What happened to the free symbol request option? I am only seeing the option to pay for it for $29, or pay $49 to receive it within 5 days.
It used to be "ask for free, receive at an unspecified time in the future, or pay $29 to have it in 24 hours."
This is a significant change to your offering, yet your Q&A and FAQ still state that there is a free option with the paid option being faster (24h) and cheaper ($29).
If the intent is to replace this with the InstaBuild Wizard, then fine, but you don't offer this option on all parts. I would make the point that, if InstaBuild Wizard isn't available, the old pricing should remain in effect along with the "eventually" free tier offering.
Added 5 years, 9 months ago.
I would want both symbol and footprint at the same time. I am creating a part in a library that has both so whilst I could just add the symbol and a dummy footprint I would need to go back and correct it before PCB layout which takes longer.
Answered 5 years, 7 months ago.
Hi there,
Thanks so much for this feedback.
We are currently working on revamping the free request feature, but we haven't yet finalized exactly how it will work.
We get thousands of free part requests each week, so our engineers can't provide a fast enough turnaround to make it as useful as we would like and so we've been exploring a bunch of different ideas.
I'd like to know within what timeframe would it be useful for you to have these free requests? Is it still useful within 2 weeks, 1 month, etc.? We want to be as helpful as possible on the free requests and provide as many as possible, but at the current rate of SnapEDA usage, it is a bit outside the realm of what our team can manage to keep up with, especially with the high volume of InstaPart requests too.
Looking forward to your feedback so we can help build a better free request system together.
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.
I'm also curious whether just getting the footprint quickly would be a good first step, with the symbol arriving a bit later? Or would it only be helpful to get both at once?
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.
Hi Admin,
Thanks for responding quickly to my question!
I think it'd be fine to completely disable the free option when the InstaBuild Wizard is fully ready and available on all parts. Crowdsourcing the info, having the uploads being licensed for redistribution, etc. all seems reasonable to me (though I'd argue that user-created content deserves a license like a CC-BY-SA or similar, not "everything you do here is free labour for our new business model!")
Where the wizard isn't available or can't be made available, something like "The queue is currently X deep. At our current rate, your symbol will be ready in X business days" would be ideal. This is a business process standard - you get that when you're on hold with the doctor or a retailer, when you bring your car in for service, heck even when you call the IRS. Let people know approximately how long it will take, and re-prompt them to pay for it. For your own internal planning, you need this estimate anyway, right? Why not share it?
Also since it seems you are offering 2 paid tiers now, you really should have an estimate as to how long the new middle tier will take as well. "Free estimate: 2 months (35,000 parts ahead of you in the queue). $29 tier estimate: 2 weeks (729 parts ahead of you in the queue). $49 *guarantee*: 5 business days or less."
Hope this helps.
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.
Typically one performs schematic capture first, and uses that to drive board layout. Why would you ever want the footprint before the symbol?
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.
You asked what timeframe might be acceptable - it entirely depends on the person. I might be willing to wait 2 months for a project I have backburnered. Or I might not be able to tolerate waiting more than a week.
Or I might draw my own, then come back and replace the symbol with yours once it's ready.
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.
Thanks for this feedback. We only have 1 paid option for symbols & footprints and it delivers them in 24 hours only. Other options we have are for 3D models. I think it's a great idea to better communicate the exact time estimate. We'll work on making this visible to the community and we'll let you know when it's live.
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.
Got it! The checkbox for 3D isn't clear, I thought it was "pay more to guarantee a faster turnaround." I don't know where I got that the $29 option was a 2-week turnaround.
Answered 5 years, 9 months ago.