Pricing for Trello - notifications as an add-on. Perhaps when we use this free version, are we vuln

[Lori Thompson]

we currently have a free subscription and we like how easy it is to use.  We are realizing some of the information may make us vulnerable to others reading out content.  Is there added security if we pay for a subscription?  if so, how much?  thanks in advance

[Artemis]

Hi @Lori Thompson, welcome!

 We are realizing some of the information may make us vulnerable to others reading out content.

Can you go into a few more details about this? What gave you that impression, was it a setting in Trello?

[Lori Thompson]

Hello

  I should be more specific with my question.  We are currently using the free version and we are enjoying it.  We wonder though, if there is more functionality, for example, notifications as an add-on.  If our branch was to upgrade, we wonder how many licenses there would be available to us.  Perhaps when we use this free version, we wonder if we may be more vulnerable to other companies using our data.

   I look forward to hearing from you

[Artemis]

Hi @Lori Thompson! Thank you for the context. 

notifications as an add-on

What kind of notifications were you thinking of? Trello already provides notifications at the core level, including all free plans, that can send an email when someone make a change to a board or card that you're watching. Would this work?

Here's a doc for that — Receiving Trello Notifications

When you're thinking about other companies using your data, is that in the form of adding a third-party Power-Up integration (i.e. not officially created or supported by Trello) to your board? Or, just having less protections by Trello because you aren't paying?

I can say with confidence that all of Trello's plans have the same protections, and like Michael Pryor said in his post, only the people invited to your boards can see your data if your board visibility is Private or Workspace Visible. Public boards are visible to everyone on the internet, and if you don't want the entire internet to see your boards you never want to use this option. Upgrading to a paid subscription tier will give you more granular user permissions on the board like Observers, and can control what individual people can do on a board, but staying on the free plan doesn't make you more vulnerable to other companies seeing your data. 

On the other hand, when it comes to third-party Power-Up integrations I do know that Trello provides a note if the Power-Up is in compliance with Trello's data and privacy practices. However, when you add a third-party Power-Up to your board, the company does need a form of access to your board so that their service can perform the actions provided by the Power-Ups company. The access provides a token that works like an ID card that tells Trello, "I have the permission to be here and execute very specific actions that Lori and I agreed on, and I'm only allowed to do just that."

This doesn't necessarily mean that the company has unrestricted access to your board and can log in to Trello and see all of your cards, but the integration can't provide their service without some form of access to the board.

[Michael Pryor]

If you don’t share your board with other people, then no one else will be able to read your content.  

Currently the only feature that has to do with permissions would be that you have finer grained permissions for people you invite to your workspace on the paid plans. On the free plans everyone that you add to your workspace has the same privileges. In the paid plans you can make some users admins and some users normal users. 

But no one can read your boards unless you invite them or someone that you’ve already invited also invited them.