Tier 6 Disappoints - Limits, Slow Development & Lack of Commitment
Edit : 11 April 2025
Hey Daniel @ Encharge,
Thank you for your detailed response. While I appreciate the transparency, I’d like to address a few points and offer some constructive feedback to help rebuild trust and confidence among potential and existing customers.
1. Public Deadlines vs. Rapid Execution
You mentioned Basecamp/37Signals as an example of avoiding public deadlines, but this comparison feels misplaced. Basecamp is a long-established company with a mature product and market position. A more relevant parallel is Evernote under Bending Spoon.
After its acquisition, Evernote’s new owners didn’t shy away from accountability—they shipped features weekly, improved reliability, and won back lost users. This wasn’t a "rat race" but a demonstration of hustle and strategic execution. Customers don’t need rigid deadlines, but they do need visible progress—proof that the team is committed and capable of delivering.
Question: How will Encharge demonstrate this level of commitment?
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2. Team Transparency
You emphasized being a small, growing team, but specifics matter.
Question:
- How many developers, customer support, and other team members are dedicated to Encharge now?
- What’s the ratio of engineering to customer-facing roles?
Transparency here would reassure customers that the team is adequately resourced to address their needs.
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3. Roadmap Clarity
While you’ve shared some insights, customers need clear priorities.
Questions:
- What are the top 5 upcoming features you plan to release?
- What are your top priorities for the first three months?
Evernote’s success post-acquisition was built on actionable transparency—showing users exactly what was coming next. Encharge could adopt a similar approach to rebuild confidence.
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4. Missing Features Hurt Growth:
Without key features, customers won’t experience Encharge’s full potential, reducing word-of-mouth referrals. Passive usage replaces advocacy.
Better Pricing Logic: Limit email sending but offer unlimited contacts—this is more scalable and user-friendly than unlimited sending for just 50,000 contacts.
Your willingness to engage is commendable, but actions speak louder than words. Customers want to see:
1. A clear, actionable roadmap (even without rigid deadlines).
2. Team transparency to gauge capacity and commitment.
3. Rapid, visible progress—like Evernote’s weekly updates.
I hope you’ll consider these points. The market is competitive, and demonstrating hustle and strategic vision will be key to winning back trust.
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Original post :
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I purchased the Tier 6 plan expecting a robust automation tool, but I’m now considering a refund due to significant limitations and missing features.
Major Drawbacks:
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- Restrictive Contact Limit: The 50k contact cap is far behind competitors like Acumbamail (unlimited contacts + 100 websites/landing pages in Tier 1) and SwipeOne (unlimited contacts in Tier 5).
- Gated Features: Critical functionalities like event-based segmentation and Shopify integration are locked behind the top-tier LTD plan, which feels unfair for a "powerful" automation tool.
So there is no strength and differentiations from other contenders.
- Broken Basics: Form tracking simply didn’t work for me with a simple HTML form.
- Missing Double Opt-in: A highly requested feature since 2021 (139+ votes on feedback board), yet still unimplemented.
- This slow development pace is concerning.
Reliability & Security Concerns:
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- Reports of email deliverability issues raise doubts about its "enterprise-grade" claims.
- No two-factor authentication (2FA) or any other approach to enhance the security of our account.
- No transparency around security measures - No security certification mentioned anywhere.
- Support via Live Chat is unresponsive (read, but not reply) , leaving issues unresolved.
Lack of Vision & Commitment:
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- The feedback board highlights the absence of a clear roadmap or ETAs for requested features. With new ownership, we need strong commitment more than vague promises
- Lack of a public development plan with timelines.
- Short-term and long-term goals aligned with user needs.
- Proof of progress, not just past successes from 2021.
- Lack of information about team composition, such as the number of full-time developers.
I wish to see the new owners will demonstrate strong commitment by providing clear vision, direction, specific feature release timelines , quickly adapt to user feedback and swiftly remove restrictions.
- Overly cautious limitations suggest a lack of confidence and ambition, potentially hindering business success.
