Logmein's Continued Insanity

[TechLady]

I stupidly called Logmein one last time just to make a final pass with their new pricing...aaaand they're still completely insane. They spent the rest of the week chasing me and trying to get me to accept triple what I've been paying.

------ Original Message ------

From: Eric
Subject: LogMeIn Central Discussion - Best time to touch base?

Angela,
Give me a call when you get this. 781 897 7825
Thanks,
Eric

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Hi,

The thing is, unless you guys can offer me something SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than $1k, I can't do it. I need at least 150-200 computers and ability to access from one PC and one Mac and I can get that with competitors for $500. It's just me. I work out of my garage. I simply cannot afford your new pricing scheme.

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LogMeIn: What features do you need? You have been quoted for Central Plus… if you only need remote access for a large volume of machines, I can get it under $1K.

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I need *occasional* file transferring, which is apparently what jacks the price up way above my limit. It's pretty clear to all of us small-fry techs that we are not the customers you want anymore

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LogMeIn: Actually, my boss just said I can do it… [Ha ha ha! Classic used car salesman pitch...]

Heres the thing… I know you want to pay monthly, so you can. But, it has to be a 15 month commitment instead of 12 months.

So $1000 / 12 months = $83.33 per month. So that’s what you would pay each month, it would just have to be for 15 months instead of 12.

15 payments of $83.33 would be $1250. Same unit cost and all that, though. Can we do it?

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I cannot. $1250 is still twice as much as I have. Seriously.

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LogMeIn: What do you want to pay EACH MONTH to us for 150-200 machines with occasional files transfer?

If you have 200 machines and you’re paying us $80 a month, that’s still only 40c per machine each month.
That is really reasonable, no? [No, not really...]
Let me know… I will do what I can… but i also need to be reasonable.

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So far as I know, I'm actually paying nothing or next to nothing at the moment, as I am floating on some kind of grace period. It's the only reason I'm still using your products at all. And no, $80 a month on my scale is still ridiculous.

Your prices WERE reasonable in the past. They are not now. Even if $80 a month was reasonable--and I don't think it is--that doesn't mean I have that kind of cash to invest. Not when I'm paying for my bookkeeping, tools, parts and gas on top of everything else. This is not me trying to haggle over a used car--I really am a small shop. So that's why I'm going to have to switch to something else. You guys simply priced us out completely.

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LogMeIn: ok

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[Mainstay]

Dropping the file transfer and moving to LMI Basic is what we did. File Transfer is rare and in the event I need it I use something like DropBox share link or ftp the file / program to my web server.

I TOTALLY agree with you, and have written about it before on these forums, the LMI pricing scheme is gougy. What I ended up doing was charging my clients with lots of computers on my account a monthly remote access fee, and for those one-offs, a simple $3 remote license fee.

It pays for itself. But yeah, I didn't like being forced to go this route.

 

[TechLady]

I'd almost be willing to do that if the math wasn't triple pricing for literally half the features. It's like...if this was a car they'd raise the monthly lease sky high and then take out half the engine...and they are standing there smirking, expecting you to somehow be fine with that.

 

[Mainstay]

I'd almost be willing to do that if the math wasn't triple pricing for literally half the features. It's like...if this was a car they'd raise the monthly lease sky high and then take out half the engine...and they are standing there smirking, expecting you to somehow be fine with that.

TOTALLY AGREE.

You and I had commented on the same conversation back in January:

https://www.technibble.com/forums/t...e-changes-again-1000-increase-for-some.61644/

I've stuck with my plan (comment #9 and #19) and it is working. My customers feel empowered that they have remote access and I get to monitor their comings and goings (which they know and appreciate).

What alternative are you using (if I may ask)?

 

[seedubya]

Recent convert to ScreenConnect here. Don't wait any more - just do it. 1 Licence will cost you $350 and a Digital Ocean droplet $5 per month or you can self-host on any old PC at home if you have decent BB. It's bloody brilliant.

 

[jmitservices]

+1 for ScreenConnect

 

[skdmaster]

Check out BeAnywhere.com - just meet them at a conference and are a direct competitor for LMI in terms of same features for a lot less.

 

[pceinc]

If you have 200 machines and you’re paying us $80 a month, that’s still only 40c per machine each month.
That is really reasonable, no? [No, not really...]
Let me know… I will do what I can… but i also need to be reasonable.
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Is this $80/mo for 200 LMI Pro installs or is it the free version re-branded as a new model? Still, for that much if you are charging your clients for the support it looks like a great deal to me. I fail to see the issue. Perhaps I am misreading. What were you paying?

 

[pctechforhire]

Want to know what I do when I need to transfer a file? I remote into the computer, and then use join.me to remote into it again (unless I can walk the customer through it without the initial remote session). Join.me, a logmein product that is free, has file transfer capabilities. It's a kludge, but it works. I've been looking for other ways to get files transferred with out having to use join.me. Still looking for something reliable and free, but this has worked the few times I've needed it.

