Update on Collaborator Limit for Free Trello Workspaces

[Caity]

@Lonneke Feijten Yes, guests can move Trello cards and comment on cards just as any other board member.

Single board guests are free, and they're not included in the bill for any of Trello's paid plans. However, they still count as collaborators, and Free Workspaces will be limited to 10 collaborators total.

So, if you had a free Workspace with 2 members and 9 single board guests, you would need to upgrade to a paid plan because you would be over the collaborator limit. However, once you upgraded, you would only need to pay for the 2 Workspace members.

[Caity]

@Emilie Anstett If you want to continue editing the board yourself, then you will need to upgrade, because the board will become read-only for you, too. However, in Trello's paid plans, guests that are only members of a single board are free. So, if those 100 people are not members of the Workspace itself and are only on that one board, you won't need to pay for them.

[Caity]

@Stephen Moffatt I just want to clarify that you can continue using Trello normally with all of your existing collaborators until May 20, after which you’ll still be able to view all of your boards. The change in April will only affect inviting new collaborators.

We’ll also be offering a 30-day free trial of Trello Premium, starting on April 8 and available through the end of May, to help with this transition. After May, our regular 14-day free trial will still be available for any Workspace that hasn’t used a free trial before.

On last thing—in addition to Trello Premium, we also offer Trello Standard at $5/user/month if paid annually or $6/user/month if paid monthly.

[Caity]

@Brad Larsen  Upgrades apply to individual Workspaces. So, any Workspaces you have that have 10 or fewer collaborators do not need to be upgraded unless you want to add more people.

For your Workspaces that have more than 10 collaborators, if you want all of those people to continue using the boards in that Workspace, you would need to upgrade them. Workspaces are upgraded individually, so if you have some of the same people as members of multiple Workspaces, you may want to consider consolidating so that you're not paying for them twice. We have more information on how to move boards from one Workspace to another here: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/moving-a-board-to-a-different-workspace/

The exact number of billable users you'll end up with in each Workspace depends on how many members that Workspace has, as well as how many guests in that Workspace are on more than one board. Guests that are only on a single board in the Workspace are free.

We have more information on how Trello's billing works here: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/how-billing-works-with-trello-premium-and-standard/

[Caity]

@Mike Beachy To do that, you'll need to add your personal account as an admin for the Workspace and every board within it. Here's how to make a user an admin of a board: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/making-a-user-an-admin-of-a-board/

Once you've done that, you can remove your work account from those boards and the Workspace overall.

[Caity]

@jonty There's no limit on how many Workspaces you can create. However, each Workspace would have to be upgraded separately, so you would need to pay for yourself on each one.

[Caity]

@Coker_ Katrina _CEI-Atlanta-CON_ Each Workspace is upgraded independently, so yes, if you upgrade multiple Workspaces, you would be paying multiple times for anyone who was in more than one of those Workspaces.

Upgrades apply to the entire Workspace rather than an individual user, so you wouldn't upgrade just yourself unless you were the only billable user in that Workspace. You also wouldn't be able to upgrade any Workspace that you're a guest in—only Workspace members can upgrade the Workspace.

For example, let's say that you're a member of two Workspaces (A and B) and a guest on another Workspace (C).

• Workspace A has 11 members and you decide to upgrade it to Standard. That would be 11 * $5 per month (if paid annually).
• Workspace B has 20 members. Another member of the Workspace decides to upgrade it to Premium. You would not personally pay anything for that subscription.
• Workspace C has 15 members and 5 guests, and it's upgraded to Standard. You would not personally pay anything for that subscription.

[Caity]

@Alyssa Tilhou Can you share more about the questions you're hoping to answer? We may be able to help you here.

In the meantime, if you have questions about how billing works in Trello Premium, we have more information about that here.

If you'd like to see how much it would cost to upgrade your Workspace, you can find that by going to the Workspace billing page. To navigate there, click on the down arrow next to "Workspace settings" in the sidebar, and then click on "Upgrade workspace." You'll be able to switch between monthly and annual billing on that page to see how much each option would cost.

[Caity]

@François Sumi I'd love to help. We have a comparison of our different plans here. If you're interested in Trello Enterprise, you can contact the Enterprise sales team directly from that page.

If you'd like to see how much it would cost to upgrade your Workspace to Trello Standard or Trello Premium, you can find that by going to the Workspace billing page. To navigate there, click on the down arrow next to "Workspace settings" in the sidebar, as shown in the screenshot below, and then click on "Upgrade workspace." You'll be able to switch between monthly and annual billing on that page to see how much each option would cost.

The number of billable users is based on these criteria:

1. Members of the Workspace itself are always billable
2. Guests of the Workspace are billable if they are members of more than one board. If the guest is only on one board, they're free.

We also have more information on how Trello's billing works here: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/workspace-user-limit/

If you have multiple Workspaces at your company and are interested in Trello Standard or Trello Premium, you could either choose to upgrade each Workspace individually as needed, or you could consolidate them by moving boards from one Workspace to another.

[Clara Körting]

Could someone help me get some clarity on how observers are counted? Do they count as members as well?

[Sarah Stokes]

Hello - relieved to see I'm not the only one trying to get my head around this change!

Over the past seven years, I've converted many colleagues to Trello. As we're a charity, it's been a fantastic free tool and has helped us enormously. We're now struggling to consolidate all our activity, so we only need to upgrade as few workspaces as possible.

