While pricing is set that way for a purpose, we are always looking for ways to improve and we're keenly interested in what everyone has to say.
Our focus for Enterprise has been large organizations with sophisticated needs and it's important for us to have conversations and demonstrations with the people doing the evaluation so they fully understand what we're offering.
That said, there are people who use our free Team Edition or have read through our docs that just want a "buy" button for E20.
I'll bring this up and see what we can do.
PS: Regarding the word "fix", my personal view is that it's okay for a commercial product, because people are buying it as a customer. Enterprise Edition is a commercial product.
That said, many open source communities are adopting a principle of "kindness" and having feedback phrased positively where possible. People work hard to make open source software and give it away, and if conversations started on a positive note... well, why not?
So at no point am I implying that you should release it for free. But I do believe there are some features that should ideally be in the 20$ tier rather than the "call-us" tier.
Now this may completely be how your demographic falls, but generally speaking a small company buying 2-10 licenses would usually not have LDAP... but most likely will have Google Apps. And that's pretty much the gist of my comment.
I'm not very sure why people have caught on to the word "fix" - but IMHO i used it in the way that most people talk on these forums ("your website font needs to be fixed", "the copy needs to be fixed"). So I'm not sure if the word was offensive, but it was not intended to be.
Also wanted to mention that I was looking at your offering as a customer with a genuine interest to buy. We use Hipchat and their mobile app needs to be "fixed".. so I was in the market for alternatives.
P.S. also didnt realize you were YC. That usually doesnt happen.
I also agree about Google apps being a good choice in a self serve tier; custom LDAP is more a true enterprise feature. You might be able to put some limits into the self serve Google apps version, too. I'd just like a user with small numbers of users to be able to sign up directly and use the product. (I've been a fan of the product for a while and will probably contact you in a month for enterprise)
This person has clarified several times that English is not their first language and they're making a positive suggestion of how you can better target small startups yet you're endorsing the criticism of their use of a single word. Lost respect for Mattermost (and HN) from this whole thread.
Tangential note - The data-lockin is exactly why I don't use Slack or that litany of SaaS solutions out there. Even with Oracle or MS SQL Server (or even Azure on-premises), if I needed to I could bulk copy my data out.
Open source + charging the enterprise a lot for customized solutions and/or paid support is a fantastic model and I wholeheartedly stand with your model.
(N.b., marketing strategy -- capitalize off the fact that everyone's data is being tapped now - e.g. Dianne Feinstein, in charge of the Senate Intelligence Committee's, had her staffers machines hacked - Apple is 100% hackable too (see: the San Bernadino FBI debacle) and offer secure comms at Blackberry Enterprise licensing pricing. I'd estimate > 95% of F500 is MS based/LDAP based on my experience. They're used to paying tons of money for Remote Desktop/AppX/Citrix/Exchange/whatever seats. You could easily get away with $60/user/seat + install fees + 50% for platinum support.)
Mattermost team here. Thanks for your feedback,
While pricing is set that way for a purpose, we are always looking for ways to improve and we're keenly interested in what everyone has to say.
Our focus for Enterprise has been large organizations with sophisticated needs and it's important for us to have conversations and demonstrations with the people doing the evaluation so they fully understand what we're offering.
That said, there are people who use our free Team Edition or have read through our docs that just want a "buy" button for E20.
I'll bring this up and see what we can do.
PS: Regarding the word "fix", my personal view is that it's okay for a commercial product, because people are buying it as a customer. Enterprise Edition is a commercial product.
That said, many open source communities are adopting a principle of "kindness" and having feedback phrased positively where possible. People work hard to make open source software and give it away, and if conversations started on a positive note... well, why not?