Web Tool Wednesday: Padlet Changes

Web Tool Wednesday: Padlet Changes

Thanks to @charlottepolk71 and @nancyjolambert, I noticed that Padlet had some changes to their terms. I logged into Padlet, and sure enough, I had a letter- 

Nitesh from Padlet

Today, we are changing our plans and pricing. I'm writing to explain the changes to you, why we made the changes, and that we are here to help you in this transition whichever way we can.

Your new plan

Our free plan, which you are on, is now called Padlet Basic. Padlet Basic comes with the following new features that you did not have under the old free plan:

• Search
• Themes
• Stats
• Premium wallpapers
• Cross-device support for uploaded videos

Under the new plan, however, you can make only up to 48 padlets. As of this message, you've already made 42.

Please note that there are no limits to the number of padlets you can post on, or the number of people who can post on your padlets.

Should you want to make more than 48 padlets, you'd have to either delete old padlets that you no longer use or upgrade to one of our paid plans. Other than unlimited padlets, they come with 25x bigger file uploads, priority support, folders, and much more. Plans start at $8.25 a month.

Think of your padlet quota as storage space on your phone. If you are out of space, you can either buy more storage, or you can just delete old files.

Why the change?

The simple truth is that with our old free plan, we made a promise that we can no longer afford to keep. We underestimated the costs of supporting our large user base. Many new features that we have added recently (like video recording, image search) have also added to these costs.

I wish it weren't the case and we could offer you unlimited everything for free. We are builders at heart, not business people. We want more people to use the products we build. A totally free Padlet would allow that. But thanks to the great teachers we had in school, we learned enough math to figure out that our old free plan did not add up.

We are here to help

Our numbers show that a lot of you will benefit from this change. But some of you won't like it. It is possible that this sudden hard limit on the number of padlets will disrupt your work. It is possible you will now have to upgrade to use a software that was free.

If you are in this group, I'm very, very sorry. As someone who has been on the receiving end of changes like these, I know first hand how frustrating they can be.

All I can hope is that Padlet has added enough value to your life that you'll continue to use it. I hope that we have earned enough love and respect that you'd understand why we made these changes.

We are doing everything we can to help you with this transition. We came up with the padlet limit on your account by adding the number of padlets you have made in the last three months to the number of padlets already in your account.

The rationale behind this arithmetic was that three months worth of extra padlets would give you enough time to evaluate your options should this new setup not work out for you.

If you have anything to say, you can just reply to this message or email us at hello@padlet.com. We welcome all questions, concerns, and criticisms.

Thank you very much for using Padlet.

Love, laughter

Nitesh

CEO, Padlet

What does this mean?

It looks like Padlet is limiting the number of free Padlets you can have. I would suggest logging into your Padlet and seeing how many free Padlets you can have because every person has a different amount. You can post on as many other Padlets as you want, but as far as creation goes, it is a limited amount. You can delete the Padlets that you don’t want anymore to free up space. There is an upload maximum amount, as well.

What if you are new and never used Padlet before?

It looks like the new user only gets three Padlets.

What should you do?

I plan to still use Padlet, and when I run out of Padlets, then I will delete one of the Padlets that I have created before. Also, like anything, rotating technology tools in your instruction keeps students engaged and not bored with the same tool.

Want to know more?

Tweet out @Padlet or email them! On their Twitter page, you can read what people are saying about the new changes.