New Pricing and Plans in 2020

Happy New Year! We used the first two weeks of 2020 to reflect on the state of pretalx and our goals for this year, and wanted to share the results with you. The most exciting (and terrifying) change concerns our pricing model for the hosted instance here at pretalx.com, but we also have a long list of topics and features we want to approach over the course of the year.

New Pricing

Last year, pretalx came with a fixed pricing model: Every event paid the same price, regardless of size and budget. To make pretalx more affordable for smaller events, we're trying something new this year: The new pretalx pricing model adjusts to the event's size, going by number of attendees and ticket price. The smallest of events can use pretalx for only EUR 60 – and we are still offering a discount of up to 25 % for community events.

Play around with our variable pricing here:

As before, you can still test pretalx for free – you only have to pay once you want to make your event public and open your CfP!

If you want to apply for a community discount, or have any other questions or concerns, please get in touch at sales@pretalx.com.

Plans in 2020

You may have noticed our new website – our most important resolution for 2020 is to invest more thought and effort in our presentation and marketing. The last years saw us focused pretty much entirely on pretalx development to reach a stable and enjoyable product. It's a testament to our users' enthusiasm how many events are using pretalx despite next to no outreach on our part.

But don't worry that we're suddenly going to focus on image campaigns or advertisement: Our biggest goal with regards to outreach and presentation is to write a proper pretalx user guide and publish it in our documentation. As secondary goals, we'll be more active on this blog and on Twitter to inform you of what's going on and where we are headed next.

That's not all, though: We have plenty of features we want to get around to. You can see the list of GitHub tickets we've prioritised for this year. This list includes about a third of our open issues – but of course, if you'd like to contribute to pretalx, you can pick other issues, too! We're always happy to mentor you if you want to pick up any of our open issues.

In addition, we're still looking for funding for some bigger and smaller features, such as a writable REST-API, a more flexible CfP editor, and a first stab at more intelligent scheduling. Last year saw several new sponsored features in pretalx, such as our new schedule widget, or proper anonymous review. We couldn't do this without sponsors invested in improving an open source tool for both themselves and the communty. As always, if you have ideas or a wish list – please talk to us at support@pretalx.com, or on Twitter.

Last year also saw the creation of new pretalx plugins, most notably the integration with ORCID. ORCID is a persistent digital identifier mostly used in academic contexts to allow researchers to have all their information in a central place. We'd like to explore more integrations like that one – please reach out if you have ideas in this regard!

We are not a team of secret superheroes, so it stands to reason that we will not reach all our New Year's resolutions – but we have a solid plan, and we hope – with your help – to get a decent amount of this list done. Thank you for being part of this jouney – we hope you have a brilliant 2020. See you on the other side!