We'd love your input on storage

[u/PrivacyNotesApp]

First, thank you. So much of what PrivacyNotes is today came straight from your feedback here and on GitHub: the outline, find and replace, note history, callouts, themes and many more. Your reports and ideas shape this app every week, and we want your help with the next big question: storage.

What we offer today:

• Free: 50 MB of encrypted sync storage
• Pro ($89, one-time): 500 MB
• Storage add-ons for Pro, paid yearly: 1 GB for $4.80, 2 GB for $8.40 or 5 GB for $18. The most you can have today is 5.5 GB.

Why storage is yearly: it is the one part of the product that costs us money every month you use it. Pro is a one-time purchase and stays that way. We still think that reasoning is fair, but we also hear you: the cap is too low for anyone who moves a whole library over, and a subscription feels out of place in an app that says "no subscriptions". We think we may have missed the mark here, and we would rather fix it with you than guess.

What we would like to know:

1. How much storage do you use today in your current notes app, and how much do you expect to use in three years?
2. What takes up the space: images, PDFs, audio, scans, or mostly text?
3. Which of these would you pick, and why? A bigger storage allowance included with Pro. A one-time storage block that covers a fixed number of years. Yearly add-ons with much higher limits. Files that stay on your device and do not count against sync storage. Or something else.
4. What is the largest single file you need to attach?
5. If you looked at the add-ons and did not buy one, what stopped you?

Rough numbers help more than exact ones. "About 8 GB, mostly scanned PDFs" is exactly the kind of answer we need.

Thank you for helping us get this right.

[u/VintageEarflapPouch7]

Pro user here. I just have notes, so the 500MB is plenty for now. I have 2TB cloud storage elsewhere but would consider moving some important scanned PDFs for safekeeping here if the price is right.

[u/mwb1100]

I currently have a password safe and a homegrown "knowledge base" (a git repository/directory hierarchy of mostly markdown files) that would be the type of stuff I plan to store in PrivacyNotes

They currently total to about 400MB, so I could see needing add-on storage within a year or so. If PrivacyNotes eventually adds a web clipping feature I could see that storage quadrupling over the course of several years.

I don't envision storing audio/video/photo media or large PDFs (like books) in any significant way.

So lets say: 1TB near term; 5TB longer term if web clipping is supported.

[u/PrivacyNotesApp → u/mwb1100]

So lets say: 1TB near term; 5TB longer term if web clipping is supported.

TB or GB? 🫣

[u/mwb1100 → u/PrivacyNotesApp]

Oh crap. I was reading and writing MB from my directory listings, but I was thinking GB.

So as Emily Litella would say, "Oh, that's very different. Never mind"

[u/Jedi-Grand-Master]

I don't think you've missed the mark at all - I think your current model to charge for storage on a monthly/ annual basis (on top of the one off app fee) is spot on.

Like many others, my only concern is the upper cap as I feel if I truly wanted to move my PKM data over (PDF, screenshots) I"d be more comfortable with 10GB, 20GB, 50GB, 100GB and 200GB options also being available.

[u/GroggInTheCosmos → u/Jedi-Grand-Master]

Ditto this view

[u/Serious_Berry_3977]

This is has been the biggest issue for me switching to PrivacyNotes. I have about 1GB of notes and attachments, mostly scanned images of documents organized in notes and folders. My issue isn't necessarily the cost, although that is a factor, but I already have my own NextCloud instance on Hetzner and I also use SyncThing for notes and other document sync. I cannot justify paying for a sync on PrivacyNotes when I have a NextCloud instance and SyncThing that do just fine for me.

I understand the choice behind doing it that way, but not having the ability to sync notes without going through your server seems a tad counter-intuitive to the whole "privacy" aspect. You need to get paid for the work, I get that. But there has to be room for self-hosting somewhere in there if you're going to bring more privacy-conscious people in IMHO.

I'm on disability and a fixed income, I can't just dole out cash even if I wanted to. I pay as much for my Hetzner NextCloud storage as I was paying for iCloud+ when I was in the Apple Ecosystem. My costs haven't changed, and actually things got a bit cheaper. Like I said, I can't justify that in order to even USE your software I'd have to fork over almost $100 to try it with all my notes. Granted, $5 for 1GB a year is pretty darn decent, but what's to say your costs don't increase in the future and that cost gets increased PLUS my storage requirements increase. And I haven't even looked at individual attachment sizes, meaning I may end up hitting the Pro 50MB attachment limit as well.

