Unclear Figma billing practices

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 🙂

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…

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

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.

Recurring Billing practices can vary among different services, and it’s crucial for companies to be transparent about their charges. It might be a good idea to reach out to Figma’s customer support to clarify the situation and express your concerns. They might be able to provide more information about the additional charges and help you find a resolution.

If you decide to explore alternatives, there are indeed other design and collaboration tools available that might better suit your needs and billing preferences. It’s essential to find a service that aligns with your expectations and budget.

Remember that many services value feedback from their users, and your input could help them improve their billing and communication processes in the future.

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).

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.

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?