Hi all,
I know this is not my business and i should go with the politics Figma forces to me or i can freely use Axure or any other tool.
But i would like to share my opinion about the Figma monetization.
I am solo developer using bunch of tools all the time to create my personal project. Lately subscription based SaaS solution band wagon is taking off like crazy. Turn left - i should pay subscription, turn right - the same story.
The problem is … i am not using those tools DAILY.
Nor Figma, nor MS Excel, nor many other tools.
But paying for just to keep the account and its data even if i am not using it for months, does not feel right. All those SaaSes these days counts up. And every SaaS thinks that 5-10$ is not a big deal. It is not! If taken alone. But if you are the full-stack developer, who uses like 20 different tools time by time then paying up to 200$ monthly for things you are not using daily… its too much for me. Regardless that everybody thinks that developers makes a ton of money.
What i would like to have is to pay for the Figma projects i own or participate. For example i am OK to pay for the project like 15-20 Eur per year and probably a couple Eur for the additional editor seats. But within those 20 Eur i can do whatever i want. As many pages as i want. But also i would like to have team library support within the same project for project organization purposes.
For me 144 Eur or 15-20 Eur is a huge difference.
I dont need a option to make gazillion of projects for 144 Eur. I need a option to manage and to own single project.
If i would be IT company or design studio with bunch of customers i definitely would be OK with the current politics.
Until that… seems to me that Axure is much better option for me even if its initial cost is much higher and prototyping options much wider.
I’d just like to add that it would be nice to have an option for a Personal Use Subscription. I’m using Figma for personal projects (designing my website, graphic designs, etc), and not working with teams or using it as a business.
I wouldn’t mind paying a fee per year since I’m getting good use from the program, but there isn’t a payment option for my type of usage. This program seems to be for business-only at this time and not for casual users who may also receive benefit from using the program.
Yes, exactly. It’s my little pet project which i am slowly polishing for years 
and i don’t need option to manage multitude of projects per 144.
I would like to be able to share the component library between my projects. One project for component library/styleguide and the other for the application itself. In total - 30 Eur per year would be great for my little needs.
Free plan with only 3 pages is awful. You can’t do any meaningful project with it.
Yes, I’d think 30$ a year seems pretty standard for a single person. That’s what I’m paying for my Image-Editing software. My vector programs are free for personal use…
Also, there must be a glitch as I’m only able to create 2 projects in Figma as my limit.
So… I’ll be waiting until Figma decides to allow a personal-use tier. Unfortunately, I’ll be shopping around for an alternative. Farewell Figma! It was fun~
By projects do you mean files? You can only create up to three files within the Starter team but you can create infinite files in Drafts.
I guess it’s hard to keep track of your files in the Drafts. Messy, right?
It would be great to have a subscription for one team with unlimited projects and files. I mean, we can organize the files by projects and stuff.
I must have mis-understood the messaging: I was under the impression that files in Drafts would be impermanent unless moved to a team…
I’m totally fine with having my projects floating in Drafts! (being a single user)
Just to note : after using Adobe’s UI, Affinity, Vectornator, and Inkscape, I really wish Figma’s UI would become the standard. I felt like a caveman going back to the Adobe tool-flow interface.
As for the Team project limit of 3 : I was receiving a message that my limit was reached after 2 files, but this seems to have changed, where I receive a message to upgrade after having 3 files.
Thanks for the headsup, my conversion to Figma continues…
Yes, the files in drafts are permanent and unlimited.
Is there any alternative for figma for students to learn UI/UX tool for free? Please suggest any free version of UX/UI, which does not have any page or project limit or can be used for personal use for learning purpose. Thanks in advance. 
Can you please elaborate, how can I create infinite files in draft? can you please give some screenshots (if possible)? is it possible to link these files/pages in draft version too?
Figma has an Education plan that gives students Pro features for free. But you don’t need Pro features to learn. It’s more than enough.
Just create new files… and that’s it. There is no limit. You can try it yourself. Not sure what there is to elaborate.
Screenshots of what?
If you mean sharing of the files — yes, you can share files with as many people as you want for free.
Drafts ARE NOT SUITABLE for any plus minus serious project.
You can’t use libraries or organize project into logical files. How do you imagine to pack desktop application into 3 files? Can you manage that? I think no, you can’t.
Drafts are good just for … well … throw away drafts. Ideas.
Other issue i face currently, after i designed my project, created like 30-40 files and went into coding, i do not use Figma for months. But still paying just to keep those files intact, because they are interconnected via libraries and what not.
I can clearly say that i haven’t used Figma like for 6 months.
Such vendor lockin is something i definitely are looking to go away.
I don’t care how good the product is and what value it brings.
Can I convert Figma design files into any other application? Is the Figma file format open? No, it isn’t!
So… as soon as there will be another design tool with same functionality, better desktop app prototyping (multiple interactions on element, right click) and with open file format, i will immediately sign up for that. I’m waiting for Figma + Axure child 
This is why $30-$40 is more reasonable price for my solo developer use case.
I definitely am not one of those happy Figma users. I am forced to use it without any joy.
On top of all this - Adobe deal. One of the most hated company in the industry.
Is this a counterpoint to me or just a rant? I was talking about using drafts for education and in this case they provide you with absolutely everything need to learn design. When you are learning you are not designing complex desktop/mobile applications scattered across multiple files. Everything can easily fit into one or three but they don’t need to be connected through libraries.
I totally agree with your point on the open format. Recently I met someone who wrote a decoder for the .fig files which could help you. But also the REST API that is available to everyone allows you to export most of the file contents without hacks like this. So I think what you actually need is a tool that can “import” or “read” those files because currently most features Figma has are proprietary and other tools either don’t have alternatives for them or they work differently.
A good example of a tool I’d suggest you look into is Penpot. It’s fully open source and works pretty much like Figma. They also just released the Figma import plugin. However some features are not polished and work differently from Figma so import isn’t great yet. But that’s a good thing about open source: you can fix it yourself!
Also I think you don’t need to pay for Figma if you are not actively using it. Better check with their support to make sure but as far as I know, if you simply don’t pay for it (make it so they can’t charge you 3 times in a row), your files will stay intact, you just won’t be able to edit them until you reactivate the payment. Or you can even move them to Drafts. From my experience I know that Figma doesn’t have any mechanics that actively disconnect existing components from libraries. So if you need to use the libraries again, you’ll just need to start paying again and move the files back to the team. The files that you already have won’t break even if you keep them in Drafts.
Yeah, treat this like a little rant with some truth in it.
I didn’t knew you can just stop paying. I am/was afraid to loose those component connections. Will try to search in support forums for confirmation.
For education purposes Drafts are more than enough. Totally agree.
Thanks. Now i understand about what you mean by “infinite files” addition. by linking means, can i link between multiple frames in prototype mode in several files.
You can’t create prototype connections between files and pages on any plan, paid or free. It’s not a feature in Figma. You can vote for this suggestion: Create one prototype across the pages in a file