Use Trello Business Class for my family
Asked by Mike Stein:

Hi,

I did some searching, but can't find anything that answers my question.

--I currently have a couple of Boards under Trello Free.

--I'd like to upgrade to Business Class for one user (me) at $120/yr.

--No member of any of my Boards will be a member of more than one Board.

--I want to start a new Board for my family.

--I did see in the documentation that my family members (and other single Board members) will not have some BC features, but that's fine -- as long as I do.

So, do I properly understand how I can use Trello BC and only get charged for one user? I'm not married to any particular way to accomplish my goal (get BC features for me), so feel free to ignore my plan if it's dumb. :-)

I remain a bit confused about teams, users, members, etc. I find pieces of the answers I'm looking for in the docs and this forum, but nothing that wraps it all up for me.

Thank you!


Answers:
author: Brittany Joiner
body: From what I can tell it does sound like you are correct - if you are BC user for your "team", which is what you group boards under, you can have family members as guests on boards, BUT if they are ever on more than one board, you will be charged for them. As long as theyre only on one of your boards, you won't be charged, and I've noticed Trello in-app alerts are really helpful at making you aware of what's happening... you won't accidentally add someone and not realize it's, there's a pop up that says "hey this person is on another board, so if you add them to this board too you'll have to pay...". So i would say i think you're good, and you shouldn't get any sneaky surprises.

comments: author: Mike Stein
body: Thanks, Brittany!


author: Melissa Snow
body: I am wondering in this scenario that Mike asked about, if those guest users can have their own personal boards on their free plan and there is no additional charge to the business user who is sharing one board with them.


author: Brittany Joiner
body: [@Melissa Snow](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4251540) correct! At least that's my understanding of it. They can have other boards on their free plan. They just can only be part of ONE of the boards that that paid user has.


author: Melissa Snow
body: thanks. working towards all going to business class and need a few user cases for that to happen. Appreciate your quick response.


author: Mike Stein
body: Hi, Melissa \& Brittany,

Yes -- it works exactly the way you think. I am living that scenario!

These use cases should be explicitly documented. The only reason not to do so is if they are considered unofficial and could stop working at any time.

In case it's helpful to anyone else, this is what I have going on:

--The reason I have a biz plan is actually for my family Board that runs my life (wife, bunch of adult kids, grandkids). I'm the admin.

--I then run Boards as admin for two of my volunteer IT projects (one of them is hugely complex and involves a non-profit w/ millions of dollars in revenue inflows).

--I'm on a fourth Board as a non-admin member of someone else's Board to handle condo association Board (I guess it s/be board in a Trello context) matters on his biz plan.

--I have a couple of other free Boards that I Admin that are not tied to my biz class plan. They work fine, and they have members that are tied to a Board on my biz plan. **This is the use case that answers Melissa's question, I believe.**

Generally I have found: I mentally "write down" a team and topic structure for a Board, decide if it's on a biz or free plan, and then everything works logically and I still only have to pay for a single biz plan seat.

The only thing I find a little annoying is that searching a Board will surface items from all of the Boards I am on. Every once in a while, I'll choose something that returns 15 cards and my brain spins a bit when a condo association card pops up when I'm looking for a car inspection reminder on my family Board. A very minor quibble.


author: Walter Homan
body: So if I add guests to more than one board in my Business Class Workspace I get charged? But if those guests are in more than one board not in my Business Class Workspace I don't get charged?

Example: my family and I share several boards in a FREE Workspace and they will stay free? But if I move them to two of my boards in my **Business Class Workspace I will get charged?**


author: Mike Stein
body: Right. Since I want the Biz Class features, I circumvented the additional user charges by using lists in my fam Board as sub-Boards. In other words, I'd prefer to have Board A, Board B, and Board C w/ some common members (AKA my fam). But instead, I only have one Board composed of List A, List B, List C ...

It's functionally equivalent (for my needs, anyway). Now that I'm used to it, I wouldn't bother switching even if changed Trello pricing no longer forced me to use the sub-Board trick.


Tags: business-class