[CATO] Correspondence with Venngage rep about cost

Wed Jul 17 08:54:15 PDT 2024

Thank you for sharing with us, Vicki. Sounds like they are open to Woking out some price breaks.

[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]

Monica M. Olsson (she/her/hers)

Policy Associate – Accessible IT Coordinator

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

•Email: molsson at sbctc.edu<mailto:molsson at sbctc.edu> • Phone: 360-704-3922

The power of the Web is in its universality.
Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

[cid:83b488c1-2eb7-452c-8635-114419e6eb25]<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/321a279c65664c04a18fa34a96e959ab@sbctc.edu?anonymous&ep=signature>                Book time to meet with me<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/321a279c65664c04a18fa34a96e959ab@sbctc.edu?anonymous&ep=signature>
________________________________
From: CATO <cato-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> on behalf of Vicki Walton via CATO <cato at lists.ctc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2024 8:38 AM
To: cato at lists.ctc.edu <cato at lists.ctc.edu>
Cc: Vicki Walton <vwalton at sbctc.edu>
Subject: [CATO] Correspondence with Venngage rep about cost

[Sent from outside SBCTC]

Hello dear CATO group,

I wanted to reach out to you to let you know that when Michael Hanscom shared his email with us about what he found out about the cost of Venngage, I took a portion of the email and reached out to the Venngage rep I've been working with when I did my accessibility evaluation.  Bhanu, the rep, replied so I wanted to make sure we all received that information.

[Start of correspondence]

On Mon, Jul 08, 2024 at 10:41:46, Vicki Walton <vwalton at sbctc.edu<mailto:vwalton at sbctc.edu>> wrote:

Hello Bhanu,

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

I do have something I want to run by you that a colleague of mine from a committee we are part of wrote to us and I want to get your take to fully understand how Venngage payment plan works.

[Beginning of email]

I had started trying to talk up Venngage as an alternative to Canva here at Highline, and have run into one fairly major stumbling block: Canva lets free accounts export (inaccessible) PDFs; Venngage’s free level will only provide links to web versions of designs, any sort of export requires a paid account, and it’s not until you hit the “Business” ($24/month/user) level that you get PDF export (the $10/month “Premium” level only includes PNG export).

My guess is that that cost barrier will be impacting a lot of other people/institutions as well, even with the new regulations.

[End of email]

Please help me understand how Venngage really works so I can share this with our colleagues at our colleges.  When I do an accessibility evaluation, I normally don't look at the payment situation but now this has come to light and it's really important that we understand it.

Thank you for your time, Bhanu.

Vicki Walton

Web Accessibility Specialist/IT Quality Assurance Tester

From: Bhanu Laul <bhanu at venngage.com<mailto:bhanu at venngage.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2024 8:32 AM
To: Vicki Walton <vwalton at sbctc.edu<mailto:vwalton at sbctc.edu>>
Subject: RE: Accessibility evaluation final report

[Sent from outside SBCTC]

Hi Vicki,

Thanks for writing in.

While the analysis above is correct, I can go ahead and waive off the fee for the members of the committee for the first few months as they get started on the software.

Re the costing, our software usually ends up costing around $100-$200 per user annually on a team plan, something not listed on the website.

Given our work, the best approach is to have the creators try our product for a few weeks before looking at a team plan, which as you can see, is cheaper than Canva - not even taking into consideration the cost savings associated with creating accessible PDFs by default.

As there has been some chat about Venngage in your circles, with a few objections coming to surface, to move things forward, I would recommend getting on a call with some of the committee members - clarifying the objections, and charting a path towards a few demos/trials across the college system?

Let me know your thoughts and we can set up a time.

Best,

Bhanu

[End of correspondence]

I reached out to Michael to share with him what I found out and he sent this back to me:

I’m glad they responded, though I’ll admit I’m not overly impressed with the response. There’s still no way for entry-level users trying Venngage to get a good idea of how exported PDFs will behave, and at $100-200 annually per user (which I’m not sure how they get to with a $24/month/user baseline), that’s still a pretty steep slope if anyone does want to try it to see how it works for them – especially when they can get PDFs for free from Canva. I feel like most people/institutions are likely to either ask someone in-house to remediate or just keep sending out inaccessible PDFs that they can get for free.

Still, it’s their business, all we can do is pass along our concerns.

Michael Hanscom (he/him), Accessible Technology Program Manager, Highline College

[End of Michael’s comments]

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Please note my summer hours from June 16 - August 31:

8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. to noon on Friday.

[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]Vicki Walton

Pronouns: they/them

Web Accessibility Specialist/IT Quality Assurance Tester

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

vwalton at sbctc.edu• office: 360-704-4343• website: www.sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/default.aspx>

Accessibility is a fundamental right

Accessibility is not a checkbox. Accessibility is a mindset that can lead to a very powerful sense of inclusion.

~ Maayan Ziv founder and CEO AccessNow

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