Dropbox has become an essential tool for many startups, but because shared folders take up space in both the originating account and the destination account, it can be a bit unwieldy for teams. Up until now, the proposed solution was that every team member should upgrade their account. At $99/year, this can scale up quite quickly.
So it's great that they finally support team accounts. However, the pricing seems wrong.
Dropbox for Teams is affordable, and at a discount compared to buying personal Dropbox accounts individually. Starting at just $795/year, Dropbox for Teams includes five user licenses and 350GB of shared storage. Additional user licenses are available for $125/year with additional storage priced at $200 for 100GB/year.
I don't see the discount. A team of 5 active people who all upgrade to Pro 50 will cost $500 / year, whereas the team account will cost $800. Dropbox Team gets more storage, but then what they're selling is not team accounts, it's extra storage accounts. Given that the cost then scales up at $125/user/year, this means that unless you need more than 50GB of storage, it is never worth upgrading to the team account.
I hope they come up with a better pricing model for smaller teams soon. $300 can make a big difference for small startups. At this price, many people I know who have teams on Dropbox won't be purchasing this. Some HN comments agree.
If you read this far, you should follow me on twitter here.
