Xara Online Designer (Cloud Xara) pricing

**maxtrac** · 29 October 2015, 01:21 AM

Xara Online Designer (Cloud Xara) is free while on Beta. Has anyone heard of any future price range that we can start mentioning to our customers? Any affiliate or re-branding plans in sight? Thanks…

**gwpriester** · 29 October 2015, 11:55 AM

I've asked Xara if someone can respond to this.

**pauland** · 29 October 2015, 02:59 PM

I'd wonder if it's wise mentioning a beta service to customers at any price. Xara may decide not to take the product out of beta, or may keep it as a beta for an extended period.

I'd wait until it's no longer a beta before letting it loose on clients or getting them excited about it.

**gwpriester** · 29 October 2015, 05:23 PM

Paul - That's why I have asked Xara to respond to this.

**pauland** · 29 October 2015, 05:35 PM

If Xara responds that the price will be X when out of Beta, I still wouldn't tell clients about it until it's officially Live.

If Xara tells you it will be Live on <insert date> , then great.

**maxtrac** · 30 October 2015, 01:49 AM

Thanks, I agree. It would be to satisfy my curiosity and just for planning purposes.

In my view, this is THE GREATEST selling feature breakthrough for Xara in many years. Many customers ask for a “WordPress” website, not realizing the actual cost and work involved.

**Charles Moir** · 30 October 2015, 12:02 PM

In my view, this is THE GREATEST selling feature breakthrough for Xara in many years. Many customers ask for a “WordPress” website, not realizing the actual cost and work involved.

Glad you agree with this. We get feedback from designers and end-users of Wordpress saying they hate it - because the whole process of creating and, for the client, editing Wordpress sites is really clunky, over complex. And designing Wordpress sites is about as far away from 'simple visual design tool' as you can get. You have to be more technical and more programmer than designer.

It is in Beta still, but we're continuing to work on it - there will be an update in a week or two that will enable more editing facilities, so you can edit text in groups, replace photos in groups - which are quite common on websites. And also 'download as PDF' will come soon after that. Less useful for websites perhaps (still useful though) but certainly useful for more general document editing. So you'll be able to edit and update brochures, flyers, posters, documents of all types using only your web browser, and download a PDF of it, as well as publish it online.

Regarding pricing - to be honest this has yet to be determined. We do expect that 'client access' to edit websites you've created for your clients will be free.

We expect that there will be subscription offering, one day, for Online Designer. We're toying with the idea that we'll include a free copy of Designer Pro (and automatic updates to new versions for as long as you subscribe) for those that subscribe to Online Designer options.

To be clear we're not saying desktop Designer will move to a subscription only option as some others have done. You will always, I hope, have the option to purchase one-off and then that's yours forever more, and your choice to upgrade when there's new version, or not.

But for online services, subscription is the only real option because of the ongoing costs of running the service, and people accept that. I suspect it'll be in the $10 per month region when Online Designer has gained enough functionality to make it worth that. The 'free client access' will always have more limited editing options (as it does right now) because designers do not want their clients messing with the website design - they only want to update the content and pictures, not much more.

**Egg Bramhill** · 30 October 2015, 01:44 PM

Thanks for the update Charles. I have one site using Xara Online & the client is very happy with it and it was far simpler to show him how to edit the site, than when I've had to instruct clients re Joomla.

One feature I'd like to see is the ability to have unpublished pages, linked to unpublished buttons, such that when a client wants to add an additional page they just publish the already created template page, completing the button title and page content. Any chance of this?

**angelize** · 31 October 2015, 08:39 PM

+1 on Eggs suggestion.

Regarding the general document editing I used the online designer on a tablet to show a client a proof and while it was handy it still needs more features for the designer for example my client loved the layout I did but wanted to add a bit of extra copy so that had to be written down by hand and done later on the desktop pc It really wasn't that much copy and it would have saved me a trip back and forth if I could have just selected objects and moved them down and then created a new text block and added the extra copy right there.

**restless** · 12 December 2015, 07:52 PM

I like the idea of the online version for a $10 a month subscription. I have been buying the new version of Web Designer Premium every year, so it won't be much more for you to have it online for $10 a month. I also love the idea of having both the desktop version and online.

The prices that Adobe charges for their online software are ridiculous - Adobe's prices have always been ridiculous.

At a reasonable price, it makes sense to me to use an online version.

Thanks again for the great work you do.

Ed