Final Thoughts:
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Without addressing these core issues—functional gaps, security concerns, and transparency—it’s hard to justify this investment. I’ll likely be refunding.
Daniel_Encharge
Apr 10, 2025Hey Worapin 👋 First off — thank you for such a thorough and thoughtful review. As a new owner of Encharge (with the risk of overstating, I'm repeating it everytime so that people know where we come from) I bought a Tier 5 license myself back in 2021, before acquiring the company in 2025! I deeply appreciate people who take the time to speak candidly and constructively.
You're raising real points — and while some of these were decisions made by the previous team, we are the team responsible now. So let’s address these head-on:
• Roadmap — I wouldn't trust someone who wouldn't tell the the good AND the bad. So let me start with something people won't like: we likely will never have a public deadline, sword hanging over our head about delivering something. I simply don't believe founders build great products under that kind of self-imposed pressure. See Basecamp and 37signals. Far too many AppSumo founders do that → lose drive because the next 12/18/etc months have been announced and now they have to perform on a hamster race schedule → they burn out → everyone wonders why product fizzles out → EVERYONE loses. Founders AND buyers. Luckily for anyone reading this, we have been through that mistake so we're not doing it again. Our heads-down-building attitude will be shown in time - and the results will speak for themselves. Setting fire hoops through which we have to jump on our own accord → lose-lose. We don't wanna get our customers whose trust we value in such a scenario.
• 50k Contact Cap — Totally fair to compare! But it’s important to note that while some tools offer unlimited contacts, they often throttle in other ways: lower email limits, weak automation, or usage-based surprises. We chose a capped model so we can actually afford to deliver enterprise-grade automation, not just say we do. And to ** not have it all come crashing down for everyone **. That said, anyone who outgrows their cap gets a 50% discount on subscription upgrades, as a way of making the extension easy and not just telling people "Great, now pay subscription".
• Event-based segmentation — You're absolutely right, this is a powerful feature. It’s part of our Premium plan, not included in the Growth LTD — but we hear the desire for more robust segmentation, and we’re exploring how to bring more value into Growth without compromising sustainability. That’s the balance we’re working hard to get right. Event-based segmentation has some costs and we had to make decisions as to what to offer/not offer. Between this and offering a new 50k tier, we chose the latter, given the market pull was STRONGER there, for bigger tiers with more subscribers. We understand we cannot make everyone happy, but we did choose to offer what made sense - 50k subs on max tier, instead of 25k max, like it was before.
• Shopify Integration — We don't actually have that so it's not gated. This one’s been requested a lot. We’re actively evaluating it
• Form tracking issue — Thanks for flagging this. HTML form support requires a mapped email field to work properly due to how cookies and visitor identification work (see this article). But if something isn’t working for you, our support team will absolutely dig in. Just shoot us a note at support@encharge.io.
• Double Opt-in — Totally agree this should’ve been built sooner. It's now planned — no exact ETA yet, but it’s been elevated based on continued requests like yours 🙏 Ever since we took over, in a couple of months, we fixed a lot of bugs, delivered Snippets (a major feature) and the beginning of a WooCommerce integration. There simply wasn't enough time for us to focus on this and I think you can agree that the aforementioned are of higher impact, when for double-optins that's achievable through workflows
• Deliverability & Security — We send millions of emails/month through SendGrid/Amazon SES with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC support. Let me know what reports you're referring to so I can shed more light to the subject? RE: certifications - give us time and time will tell a better story :) Again, it's been two months. People who choose to buy a LTD will get rewarded as we may not be running LTDs when we are SOC2, HIPAA, etc certified.
Last thing I’ll say: we totally understand if you need to walk away. But I hope this reply shows that we’re not here to defend the past — we’re here to build a better future.
And if anyone reading this is on the fence — I get it. But if what you want is enterprise-level automation at a fraction of the price, and you’re OK with a team that’s still growing (can't claim we're big ol' Goliath!) but determined to listen and ship relentlessly… then give us a shot.
We’d love to earn your trust back 🙌🙌
— Daniel @ Encharge
(co-owner, Sumo-ling, builder, and listener)