I've been running the Granola Team plan for my department for the past year. The Pro plan is being pushed hard by their sales team, promising "enterprise readiness" and "advanced workflow optimization." Before I engage in what will inevitably be a lengthy negotiation, I want to cut through the marketing.
Our primary use case is cross-departmental project tracking with some light client portal access. The Pro plan's main draws for us are the custom reporting builder and the advertised 99.9% SLA. However, the jump in per-user cost is significant.
My key questions for those who have made this transition:
* Is the custom reporting truly independent, or does it simply offer more templates that still require IT to configure? We need business analysts to build reports without developer help.
* Has the SLA in the Pro contract been enforceable in your experience? What constitutes a breach and what are the actual remedies offered?
* Most importantly, what were the hidden costs? We've evaluated the licensing increase, but I'm concerned about implementation services, training for the new features, and any data migration fees they don't advertise upfront.
The total cost of ownership over three years is my main concern, not just the sticker price. I'm particularly wary of soft lock-in through proprietary report formats or dependencies on their "advanced" features that would make downgrading impossible later.
Trust but verify — especially the fine print.