

Why to Make Your App Free for Education - dmgrow
https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/2012/12/12/5-reasons-to-make-your-app-free-for-education/

======
dwj
Not sure this is such a good idea. I operate a similar business and most of
our profit comes from educational customers. Universities have massive budgets
and a few thousand dollars is peanuts to them. School boards also tend to have
large budgets, although it tends to be cyclical.

I think the best option is to have a free, limited version and then offer more
features for a price. I notice that lucidchart doesn't have any free version
for teams.

~~~
bhanks
There is a free team account for educators they just have to apply for it.

~~~
dwj
Yes, I know - that is the whole point of the article. What I meant is that
they don't generally have a free team version. It would be better perhaps to
have a limited free version for everyone, and then charge educators if they
want a more advanced version rather than giving them the crown jewels for
free. Just my opinion based on selling a similar offering to this market for
over 15 years.

------
ams6110
While I have no argument with the "free for education" approach, I think that
the statement _In many states, K-12 budgets are the first to be cut_ could use
some backup. I have often seen school systems complaining they don't have
enough, but can't recall it ever being due to an actual cut. In fact
nationwide[1] we spend more per student on public education than we ever have.

[1] [http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-
chart.h...](http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html)

~~~
dmgrow
It looks like all of the charts on that page end in about 2006. The last few
years have been quite different. This report includes a comparison of percent
change in per student spending in fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2008 in each
state:

[http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3569](http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3569)

The majority of states have seen declines -- some quite significant.

------
pflats
Speaking as a teacher, while your 5-points are very good, there's a happy
medium here you can hit between free and paid.

Individual teachers have minuscule discretionary budgets (either $0 flat or up
to a few hundred for everything). Departments in a school have a bit more
(usually hundreds to thousands once textbooks are paid for). Schools and
school districts have more money to talk about.

The pace of adoption is the exact opposite. Teachers are willing to try
something new, and will show it to their friends/coworkers if it's awesome.
School districts are slow to adopt new technology, and rarely turnkey it to
other district (schools have their own NIH syndrome).

You want to find a way to make the individual teachers happy and seek out your
tool, but also give them a reason for their supervisors to want to pay you.
Think about what an org chart for a school would look like. Each teacher has
15-150 students who report to them. They'll collaborate with the other
teachers, and all report to a supervisor, who has their own boss(es).

In a school, you'll probably either want to hit the collaboration between
teachers or easy metrics on student performance for the big bosses as your
pain points. It won't stop us from using your program for free, but it'll give
the people with money a reason to want to implement it in the entire school.

------
sammyd56
"An entire generation of teachers and administrators is embracing the belief
that technology will allow teachers and students to work together more
effectively, to research more broadly, to share more generously, and to learn
more passionately."

As a teacher and member of that generation, thankyou.

Are there any other awesome product like lucidchart available free of charge
to K-12 schools?

