File-Sharing Service Droplr Is Going Freemium

Droplr iPhone

File-sharing service Droplr is adopting a freemium business model starting tomorrow. Instead of paying $4.99 per month just to try the service, you’ll be able to download clients on a variety of platforms and immediately share screenshots, images and video recordings of your desktop directly with friends or on social networks like Twitter.

There’s a catch, of course: the links to files you share under the new free tier will expire after a week. If you want to keep those images around longer (or nifty features like password-protected files and customized download pages) you have to jump up to the $9.99/month “Droplr Pro” plan.

As with other services that blur the line between consumer, prosumer and enterprise software, the move to freemium isn’t just about getting individuals to pay 10 bucks a month. The real aim is to pull a Slack — get individuals within larger organizations hooked, have them convince a few friends and co-workers to adopt it, and once everyone’s reliant on it for work, get management to pay up for a team, business, or corporate plan.

Even before adopting this new strategy, Droplr has had success among companies known for their creative work (so they share a lot of visuals internally before they go out): the startup lists Nike, Airbnb, Adobe and Pixar among its clients.

Droplr iPhone

In addition to the new price structure, Droplr is going to roll out new versions of its iOS and Mac apps starting tomorrow morning. Rebuilt for iOS 8, the feature I’m looking forward to most is the new share extension. Instead of saving an image to your camera roll or taking a screenshot before going over to the app to share it, you’ll be able to distribute files or images from any app with a share menu.

The Mac app is also getting a pretty sweet update, with new features like the ability to record a screencast of your desktop and share it as a video or as a GIF, set expiration dates for links and generate HTML code so you can embed your uploaded files in web pages.