Such an industry full of whiners. It's $50 for the most important tool your business will use. 1/2 tank of gas. I can't believe so much complaining.

Simply put, this tool has had the single greatest impact on my business in the almost 15 years doing this. Next to no set up, complete database, customer view history, two clicks to create purchase orders. If time is money this is the best investment any of you could hope for. If you can't use the hours you save to make an extra $50 or spend time with your family then that's your problem.

The tool isn't perfect. Nothing is. And if you don't like it for that, ok, that's cool. But you whine about $50 when they give you the option to not pay by being loyal to the platform is crazy. You are all small business owners and should understand the need to keep the doors open.

I for one would be happy to pay for this product and meet and shake the hands and buy the owner a drink for bringing this tool to my improved my business.

Send a po for 2 TVs a month and youre good. Come one guys....

I don't even use it for quoting and I agree 1000% with Sound SD. Man up and make that money back.

You're not paying attention. My issues are the issues. I am making sure the money I spend go the to best product for that money. When the price was $0, it was a clear winner. When there is a monetary value placed on it, I will do due diligence and ensure the money I spend goes to the best product. And that is what I am doing now to see if it is or is not. I setup the free trial on Jetbuilt to see what it has to offer at the same price. I won't know for a couple weeks most likely which is a better platform. I do know the fact they allowed 4 free proposals per month before having to pay, and then "charging" you as one of those 4 for simply resending a proposal, printing a proposal, or making changes puts a bad taste in my mouth. Sure it's free but it's not looking out for our best interest. I don't mind paying for the product that helps my business. The fact I paid for dtools in years past proves that. It's just the way they announced it rubbed me the wrong way, again, not the money part of it. If a company can flip the switch overnight without warning, and make it retroactive to 2 weeks prior to that notice, I have to stop and question if it's the right company for me to do business with or not.

Tell me a software platform, that you pay for, that doesn't have bugs? You paid for windows at some point and its never been perfect.

AND.................

No other platform pays you for ordering through them.... except the points system on your CC.

As I said, if you don't like the tool that's fine. If $50 per month requires perfection and a completely hands off product then I wish you luck on your search for a perfect and cheaper product.

Or you can just submit $60k a year in orders and be done with it.

It's their company. They can do as they wish. I want them to be profitable so they are here for me in 5 years and hopefully even better. Much like I'm sure you want your customers to think.

I though the email was very honest and fair about the unanticipated nature of the growth and use style of their business. Some make a living on change orders, some do their best to avoid them. I think Portal did their best here.

Well within your right to not continue with them. I wasn't taking directly to anyone in my first post. Just the general tone of the discussion.

In fact, in the time we took on this post, we could have all made the $50 for the month.

Again, it's not about the money. The wording in the email was fine. The timing with no start date, just "from now on". Couple with the retroactive to the beginning of the month when the email came mid month is what left a bad taste. I'm not saying they aren't the best option though. Just saying that now that it's a pay service, I owe it to my business to see if it is the best or not.

you guys are missing the entire point......its $50 for a platform that CURRENTLY DOES NOT WORK and is super buggy. The original site was fine (i am still puzzled why they fixed what wasnt broken) In-fact the original site was damn near bulletproof and was one of the only software platforms that I didn't want to throw through the window.

The timing of the email was horrible, mid month, retroactive and on the heels of a forced BROKEN update. It reeks of investors putting the screws to them and they had TODO something. In-fact taking the 1% fee away would have been received way better.

You guys are also FAILING to see that the software platform and pricing structure backs you into a corner. You have ZERO way to stagger PO's for those long projects. You have no way to dictate your payment method to your distributors AND RECENTLY the pricing is so far off it could cost you a small fortune if you dont cross check with your vendors. I understand if they are a few dollars off but not HUNDREDS.

I can think of 5 perfect ways they could offset the cost's besides the obvious ones. This once great and HUGE time saver has the feeling of a ship that lost its rudder and his heading towards an iceberg.

When it comes down to it, $50 a month is nothing and easy to swallow. Like Mike said it was executed horribly and has left a lot of dealers sour. the extra bill is easy to swallow IF its a time saver. Recently it would have been much quicker to load D-Tools back up, update it and pump proposals out then dealing with portal. the problem is its $50 bucks for something that is BROKEN

Exactly. It's not the money for me either but rather the principal. I used to pay for BidMagic and then switched to Portal.

The main problem for me is that I now have to pay for an inferior product. I would gladly pay for Portal if it was the same or better than before. It's not as good and my clients keep asking me why the photos are so small. There are also numerous bugs that keep my reports from looking professional.

In addition, the new pricing system is stupid and insulting.

Yesterday, a client wanted me to send him a copy of his proposal for a camera system that I sent him about 4 months ago.  I printed to pdf and sent to him.  Of course that counts against the freebies.  But the printed form looked horrendous and I can't do anything to change it.  It used white lettering on top of a white background.  The lettering goes over the image on the cover page a little which is the only way I was able to tell there was lettering there at all.  It spaced everything out so there was one item per page.  Literally spaced everything out.  I had to apologize for how it looked.  These are the types of bugs that make it not worth paying for.  I also setup the free trial for Jetbuilt and provided a proposal to the same client for a surround system in his newly finished attic.  It looks ten times better, a cover page, all the line items on 2nd page, and 3rd page with terms and signature lines.  I can easily customize the look of this as well.  This is part what I am talking about with the differences and seeing which platform is worth spending the money on.

TO those thinking its about the BS 50$ fee. It's NOT, not even close !!
Like others have said, the product is buggy and looks like crap when we send to clients. Plus we need to double check our bids and make sure the pricing is correct as well.

And no site has ever given anyone a van either. :)

Right. Plenty of distys pay the business from ordering directly from them. COR# Brands, AV@D, SN@P (and I'm sure I'm missing more) have programs with a kickback of some sort.

Also, the old argument of "no disty has a website that you can order from" is pretty much gone. Most of the places I have ordered from have all revamped their site at least once (or more ) in the last 5-10 years. Again, no one is perfect, but ordering and tracking is not (difficult) like it used to be...

I understand they have to make their $ to be able to keep the platform always updated and give back the rewards. I also agree that if a business is not buying 60K worth per YEAR, than portal free ( 4 proposal per month ) should be enough.
Also, if you really just use it for proposals because you love it, than $49 is not the end of the world... we have spend more than that in lame iOS apps for inventory and stuff.

oh, last thing - if you think that portal sucks and it's buggy, than why bother? just don't use it ;)

Yes, version 2 is buggy - I miss version 1, BUT - it's the tool that we use all day long, and it's better buggy than going back to quickbooks.

Version 2 just launched. Give em a chance. Yikes. I prefer it though because I can finally use my phone to view proposals. I haven't had any issues with it. Just know the site is a response to everyone's request on their page. Mostly device responsiveness and I think it's great.

Excited for it to get better. Sure beats the hell out of QuickBooks. And if I have to double check pricing, it's still a lot less work.

Are there things I don't love? Sure! I not comfortable with the way the new labor and custom items work since those items are always unique descriptions for us but I see the idea and I'm adjusting. Also, when printed I have had prewire proposal take 45 pages which is crazy.

But that stuff will get fixed and it's still light years better than anything else I've ever tried.

To say it's not about the money is crazy because that's literally what started this thread. I think one quote was "free it's the clear winner, but for $50, I need to do my diligence".

Clearly it's not for everyone, and if it's not for you move on because if you aren't getting it for free you probably aren't the user they want anyways. Sorry if that's harsh, but I think it's an amazing product. Just continually surprised by guys that are running their own business failing to see what other business owners need to do to continue to provide and improve their product for you.