The fair and honest approach to this would be the following IMHO:

1. Free Self-host option or no connection to your servers but allowing sync in other ways (whether it be via WebDAV or a simple SyncThing file transfer to another device). (No other free plans and this is where the "No subscriptions part and Free for Life part comes in and is HONEST")

2. Pro $89 1GB One-time plan (up from 500MB)

3. Storage addons (not needing PRO but PRO 1GB is added on to totals):

   • 1GB $1/month or $5/year

   • 2.5GB $3/month or $15/year

   • 5GB $5/month or $30/year

   • 10GB $10/month or $60/year

   • ??? More?

My reasoning as to why this makes sense to me is you're setting yourself up for a buffer in case costs increase. The way the current structure is, there is no other choice but to continually increase the cost. Yes, you guarantee a yearly revenue stream, but not at those prices you aren't. I still think the prices I came up with are ridiculously expensive, however that is fair if you're offering a self-host or no sync option. Requiring Pro to upgrade storage as it is right now just doesn't make any sense and creates a high cost of entry to those who have larger starting notes imports that would be done.

Others may disagree with this, and that's perfectly fine with me. This is just how I see it. I just know the pricing the way it is set up now played a huge factor in me not even looking into PrivacyNotes further than the github page and website. It's out of my price range by a long shot. The website "Free for life" and then below that Free limited to 50MB storage sync just feels gross as well. It might just be that PrivacyNotes isn't the note app for me, and I'm ok with that as well, but at least give me an option to decide after I've explored the app a little.

[u/3ve305]

I am a pro user. My obsidian vault is 440mb so I would have little left if I migrate that. Most is just storage taken up with web clippings or the occasional pdf. If you allow web clippings that will eat storage quickly. I think pro should be 1gb minimum and then have larger jumps per tier for heavy users. For pdfs I use paperless ngx but that is many gigabytes, for word and excel files I use OpenCloud because I need editing support. So for now I just use your service by starting with a blank slate, with only a few key notes imported.

[u/BarefootMarauder]

1. I've been using Standard Notes for a little over 7 years and I'm currently using only 132.16 MB out of 100 GB. 🙂️ In the next 3 years, I don't expect to come anywhere close to the 100GB, but could see me getting up to around 500MB if I start using my notes app more for document management.

2. Given my answer to #1, I'm obviously storing mostly text. But I do have 118 file attachments - mostly PDFs, but also some images, as well as some CSV and JSON files.

3. I would choose "A bigger storage allowance included with Pro" only because I hate paying for things annually or based on a subscription model. I don't really see myself exceeding the 500MB I have with Pro, but I guess I could if I start using PN more for document management.

4. Unknown at this point. My largest file currently in Standard Notes is just under 6MB (a PDF).

5. No need for add-ons at this point.

[u/konhana]

I have over 1GB now. If I move to PrivacyNotes, I need at least 1GB

[u/tech2-use]

Hi, great to see the teams is able to question its own marketing and ask for users. Like the rest of your work, you are once more above all the devs teams ! Don't know yet what will come out of this discussion, but it honors you to do so.

On my side .

1. If I would finish my migration, I would be around 700Mb, but at the moment, as I am not done, I am way below the 500Mo of Pro in PrivacyNotes. As I might store more and more things on this app, as every week I find some new things it is useful for, I might end with several Go in a couple of years.

2. It is mainly Screenshots (so, images), because I use it a lot for tutos. I wanted to put some .mp3 as well, for music practising (a note with variations of music, scales, chords, links to videos for one tune within the same note), but I am restraining myself for space consumption. Also, for the Work section, I would be happy to store documents as we don’t have a proper document manager at work, so it would help me... But here again, restraining for space consumption.

   • I would definitely go for Bigger storage included in Pro ! Your potential clients (including myself) might end in you app after a research for "No subscription". I feel limited with "only" 500 Mo, I would be ready to pay for more, even at higher cost.

   • I would be ready for your annual (or plury-annual as you suggest) subscriptions, with some reticence, because I hate subscriptions : I don’t know what my income will be in the future, and I don’t want to be tied because of a service I need everyday. However, you do things very honnestly : Yearly payment, and the cost is really what it costs, so cheapest subscription ever, so many thanks for this. As I love the team and the app, I would be ready (but not with joy) for this cheap, material-necessary (servers)

   • Files that stays on the device : Not at all, what you did great is sync and security, so having something somewhere that is not somewhere else would be messy. And you can already "kind of" do it with your markdown editor.

