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Proton Family plan

Davor Pihac

Davor Pihac

— 2 min read
Proton Family plan
Proton Family pricing landing page

Honey, I've just upgraded us and kids to Proton Family plan! At only 3.33€ per user per month, family plan is a real bargain.
- How much was it again?
I paid 24 months upfront, so we got a really good deal at 479.76€. We even saved 240€, can you believe it?
- You did what?! Paid almost 500€ for email?
But honey, it's encrypted and comes with 3 TB of encrypted storage, VPN and a password manager soon.

This is how a conversation in a typical family might run down. A spouse who is into privacy and is already a paying Proton customer, decided to upgrade their whole family to a Proton Family plan.

It's something I would like to do too, and we are just two of us for now. Maybe I could share the plan with sister and parents too? No, they really don't care about it.

Proton's Family plan is a great offer - it comes with all the right tools to protect privacy of your loved ones. But it comes at the extravagant cost that many will not be able to afford.

Where Proton went wrong?

Let's see the pricing of the Proton's Family plan:

  • 24 months = 479.76 € each two years
  • 12 months = 287.88 € every year
  • 1 month = 29.99 € monthly

Obviously, the best offer is 24 months plan and when calculated per user per month (for 6 users), it's actually a good price. So what's the problem?

This is a lot of money! It includes lots of products, but not having more affordable monthly plan is a big mistake in my opinion.

Idea is that encrypted and privacy friendly email becomes available to people who wouldn't use it otherwise. Or didn't even know they needed it in the first place

Proton is awesome, but also expensive!

Families might not need everything that is included in this expensive Family plan. Many would be happy with just encrypted email, their own domain and 1 GB storage. With an option to buy more if needed.

I don't need Premium everything for my family. Just something good enough.

What's next?

Honestly, I don't think Proton will make any changes to the Family plan. As they stated it on LinkedIn:

Proton Family is the best plan Proton has to offer

It's a shame, because they are missing opportunity to win many people over. Proton is indeed offering a good plan, but one that is not suitable for many families and is too expensive.

Sometimes, companies need to decide if the impact their products might have on other people's lives is more important than the profits.

Of course, like any company, Proton should earn money and be profitable. But as they also stand for freedom and privacy, maybe this needs some rethinking?

I've been a Proton customer for long time now and I'm big supporter and fan. But I can also be a critic and say - dear Proton, you've made a mistake with this plan!

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