Podio Hybrid Pricing – Tape Action Limit?

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Right now my team is still using Podio, and we just received an email about a new “Hybrid Pricing Model” and the upcoming Workflow Automation limits. I’ve been following Tape as one of the most serious Podio alternatives for a while, and with the new Podio pricing, I need to take a closer look at it.

If I understand it correctly, the monthly action limit will be adjusted to 25,000, which is certainly not sufficient for our use case. I saw that Tape offers 5 million actions. Can we assume that actions are counted similarly to Podio? We really liked the flat and transparent pricing Podio offered.

Before moving my team to Tape, I’d like to share a couple of questions. Maybe some former Podio users can help.

  • Are Tape’s workflows comparable to PWA? We have complex use cases in place and rely on them heavily.
  • Has anyone moved their data recently? We have dozens of apps.
  • If my team knows Podio, how easy is it to work in Tape?

Thanks in advance.

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Hi Fredrik,

Welcome to Tape! I have used Podio since 2012 (I used to work there) and have been using Tape for the last few years. I am a partner for both platforms. I think you will really like Tape as a Podio alternative. Here are the answers to your questions:

  • Tape workflows are very similar to PWA, with a few quality of life improvements (better logging and developer tools being my favorites). The overall structure is very similar so there isn’t a big learning curve if you are familiar with Podio’s.
  • I have built a free Podio to Tape migration tool to help users make the migration. This migrates all workspaces, apps, and data. Check it out here. We don’t support workflow automation migrations yet so those will need to be rebuilt.
  • Because Tape has such a similar structure to Podio with workspaces and apps, your team will likely adjust to Tape very easily. I have migrated customers both small and large, and so far in my experience the transition is very smooth

Please feel free to message me if you’d like any assistance switching over, I’d be happy to help.

Cheers,
Jacquelyn

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Hey Frederick! You’re asking all the right questions.

We moved over here four’ish years ago, if I remember correctly (feels kind of weird to say that out loud.) I was extremely nervous about switching from Podio to another platform because that’s all we had known but it was broken and unstable. We were there since 2013. In hindsight, it was the best decision that we’ve ever made for the company (next to firing that one toxic guy no one really liked.)

In regards to your questions, I’m going to answer them as best I can with talk to text.

Tape’s workflows are comparable to PWA. They use JavaScript, so it’s a step forward, and if nothing else, it’s actually reliable. One of my favorite things is that when the company has to do an upgrade or maintenance, they are extremely transparent, and all of the tasks or automations get queued up so they never fail. Also, all support is done here in open forum.

Secondly, we have not migrated any data recently, but we did manually export and import all of our data when we moved over here to begin with. Tape has done a pretty good job thinking through that process, and as @jacquelynmay mentioned, she has a fantastic tool for that.

Lastly, Tape is just like Podio but better. One of the biggest things that my team pointed out to me was that they no longer had to refresh the screen to see changes; instead, they just happen in real time like you would expect.

As a bonus, Tape has been building out a new record layout in public for close to a year now. It is a lot more flexible, a lot more responsive, and ultimately a huge step forward for this type of platform.

All of that is nice and all, but the number one reason you should consider Tape over any other platform is because the development team is in here on a daily basis and they actually implement feedback from the community in real time. I’m still not used to that level of transparency.

Best of luck regardless.

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Hey there @Fredrik
I strongly support what @jacquelynmay and @1F2Ns have shared with you here.

Yes the workflows are very comparable. I find them even more reliable here in Tape.

Yes we have moved data recently. I strongly recommend the Zooli migration tool that @jacquelynmay build to help with this.

  • You will still feel some friction having to format your data since Tape has so many more layout options than Podio.
  • You will also feel some friction having to rebuild workflow automations to run as needed here in tape.
  • But I promise it is worth it. Once you get through the ‘moving houses’ and ‘unpacking’ phase…you will absolutely LOVE your new home inside of Tape.