So, my question! Is there an easy way to make someone an overall Workspace admin to prevent others from adding people to a free workspace, causing it to become paid?

[Shani Corb]

We are an NHS organisation and have 70 people and 6 boards. Most of the 70 only need access to a single board and a handful need access to more than one board. What is the most cost-effective way of managing this?

If I have 5 people on mutli-boards (with the relevant subscription), does that mean that we won't have to pay for the other 65 as they are single-board users?

[Rachel Provan]

Are we able to share a board with someone - view only - so they can make a copy without them being counted as a member?

[Sarah Stokes]

@Rachel Provan I've got my fingers crossed for this - we run our charity's events calendar as view only, so it's accessible, but not editable, by all 190 of us!

[Caity]

@Clara Körting If the users are labelled as "Observers" within the board, that is a paid-only feature, so if you have that option, then you are likely already on an upgraded Workspace and won't be impacted by this change.

If you're not referring to the "Observers" feature, then you might mean one of two things:

1. Board or Workspace members who view the board but do not edit it.
2. Users who are viewing a public board but are not a member of the board or Workspace but who are viewing the board.

The first group would count toward your collaborator limit, but the second group would not. Anyone who is a member of the Workspace or a board within the Workspace is considered a collaborator, regardless of whether or not they edit the boards.

[Caity]

@Sarah Stokes All members of a free Workspace are admins of that Workspace. If you only want one person to have admin capabilities, you would need to remove every other Workspace member so that they are only guests. However, if you do this, please make sure that you have at least one other admin or a way to access that person's account if they leave the company.

I also want to make sure that you're aware of our discount for non-profits: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/non-profit-and-educational-discounts/

Finally, for those Workspaces that you do upgrade, please note that guests that are only a member of a single board are not billable. So, for the events calendar you mentioned, if that is the only board those users are a member of, and if they're not members of the Workspace itself, you would not need to pay for them. Or, if it's a public board, and the users viewing it are not members of the board or Workspace at all, they also wouldn't count as collaborators or as billable users in that case.

[Caity]

@Shani Corb You're correct that the 65 users that are only on a single board will not be counted toward the bill, as long as they're a member only of that one board and not members of the Workspace itself.

If you were happy with the features of Trello's free plan, then I'd suggest Trello Standard rather than Trello Premium as another way to save cost. However, we have a free trial for Trello Premium, so you could start with that and then switch to Trello Standard at the end of the trial. You can compare all of Trello's plans here: trello.com/pricing

[Caity]

@Rachel Provan If the board is public, you can send that person a link, and they can copy it without being a member. However, if the board isn't one that you'd feel comfortable making public, then that user would need to be a member.

Is the plan for that person to copy it into another Workspace, like a template? If so, if that second Workspace does not yet have 10 collaborators, they could add you to that Workspace, and then you could make a copy of the board into that Workspace yourself.

One other thing to note. If you do upgrade, guests who are only members of a single board in the Workspace and not a member of the Workspace itself are not counted toward the bill. So, if you only needed to add someone to a single board, that person would be free.

[Sarah Stokes]

Thanks @Caity - really helpful!

[Sharon McDonald]

So, to be clear....
I have a board for communication on the free plan right now, with one admin, whom I can take off as the admin.  She simply helped me set it up.  

1. I can have unlimited users on that board, correct?
   
   
   
2. If the USER is part of more than one board, they must change plans, correct?

I appreciate the very helpful notifications and transparency.  The price-points are good.  Our users are freaking out because they are thinking they have to purchase a plan to participate on our board.  

[Roman]

Hi! So I have a free workspace with one board and on that one board there is less than 10 collaborators. Do I have to pay a fee if I make this board public so everyone can view it but only the collaborators can edit?

[Rachel Provan]

Hi @Caity 

I have a private workspace that I use as a template for my clients to make a copy. There are 4 separate boards. 

This creates an organizational system for them to track their workflows and keep organized as executives.   (It gets a lot of new people into Trello)

I typically have 25-30 clients at a time. It sounds like I wouldn’t be able to continue this on the free version is that correct?

I’d be really sad. I’ve been using it for 7 years and always loved it but would have to find an alternative going forward if people can’t view and copy for free. I can’t make it public because I sell it as part of my intellectual property. 

[Caity]

@Rachel Provan Could you copy the boards into a new Workspace yourself for each client and then leave that Workspace after they're all set up? I'm assuming you'd want your clients to copy the boards into a different Workspace anyway instead of adding boards to yours.

[Caity]

@Sharon McDonald Upgrades apply to the entire Workspace rather than individual users. So, if you want to continue using your Workspace with more than 10 collaborators, you would need to upgrade the Workspace.

When you upgrade, you would pay for any member of the Workspace (it sounds like that would only be you after you remove the other admin) and any guest who is a member of more than one board. You would not have to pay for any guests who are only on a single board.

We have some more info on how this works here: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/how-billing-works-with-trello-premium-and-standard/

If you'd like to see in advance how much it would cost to upgrade your Workspace, you can find that by going to the Workspace billing page. To navigate there, click on the down arrow next to "Workspace settings" in the sidebar, as shown in the screenshot below, and then click on "Upgrade workspace." You'll be able to switch between monthly and annual billing on that page to see how much each option would cost for either Trello Premium or Trello Standard.

[Rachel Provan]

@Caity no unfortunately that would me I’d have to create 120 boards…

is there a way for them to leave the board (without my having to manually remove them) after they’ve copied it?