I would like to add a guest to a workspace but not have them as a board member?
Asked by Heather:

We are getting ready to purchase trello for a select few on our team. Then we would like to add the remaining team members as guests. How do we do this? I only see where I can add them as members not as guests.

Thank you in advance for your help.


Answers:
author: Alex W
body: Hey Heather, to add to what Michael said, I just want to go over the difference between single-board guests, and multi-board guests, as you are purchasing Trello (I assume as a Business Class subscription as you have a Business Class free trial on your account).

With Business Class, if you add a user to only one board in the Business Class workspace, they are a single-board guest and are not a billable user in Business Class.

If a user is added to two or more boards in the Business Class workspace, they are a multi-board guest, which is considered a billable user, and will incur a charge. Our article, [How billing works with Trello Business Class](https://help.trello.com/article/855-how-billing-works-with-trello-business-class), explains this thoroughly.

I hope this answers your question.

Cheers,  
Alex

comments: author: Sheenagh Lawlor
body: Hi Alex,

I am wondering why this single-board guest situation exists with the Business Class paid version when the free version allows you to add guests to multiple boards? We have recently purchased the Business Class version for a small team to make use of multiple-power ups on boards and to be able to create template boards but have discovered that the templates don't copy over the power ups or the power up settings which isn't particularly helpful, and more importantly, when we have the need to get people external to the team to review the boards (not contributors) they are now restricted to only being able to have sight of one board at a time. This seems to be a backward step and so we are considering down grading and going back to using the more simplified functionality in order to continue to enable collaborative reviews.

Regards

Sheenagh


author: Michael Pryor
body: Think about it like this - in the free version Trello costs $0/user. In the paid version Trello costs $10/user. We don't have a user limit so any user you collaborate with in the free version whether they are a workspace member or a guest of a board costs $0/user. So yes In the free version for any member the cost is $0/user.   

If you want the paid features then you have to pay for the users that use those features. We let you not pay if you only collaborate on one board.   

You could have two workspaces - one free and You could also make a separate free Workspace where you collaborate with anyone and the cost is still $0/user there but there also are no paid features.   


author: Sheenagh Lawlor
body: As a guest to a board that is only viewing the content though you're not necessarily the beneficiary of the added features - it's like you've taken away a key element of the benefit of using the tool once you've got paid members. The only way to regain this crucial benefit which was previously free is by paying more.


author: Michael Pryor
body: I understand what you are saying, but no free users can see paid boards unless you pay for those users. Whether they are guests or members, editors or observers. Our paid plans, and paid boards, charge per user. So if you have a board that you want to use paid features on then you have to pay for the users on that board...

1. Or you can make that board public

2. Or you can move that board to a free workspace

3. Or you can only add those users to that one board and then you don't pay for them

4. Or you could use a powerup like External Share from <https://powerups.club>

5. Or you could use Butler reports to email that user a summary of what changed on the board (just rolling out some new stuff here in a few weeks)

You have a lot of options but if you want to add users to boards with paid features then you have to pay for the users on that board. There are non-paid ways to share info with people you don't want to pay for but right now none of those ways allow you to add the person to the board (except single board guest mode).


author: Michael Pryor
body: A Guest is just a board member that isn't a member of your team/workspace. So you can just add them directly to whatever board you want and they will show up as a Guest.