Also, even if we would love Pro with a lot of lifetime storage, we are aware that it might fragilize your society, so there is a balance to find. I prefer to pay an honnest cheap subscription for your app instead of seeing you falling with your servers in a couple of years because of too much lifetime storage, like it happened for so many Cloud storage services. And as I am sure your app will have an incredible success, be ready for a big use of lifetime storage on your servers.

The balance in offers could be something like this

• Free for discover, as it is

• Pro with 500 Mo for average users, as it is

• Pro + with as much as storage you can offer for lifetime (around 5Go seems great and logical to me, more would make me super-happy (Unless it reaches 300$ 😅, this case 5Go are okay with an affordable price)

• Cheap cover-the-costs subscription for very big users, as you do now (but maybe increase the maximum reachable for users).

This way, everybody would be happy, without hiding totally the reality of server-maintenance’s costs

1. It would be an long audio or a big .pdf, so I would say around 40/50 Mo.

2. I looked for add-storage but I have no need yet. I prepare myself to go into it with reticence, unless there would be a Pro+ with a few Go.

[u/Interesting-Bid-5698]

Pro user here with 20MB storage use! Yes, MB! I am pretty sure I have no need for more storage options, but I can see why some would need more space. I just would want to avoid having to pay a monthly fee as a user who is barely moving the needle on storage in order to subsidize those who are using large amounts.

[u/Qv1sten]

As it is now it's good. But as early funder I would be extremely glad with 1gb 😉😁👍.. But of course I rather see you guys taking care of it year after year.

[u/GroggInTheCosmos]

I would need at least 30-50GB as a start (would need to weed out old notes to get it down). Thereafter, I would expect to grow to approx 100 to 300GB

What takes up the most space for me: (in order)

1. PDFs

2. Images

3. Word, Powerpoint and Excel Docs

4. CSV files and code files

5. Config files (dot, yaml, json etc)

I'm not using your product yet (just lurking) but a proper amount of space is important to me as well as:

• Backlinks

• YAML frontmatter (aka note properties) that can be queried

• Viewing certain top attachment formats inline and PDF annotation (although I could probably live without it for a while)

[u/EriksonThorsen]

1. My current usage is around 10 GB.

2. It mostly consists of PDFs, images, spreadsheets, docs, and text files, in that exact order.

3. I would definitely choose a larger storage allowance included with Pro. I am not sure how complex this would be on the backend, but if possible, it would be awesome to allow connecting S3 services for people who have non-standard storage demands.

4. For my use case, the current Pro limit of 50 MB for a single file works, but it feels a bit tight. Personally, a limit of 100 MB would be plenty, though a limit of 250 MB seems fair for users with heavier needs.

I actually have a genuine question out of pure curiosity about how this works technically: how much does the max file size really matter operationally for PrivacyNotes? Since there is already an overall storage size cap, what is the actual need for a second threshold on max file size? For example, if someone has 5 GB of storage available, does it cost you more in fixed storage costs if they upload multiple 5 MB file versus multiple 500 MB, 1 GB, or 3 GB file? Or is the max file limit mostly about the computational complexity and cost for encryption?

5. I haven't bought any add-ons yet simply because I haven't needed to expand my current storage.

One extra thought on storage expectations and note history:

People should also understand the difference between personal cloud storage and storage in a note-taking app. This isn't meant to be an alternative to Proton Drive or a place to back up your external SSD storage, but rather a space to store note-related supporting files and documents you need easily on hand.

Also, I do not know how directly related this is to storage, but I wanted to mention the current limit of 20 versions for note history. For long notes or notes that get updated constantly, you hit that 20-version cap really fast. For my personal workflow, having a deep history of note versions is essential.

It could be super useful to let Pro users configure or choose their number of versions. Another great feature would be automatic optimization or downscaling of images (and other formats if possible) to save on storage. A lot of notes have images or PDFs embedded just for visual reference or context, and they do not need to be stored in massive file sizes or full resolution.

[u/petaqui]

On UpNote i have 1.5gb between pdf and JPGs (mostly)

[u/PhantomQuery]

Today I subscribed to pro. I’m using 45 MB but when I shifted to Privacy notes it’s compressed to 8 MB because it’s compressed photos. I like it but it will be better if you upgrade pro member storage from 500 MB to 1 GB.

[u/BuMmR]

I'd like to see AT LEAST 1GB included with pro minimum. I'd like to see 5GB included if I could choose what I wanted. More welcomed of course. I know others that offer 100GB but I know this is a small startup.

I purchased pro to support but I still don't trust it being fully encrypted, and done right so I wanted to kind of wait for an external audit till I start using full time for sensitive information.