Does Onshape have a referral program?

john_smith077

Hello

I know that I am a hard man to please, but after a few days with Onshape I am now sufficiently impressed as to tell everyone I know who uses 3D CAD (particularly including Sketchup) that they need to look at Onshape.com

However is there any incentive for us to do so?
e.g. Do we get extra GB or extra documents or something (as happens on highly successful product like DropBox and their "400 million"[!] users).

If not there really needs to be.

J

dennis_20

Nope.

brucebartlett

I think this is a good idea, I remember getting my free extra space on dropbox for signing new people up, it did encourage me to invite more people. I think this could work for Onshape too for those on the free account, an extra 200mb for everyone you signup up to a cap.

3dcad

It is so easy to create 100 email accounts these days that I'm afraid it would be exploited. It works for dropbox since they only offer space and sharing document will take the space from all participants (this is not the case with Onshape)

But if any user invites someone and that someone upgrades to pro - it should be rewarded with a free month of pro. This would give you free pro licence with inviting only 12 new customers / year. 

@john_smith077  as answer to your question: Yes, you can get something, but you need to be on Pro plan and apply to Onshape consulting partner and your invitees need to upgrade to Pro plan - then you have possibility to get something (not much though since 1% of price is $1).
1% is not what you get, just reference for scale, contact Onshape for more information.

john_smith077

> It is so easy to create 100 email accounts these days that I'm afraid it would be exploited

1. They could ban 'non-work' / free hosted email accounts from generating the reward.

2. The majority of people probably wouldn't bother

3. It could be capped at something sensible in any case, like DropBox did.

4. How much does it matter if some people do get a bonus for free? One of the huge lessons of the Internet in the last decade is that it's a mistake to try to make money out of every single user. (e.g. Remember that Onshape gave away a massive bonus for nothing in exchange, simply by raising the number of free documents from 5 to 10. So what harm to give a way another say 5 or 10 documents per signup - particularly to users who are their strongest advocates)

5. Look again at DropBox. The vast, VAST majority are free users. But at 400+ million users (the entire USA only has 320M, remember), DropBox that has become a household name. And there are enough paying users to pay for the whole thing (and some) even though they are said to be less than 1% of the total.  But 1% of 400 million is still 4 million users. In DropBox's case they pay $15/month/user ==>  that's $180/year ==> that's... wait for it.... $720 Million bucks per year. These numbers are guesses I don't know what DropBox's revenue really is but you get the idea!

6. Look, to be frank, I just want to promote Onshape to anyone who will listen, because it just seems so promising. Personally, it's very rare that I find something good enough that I would want - unprompted by them - to promote to my social friends & business contacts. Partly I would like at lease *some* acknowledgement from Onshape. 


> But if any user invites someone and that someone upgrades to pro - it should be rewarded with a free month of pro
No. Not for me. Personally that would be of no use to me being as, until further notice as an advanced hobbyist/fledgeling startup, I can't afford $100/month and I don't wish to become dependent on any such service.  (If Onshape offered an 'in between' type of account aimed at the hobby-ist / occasional professional user, then that would be different!)  So personally I would want extra GB and/or extra documents....


Anyhow I suspect we're probably wasting our breath. 

3dcad

john_smith077 said:

Anyhow I suspect we're probably wasting our breath. 

That is true, but I find this 'throwing ideas without any responsibility' amusing..

5. How many people need cloud space vs how many people need cloud cad?
I'm not sure, but I suspect that if Onshape had 400+ million users modeling at same time, that would slow down things quite a bit.
Then they need to invest on servers to keep paying customers happy and eventually free users getting reward GBs from other free user would cost them more than the actual paying customers. Which would lead to no free version at all and free plan is very important for collaborating with anyone. 

Why wouldn't you promote Onshape to your contacts without reward? The reward is making (cad) world a better place.

john_smith077

Pah! Do you not think that 3/4s of a billion dollars would buy a fair few servers...?  

> Why wouldn't you promote Onshape to your contacts without reward? 
I probably will.  But I have a strong sense of fair play. If I was rewarded even notionally I definitely would.

geert_hobma

3dcad said:

john_smith077 said:

Anyhow I suspect we're probably wasting our breath. 

That is true, but I find this 'throwing ideas without any responsibility' amusing..

5. How many people need cloud space vs how many people need cloud cad?
I'm not sure, but I suspect that if Onshape had 400+ million users modeling at same time, that would slow down things quite a bit.
Then they need to invest on servers to keep paying customers happy and eventually free users getting reward GBs from other free user would cost them more than the actual paying customers. Which would lead to no free version at all and free plan is very important for collaborating with anyone. 

Why wouldn't you promote Onshape to your contacts without reward? The reward is making (cad) world a better place.

Perhaps a bit weird to react to an older topic, but don't forget 3d printers and similar tools are still very much upcoming. After a short while more powerful CAD tools can be very practical for even hobbyist users.