 

[HCHTech]

Back when I started my business, before I knew about TN or any of this, I found a product called Remotezilla. I paid a one-time license fee which I don't even recall now, maybe $350? Definitely under $500. It lets me build the customer module exe with my logo, I put that on my website and copy the link to most every customer's computer. It still updates occasionally, and continues to work with Win10. It does two-way file transfer, auto-reconnect on reboot, reboot into safe mode, multi-monitors, etc. I've been using it now for probably 10 years.

As I've learned about the current options over the years, and I've always thought I would move to one of them when the reason to do so presented itself, but so far, this hasn't happened. For my Logicnow customers, I use the built in Teamviewer/TakeControl (which DOESN'T do auto reconnect, btw), but for everyone else the Remotezilla thing is working just fine thank you. That $350 is per technician, but I haven't needed a second seat so far as we have always been able to avoid needing two techs at a time on remote sessions. My only limitations are that it doesn't work for Macs (but then again, neither does Teamviewer/TakeControl) and you can't do unattended. For businesses where I need unattended, they are on Maxfocus anyway.

 

[Mike McCall]

I'm currently trialing MF and have yet to be able to Take Control to work on anything internal or external. Read the help files on it and I still can't get it to work.

 

[myleso]

We love SimpleHelp but apparently we are the only ones using it lol
https://simple-help.com

 

[mraikes]

Back when I started my business, before I knew about TN or any of this, I found a product called Remotezilla. ..snipped.

Remotezilla looks interesting and their pricing seems reasonable: http://www.remotezilla.com/pricing/index.html

Besides the pricing, I like the "..one technician can connect to multiple customers simultaneously." I regularly have simultaneous connections to customer computers sitting on my workbench at distances of 60 feet to 250 miles. The "one tech, one connection at a time" model of some other products doesn't work for me.

 

[Mike McCall]

Remotezilla looks interesting and their pricing seems reasonable: http://www.remotezilla.com/pricing/index.html

Besides the pricing, I like the "..one technician can connect to multiple customers simultaneously." I regularly have simultaneous connections to customer computers sitting on my workbench at distances of 60 feet to 250 miles. The "one tech, one connection at a time" model of some other products doesn't work for me.

It appears to be VNC based, which, given what I hear from some is a bad or at least undesirable thing. What say ye?

 

[phaZed]

GFI also has a VNC viewer "Remote support viewer" that can be sent right from the dashboard to a customer's email. The VNC viewer won't incur any additional charges as the Take Control viewer does.

 

[jft135]

Another +1 for ScreenConnect. It isn't as polished as LogMeIn, but as techs, we shouldn't need that. I still recommend LogMeIn for clients who need to access their work PC from home, but I'm done using it myself.

 

[Moltuae]

Recent convert to ScreenConnect here. Don't wait any more - just do it. 1 Licence will cost you $350 and a Digital Ocean droplet $5 per month or you can self-host on any old PC at home if you have decent BB. It's bloody brilliant.

Agreed.

$80 per month is just ridiculous.

I paid $600 (~£400) for two concurrent SC licences a couple of years ago. Several months ago I decided to upgrade my licences (I didn't have to pay another penny, I just wanted the latest version) and, due to the generous upgrade discounts, it cost me a mere $120 (~£80) for another 12 month of updates! Bearing in mind, I can also transfer as many files as I like, I think that's an absolute bargain.

 

[HCHTech]

GFI also has a VNC viewer "Remote support viewer" that can be sent right from the dashboard to a customer's email. The VNC viewer won't incur any additional charges as the Take Control viewer does.

I see in the help file that they no longer support this, but its still available - hmm.

 

[HCHTech]

It appears to be VNC based, which, given what I hear from some is a bad or at least undesirable thing. What say ye?

Any support for this? It seems to work just fine for me. I'm sure I've done a couple thousand sessions over the years,maybe more.

 

[Mike McCall]

Any support for this? It seems to work just fine for me. I'm sure I've done a couple thousand sessions over the years,maybe more.

http://www.remotezilla.com/pricing/index.html#Expert

I said "appears to be" due to the "AutoVNCsize" comment in the description. That assumption may be incorrect, though.

My apprehensive comment about VNC is based initially on the comments made in this thread: https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dualdesk.65452/#post-510528. I'm not an authority on the subject and never claimed to be. I do try to pay attention to cautions raised by those who I believe to be more knowledgeable on a subject than I am. I did find this page: https://www.dragonresearchgroup.org/insight/vnc-tac.html, which appears to outline some of the vulnerabilities, and how to counter them. At this point, my apprehension rests on an admittedly incomplete understanding of the matter, which is why I framed my comment the way I did. It would also seem to be that the implementation is the greatest potential weakness. If so, I would have no reliable way of knowing which implementation is properly done and which isn't.