Lastly, Yes if your team knows Podio, they will quickly and easily adjust to working inside of Tape. I would even say that it will become easier for them once you learn and apply features that tape has which podio does not have.

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Hi Fredrik,

I’m using both platforms right now, and after the Podio email I also had to take a closer look at the automation limits.

I’ve also had a good experience with Tape, as already mentioned here before. One thing that helped me better understand how Tape counts automation activities was the option to create an automation usage report via API https://community.tapeapp.com/t/automation-usage-report-via-api/2523
So in my case the action count from Tape is quite similar to Podio. Hope this helps.

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Thanks everyone! It’s really helpful to hear from people who actually have experience with both platforms. This all sounds quite promising so far. The migration tool you built, @jacquelynmay, also seems really useful, and I’ll definitely look into it.

Now that I know I’m not the only one who received the Podio email, I’m still trying to understand one key point. If I understand it correctly, Podio is moving from 5 million to 25,000 actions per month. That would be a reduction of more than 99%, which is hard to believe. Or are the 25,000 actions counted per licence? For example, would 10 paying users mean 250,000 actions per month?

Has anyone understood this part?

Thanks again for all your help and the quick responses.

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haha, @Fredrik you have understood it correctly, and that piece has many of us scratching our heads.
It is a HUGE reduction in actions per month. And it is not tied to a limit per seat. The 25k actions is the limit for the whole account unless additional add-ons are purchased to increase that limit.

I have much love for Podio, I still use it daily in my business and with many clients on that platform…
Overall they have proven that this price change will not be a massive price increase for the majority of accounts. Responsible limits are fair to enforce and allow paying to unlock more action capabilities. But the jump you point out here does seem quite drastic no matter which angle you look at it from.

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Thanks for the context. After using Podio for so many years, it’s hard not to feel a bit sad about how this is being handled. I was honestly hoping I had misunderstood it.

After reading your comments, I’ve been testing Tape again. It has improved a lot since I first signed up a few years ago, and the new record layout @1F2Ns mentioned seems especially useful for our use cases. This is something our team has wanted for a long time, and I absolutely agree that it’s a huge step forward for this type of platform.

Thanks again for sharing your experience with Tape. It gives me more confidence about testing it with our team.

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Oh wow. Podio did it once again — giving existing clients a reason to rethink a running contract. Changing terms mid-contract destroys the trust of companies that built parts of their business processes on Podio.

That’s a major issue in the software industry, and people seem to underestimate it. Some companies stay loyal to the contracts they signed with clients — others seem forced to focus above all on growing margins for the same product.

This doesn’t mean a company can’t launch new products or features with added value and adjust conditions accordingly. Or change their conditions for new clients before they sign. But I have deep respect for the ones that lock in the terms for existing contracts and the feature set they signed up for.

Tape confirmed legacy pricing a while ago. I’d guess that still stands, @Stefan?

(btw “legacy pricing” is a better wording than the formerly used “grandfathering” — the term seems to originate from racist voter suppression in the US Southern states around 1900)

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@dirk_s Yes, exactly. Future pricing or plan changes won’t affect what existing customers already have included with their current Tape plan.

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@dirk_s, thanks for bringing this up.
And thanks for confirming, @Stefan. That gives us the clarity we needed.

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@Fredrik, in case you haven’t seen it yet, this may be useful:
💙🤝 Tape migration deal: 6 months free, 5M actions guaranteed

@Stefan, I really appreciate how transparent the Tape team is when questions come up. The plan protection is a good example of that. Thanks for confirming this. It really helps.

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@RobertForster, thanks for sharing this. I hadn’t seen it yet.

Every time I come back to the community, there’s so much new going on. It’s great to see such an active community. I haven’t seen that in years :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the party :birthday:

I think @Luis and @Jason will be putting on Teems meetings for everyone to get together as well. It’s always nice putting a face to a name.