Unclear figma billing practices

Has anyone else experienced a problem like this?

I would like to understand why Figma is using such a sophisticated, misleading, simply a sharp practice of billing their services?

I am a freelance start-up that has been charged for 8 other people accessing the file I have created. I have allowed access only for two of them and they shared further (probably) and I have been charged an additional $120 for their access.

I was never alerted to the fact that apart from the monthly subscription, there will be additional charges.

I don’t want to be a part of a service that is so wishy-washy in their billing offer. It is a disgusting practice. Probably I will look for alternatives to this service.

14 Likes

Yeah I have the same problem and just contacted support to explain to me once and for all how Figma pricing f#$%ing works. It’s hard enough evangelizing Figma to my team as the only designer, let alone have to explain that they can only have 24 hr access to a fig jam file (which they all laugh at rightly so) and then if one of the devs or marketing wants temporary editing rights during a presentation or something then I have to say no sorry we will immediately get charged $5 which they roll their eyes at and I don’t blame them.
Figma is awesome but the pricing is absolute madness. Shows you the difference between how designers and sales/management contribute to a company’s user experience :slight_smile:

4 Likes

I loved Figjam so much I purchased a license so that I could work on a project from my work computer and my home devices. I wonder if this means I’ll be getting charged for that.

So I got a reply from Figma “support” and they said that if you allow ‘Viewer’ users the ‘Editor’ role then you don’t have to pay for them if you downgrade them back to ‘Viewer’ before your monthly billing cycle ends.

I think that means that if you pay for a yearly subscription, and you only have 1 editor, then you won’t be charged any monthly fees unless you make any viewers an editor as you go from the end of your monthly billing cycle into the next (28th June into 29th June - assuming your monthly billing cycle ends on 28th of each month.) so to avoid a monthly fee, you could make 10 viewers into Editors for the entire month but then remember to downgrade them to Viewers just before the 28th of the month. Then on the 29th, you can make them all Editors again.

Seems childish in a way and I am sure figma will re-invent this billing method soon since it is kinda hacky.

@Thereal I assume that if you bought a FigJam license you will be charged $5 per month for each Editor in FigJam. Remember that billable Editors are only users that have the Editor status as you move from one monthly billing cycle into the next. You can’t avoid paying $5 per month for yourself, but if you add editors, make sure you make them Viewers just before your billing cycle ends then reinstate them as Editors during the next cycle etc…

4 Likes

Figma refunded me on this occasion the money I have “owned”, which I appreciate, but still this is such an odd system of billing!

1 Like

We are running into the same thing. No way to default users to restricted view unless you buy “Enterprise” (Paywall) and Figma is hoping you don’t notice and just bill you.

Pretty shady practice if you ask me.

2 Likes

I believe they only recently made their public release:) They are working on it and will provide updates on a regular basis (anyone can see their dev diary and roadmap on site).

I think this is really sketchy too. We have a big problem managing editor upgrades on the org tier, and for what that tier costs that feature should not be restricted to enterprise. Yes, I can set new users to restricted accounts still, but I have to catch them and do it manually. Also Figma makes it a little too easy to upgrade yourself to an editor for both Figma and FigJam. This has always stood out to me as a super shady practice in an otherwise wonderful company that I generally respect and appreciate. And I’ve never seen them address one of these questions directly when they come up (at least that I’m aware of).

1 Like

Yeah - I just got a surprise bill as well. I signed up for a Team account and then started to add users. Some Editors, some Viewer, with no pop-up or alert that Editors would trigger additional billing. The invoice doesn’t even list who is an Editor and you have to go through each project to sort it out. It’s very deceptive and borderline illegal.

1 Like

In that case, Figma’s pricing page makes it very clear that you have to pay for every editor you add to your plan. My main issue is that they make it way too easy to become an editor, or for current editors plan to add more editors without any warnings that it will affect billing. I think they do this in the name of lowering barriers to collaboration but there is the side affect that it generates additional revenue for them and that has always felt sneaky to me. Even if they issue refunds, or don’t bill if you remove the editor in time, it puts the burden 100% on the plan manager. Even just clicking the very obvious and enticing FigJam call to action in the product makes you into a FigJam editor an incurs a charge. They also have this call to action in their twitter bio, where it’s not even clear that a new FigJam file will be created just by clicking it.

This is also frustrating when I am a freelancer who collaborates with other freelancers who also pay for Figma on their own. If I share a file with them and we both have our own paid accounts, do I then double-pay for them to collaborate with me?

5 Likes

If I’m trying to give them every benefit of the doubt that they are doing this in the name of lowering barriers to collaboration, then I have a hard time rationalizing it as that if they give the Enterprise version the ability to prevent it.

As for making it too easy to become an editor… that statement presumes the user understand what an editor is and that they aren’t one yet. There is absolutely no indication to the user what-so-ever that by clicking the New design file or New FigJam button that they’ve just added a monthly charge to their organizations bill. And frankly it doesn’t matter that an admin can go in retroactively and downgrade the role.
Even this is not as straight forward as they make it seem. Just downgrade the users… But if these users have created content and or shared designs by the time you figure out they’ve been an editor, downgrading them will have disruptive consequences to the content they’ve created.
I can honestly say that i’ve never seen a piece of software that allows users to elevate their own abilities like this. And especially not one where a cost is incurred with no indication to the user.

1 Like

Just got an unexpected invoice on the Figma Pro plan for FigJam seats. Didn’t realise it was A) $25 extra cost on to of the Figma Pro plan we are on and B) going to cost so much just for a few flow charts.

Cancelled all the team FigJam access and we won’t use it outside of ‘Drafts’ where it doesn’t cost.

This happened to me. I have a paid Pro acct, and a coworker of mine has a paid Pro account of her own. She made our whole team Editors on her FigJam board months ago. When I got my surprise bill for adding 2 editors to one of my files, I warned her to go check. Because if Figma is getting money from her for adding me as an editor on her file, AND they are also collecting money from me for having my own paid seat, then YES, THEY ARE DOUBLE-DIPPING, and I’m pretty sure this is illegal.