notes so they miss something/make their best guess and ship it. 😱

I’ve been adding annotations for the last 2 months only to today learn my devs have never been able to see them because they don’t have full or dev seats. That’s insane to paywall this feature and not explain it at all. So much wasted time and effort for something they can’t even access. Very disappointed this is paywalled. 😠

I just learned that viewers cannot see the annotations created using the new Annotation feature. Most of our developers have viewer permissions so this restriction makes the feature useless to us. Furthermore, the designers had to find it out the hard way, we had to delete all annotations and write new ones. It would have been helpful to know it before we used it everywhere. 

+1 for me. Super annoying not everyone is able to see simple annotations. This makes this otherwise great feature totally useless sadly enough…

+1. Common. Make READ for free, and WRITE paid. Otherwise I can use my own components and you did not have to bother adding it.

+1 - I already had components for adding annotations, and just wasted 3 hours adding annotations only to find out no one can see them. Make READ for free, and WRITE paid. I will never use this if the people that need to view these cant even see them. Useless feature. 

Switching back to my own components while being happy for 2 months. Nice Adobe move Figma, you’re just exactly like the thing we hate.

This is a stupid limitation. This completely disincentivizes using the feature to better communicate with my partners that don’t rely on Figma. Why wouldn’t I just use my own annotation component.

Seems like Annotations are now limited to Dev and Full users. This is disruptive and problematic, and I would like you to reconsider this.

When a designer is creating work and adding annotations, they should not have to think about what Figma seat type each potential viewer of the file has. Annotations could take a range of forms and could provide important messages to product managers, front end engineers, server engineers, marketers, content managers or anyone else.

Don’t require a designer to think about Figma seats and your revenue model whenever they are simply trying to get their work done and communicate clearly with their collaborators. And don’t force us to upgrade users from View seats just to read our notes — we’d sooner use a workaround.

I agree I was super excited to tell my BA team they can see the annotations and write stories just to find out they cannot see them. Now we are going back to creating annotations into screen shots. Super waste of time and posting to confluence pages. UGHHHHH!!!!