Are you a Support Coordinator? Do you run a Support Coordination business? Are you a professional in the NDIS or allied health space? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the chances are the answer to this next question is also yes...
Are you sick of paying too much for a CRM?
As a software developer, I've seen (and most likely built) software that does a million things... albeit, generally poorly. An NDIS business can be complicated - we understand that. But something I've come to realise during the journey of building Astalty is that complicated problems don't always need complicated solutions. I have listened to numerous Support Coordinators explain what they do, and don't want. What is helpful, and what isn't. One comment popped up time and time again and it was something along the lines of - "I just want to be able to track how much time I spend on a particular task, for a particular Participant, and keep notes about it."
That is why I am proud to introduce, Astalty Lite.
"There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch CRM"
You may be thinking "no one just builds a free CRM without a catch..." - and you're right. We can't build a CRM and make it free for everyone, forever. In order to fund development and create possibilities in the NDIS industry, we need to bring in revenue - this is not something we are trying to hide.
The current version of Astalty Lite as it stands will be free, for everyone, forever - there is no catch there. But if you have registered for Astalty Lite (and if you haven't, you can start here), you may notice there are some really handy features missing. One of which is the generation of a bulk upload file. Whilst it's not really a catch, for the sake of explaining our plan, the catch is that most future features will fall under a subscription model. However, where possible, we will continue to add and improve the features available in Astalty Lite.
So... How Much Will It Cost?
Jono and I have asked ourselves and each other this question at least 938 times. The struggle with building a pricing model for a SaaS (Software as a Service) is that we don't know how many people will use it, how exactly they will use it, how it will grow in the next 1, 3 or 5 years or how the NDIS industry itself will change. We looked at several factors;
- Competitor pricing (which was actually quite hard to get for some software providers)
- The profit margin for Support Coordination businesses on an hourly basis
- The revenue required to drive the development of Astalty
- Costs of running Astalty
- The value of Astalty to a business
Now that last point is in bold for a reason. In order to provide the most value to businesses, we need revenue to invest back into Astalty. To get that revenue, we need to charge a fee (therefore possibly detracting from the value we are providing in the first place). For this reason, we have spent hours and days and weeks and months um-ing and ah-ing about the balance between bringing in enough revenue to improve Astalty whilst keeping the cost low enough that the value we provide outweighs the cost. Whilst there's no specific maths to this formula, the equation is quite simple;
The cost of an Astalty subscription will always be less than the value we provide to an Astalty user on a monthly basis.
This is one way we plan to keep it simple - and the way we put a figure in terms of dollars on the value Astalty provider per user, per month will be calculated in collaboration with our users and professionals in the industry and over time this may change. One thing we guarantee is that when it comes to our pricing, or roadmap or support policy or any other aspect of Astalty, we will be authentic in our approach.
If we can provide more value to NDIS providers (and in the future, Allied Health professionals), it is our hope that we can inspire change in the way supports are delivered to Participants and patients in order to create possibilities for them.
Okay, But How Much Will It Cost?
I know, that wasn't really an answer... but the current answer is - we don't know. Jono and I are working to finalise the subscription model in the coming weeks. We expect the subscriptions to start from $30 - $40 per user, per month and we will likely have an introductory offer for some period of time as well as free trials.
So It's Free, For Now, But What Will We Be Paying For?
Within the next 2 weeks, I will be writing another article outlining what will be coming up in the first paid version of Astalty - but for now, I've been too busy writing code.
Enough About 'Coming Weeks', What Can I Do Now?
Hopefully, there isn't too much to go through all in one article - but in the case that you are over it already, stay tuned each week for updates and tips on how to use Astalty.
At any time, you can view our User Guide which will be updated on an almost daily basis.
Dashboard
Upon logging in, you will see your Dashboard - it outlines your current weeks KPI progress, any outstanding tasks and today's tasks.
Tasks
We worked so hard to get the Tasks page working in a way that is convenient and easy to use. You can do so much from one page that there's too much to explain here - but check it out for yourself!
Users and My Participants
Admin Users (generally the first User who registered the Provider) can view, invite and manage other users. All Users can view, add and manage Participants in the My Participants page.
Settings
We know that not every business is the same, so we have added and will continue to add customisation settings. One of which is a hugely popular Charge Item Interval setting. Whether you bill in 15 minute intervals, 6 minute intervals or maybe for some, 1 minute intervals (ouch!) or any other time interval, we can cater for you.
What Next?
For me, it's back into writing code - I could bore you with the specifics or I could just tell you that I'm creating solutions to your problems, in code. I'm sure Jono and I will be on the phone again for hours every day striving to improve Astalty.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me - james@astalty.com.au or just call me on 02 4093 1565.
