Don’t forget 37 Signals apps. They also seem to be inching up in terms of cost but it seems that these companies will charge what the market will bare.

That said I generally disagree with most of the pricing models for these apps. I think anything over 3 options for pricing is deliberately meant to confuse a prospect. I also don’t get why everyone is so in love with the monthly bill… Just one more thing to worry about..

It’s too bad mobileme released with so many bugs.. I really think Apple is god when it comes to pricing. $99/year for their standard mobileme service seems just right and the other guys should take notice.

For Solo plans, extra users are $10/month. So 3 users total on a Solo plan is $32/month ($12 + $10 + $10), not $40/month. That works out to be $384/year, which is a bit more of a value than $480/year.

These prices per employee come out to less than $11/month per employee, which we believe delivers great value to a growing organization like Swordfish Corp.

Hope this is helpful, and thanks for instigating such lively discussion!

Best Wishes,
Karen
—
Blog: http://www.getharvest.com/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/harvest
Fun: http://www.worldclockproject.org/

One thing we are working on is cleaning up how we communicate our pricing. I think it’s confusing, and I work here!

Every account comes with one administrator plus the staff, so for a 3 person company you really only need the 2 person staff account ($29/mo.). If you add a 4th staff member, it’s $39/mo.

Admittedly not obvious to anyone, if you add a 5th staff member, it’s still only $49/mo. You can add staff members individually.

The $89/mo. package is more of a discount for larger firms.

So, the clear lesson folks: communicate your pricing sensibly!

– Sunir, Chief Handshaker, FreshBooks

I don’t doubt that Freshbooks make you look professional in terms of the way you invoice clients – v important.

But that doesn’t mean other mechanisms don’t either… I’ve been using a combination of Google Spreadsheet (time tracking) and Microsoft Excel for invoices and it all looks pretty professional in terms of what clients receive (a PDF of an invoice generated in Excel, and/or a copy in the mail if requested).

I also don’t necessarily buy into the suggestion that these particular hosted apps save me much time on an on-going basis – it’s not that time consuming to clone my invoice template, fill it in and then add the details to the invoice register in my Excel file. Sure I had to set this up first time, but after that I think the execution of hosted vs Google + Excel is prob about the same.

Like I said, I’m not debating the value per se, I’m debating whether the price of the hosted model is worth $1000 more than doing it yourself per year.

I mean sheesh, Freshbooks (and I’m sure Harvest) make you look so damn professional that I’d be surprised if they don’t help you make MORE money.