While it is very common to provide a very limited version of a web service or application for free, we've decided not to do this for a few reasons.
- AffinityLive is for growing companies
Firstly, many of the free versions of applications out there are only suitable when you've got one or two users. Zoho, MyERP, Basecamp and many other online pioneers have set up their plans so that you need to step up to a paid plan once you get more than a couple of users. If there are two of you sharing a handful of clients and projects, Excel Spreadsheets or Google Docs will probably be enough for your business. It is only once you start growing, bringing in more people and work, that you realize these manually systems aren't enough and that your business and sanity are suffering. It is then that AffinityLive starts to become an essential part of your business, and since you're probably spending more than $25,000 per month on payroll with a team of 5 staff, another $100 or so to increase their efficiency by 10% just makes sense.
- AffinityLive actually allows an unlimited number of free users
AffinityLive has a bit of a different licencing model - you can have unlimited Collaborator users for free, and you only pay for Professional users. This means you can bring the whole company into AffinityLive, and as long as they don't need to be a Professional user to do their job, you don't have to pay a cent for them. Ever.
- AffinityLive is a serious tool for serious businesses
If you're going to trust the operations of your business with a system, you really want to be sure it will be there for you tomorrow. AffinityLive is an enterprise class business tool for professional service businesses to use in running their business, and by charging for Professional users instead of giving it all away for free and hoping to pay the real costs of staff, servers and support through some other magic mechanism, you can be confident that AffinityLive will keep being there for you, not just today but well into the future.