Swiftpage announced yesterday that volume discounts for new customers will no longer be offered after March 2019. Existing Active Subscribers will retain their current volume discount, but will not be able to increase their volume discount with additional seats added. For instance, currently someone that has 19 seats and enjoys a 5% quantity discount, could expect an additional 5% discount if they add another seat to get to a total of 20, and then be eligible for a 10% quantity discount on all their seats at time of renewal. This will stop after March, as existing subscribers will be locked in at whatever their current volume discount is as of March 31st for all future purchases.

For context, very few CRM companies offer quantity discounts for subscribers. We've reviewed most of the comparable vendors and could not find any that still discount based on quantity, so again Swiftpage is one of the last to faze out a dated purchasing model, much like they were the last to migrate to subscription.

Neither of these changes are negatives, just an acknowledgement that the company with the longest CRM history, and the most loyal customer base has to move a little slower than newer companies with little of either.

It's also important to do the math on these changes, because at first glance the optics are worse than the reality. Consider this, the price difference for a 15-seat Act! Premium subscription before April 1st vs after, is only $150 on a $4500 annual subscription fee. While no one appreciates having to pay more, most would agree this is a marginal cost difference at best.

Another important factor to consider is quantity discounts often complicated promotional pricing because both seldom applied during a sale. For instance, last fall when prices were slashed 33% on both Act! Pro and Premium, few consumers understood these discounts only applied to the "list price" for both products, and not from the quantity discounted price they'd otherwise be entitled to. This meant people purchasing 20+ seats that would normally get 10% quantity discount, would only enjoy a net discount of 23% on that particular sale, because the 33% discount applied to the 1-4 quantity discount, and not off what was actually purchased. 

This practice was always confusing to explain to customers, so we're actually somewhat grateful that after April 1st, these promotions will be much more straight forward, and mercifully include fewer asterisks beside the pricing.