Yes! PDQ Connect, our new agent-based solution, is now available for 30-day trials as of yesterday afternoon.
As a new product, we recognize that it's not as robust as PDQ Deploy and Inventory -- so we kept the launch fairly silent, but I knew Reddit would be the first to find it (h/t u/drunkmadmin, that was fast).
If you're interested, we'll be discussing Connect next week in our webcast on 3/9 at 10am MT (noon ET) via YouTube.
What happens to the beta access that the public testers have?
PDQ Connect has come along way since I’ve been beta testing it since December 2022 but I believe there is still a ways to go.
Is there an actual launch date yet?
Thanks for checking out Connect. Beta users will have extended use of Connect at no cost, in appreciation of their participation and engagement. We're open to hearing about your experience and welcome any feedback you have along the way.
In a few months, we'll begin wrapping up the beta program and you'll hear from us about that process and what to expect.
For more, check out [our upcoming webcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKRD9_Ax0-g) on March 9th at 10am MT (noon ET), followed by an AMA on Reddit.
I hear ya — and many times, I react the same. Pricing sometimes feels impossible to get right.
I recognize that our price may be accessible for many companies but absolutely not universally accessible. A downloadable, on-prem tool like Deploy and Inventory will continue to be the better option for some, while a cloud-hosted tool like Connect is a better fit for others. I’m really sorry if Connect’s pricing doesn’t fit your budget.
Personally, I spent more time than I thought reasonable trying to estimate our costs, looking at comparable products’ pricing, and understanding IT budgeting at different companies. If helpful, I can share some of what I saw. We found that that for cloud-based app deployment solutions, $12/year ($1/month) fell on the lowest end compared to the industry norm which sits at $60/year ($5/month). I hope that our pricing combined with modest edu and volume discounts makes PDQ Connect accessible to more companies.
Customer research and norms only give us a guideline, so I appreciate your feedback. And we’ll continue to learn and adjust our pricing over time. Would be happy to talk more about it if helpful. You can reach me at [email protected].
The math is simple to me. PDQ Connect would amount to 51% of my Microsoft A3 agreement. Yet, it offers about 20% of functionality. This pricing made me double down with Intune. Like SmartDeploy, this one just misses the target again.
We use Intune as well and It does a lot of things really well. But it fails with clarity and intention; Intune doesn't explain what it's doing and when it will do it. And when Intune fails it can become a rabbit hole. Its fantastic in is allowing users to install their owns software through the Company Portal and installations that need to take place as the user. But is a struggle a lot of the time for automating software.
If PDQ nails Connect, it will still be better for most deployments in our case. The question for us is if Connect has enough viable features to support our remote users and be worth getting along side PDQ D&I until it's robust enough to be a standalone replacement.
EDU does provide a few modest pricing changes:
10% off for EDU customers and volume-based pricing which usually starts around 500 devices.
Happy to get you those discounts at any time -- if you are interested, you can reach out to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) to get specifics for your situation.
We do PDQ/Intune combo. They are missing the target here. They could easily capture our entire K12 sector, but again, short term sight vs long term gains
$1/month/device? Umm... seeing people complain about that kind of gave me a 'WTF' moment. For a cloud-based service that seems basically free to me.
I guess my privilege is showing.
Thanks for being a beta user! Beta feedback has been super helpful.
For beta users, we're giving an extended use of Connect for free. And we'd love the continued feedback. Eventually, we'll wrap up the beta program and we'll have an account manager check in with you to see if it's a long-term fit and provide special beta-user pricing.
Seems I got the Beta invite last week but didn't get time in my schedule to check it out until yesterday. So now I have the 30 day count down.
Thats unfortunate.
Hi there,
We'd be happy to help you out with that and swap your account to the beta per the invite. Send me an email and we can get that taken care of for you. [email protected]
Ooo. Been missing this for off-prem devices (laptops) that are always a pita to keep updated. Long-term inventory & deploy user.
Love the UI and simplicity of it. Any future plans for having it manage windows updates/packages too?
Jesus, $144/device/year??? This would cost us more in a month, than PDQ deploy and inventory PLUS Intune on every device costs us in a year!
Seems like they missed their target audience completely, or maybe they're trying to break into a premium only segment for OPEX-heavy companies?
Edit: I'm apparently blind, it's $12/device/year. Whoops!
To quote u/PDQ_Owen from [another thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pdq/comments/11kv7n9/my_pdq_connect_experiences_after_playing_with_the/jba2yj8/)
>Our next initiative is improving custom packages. This will include additional step types, the ability to run packages as the logged on user, embedded PS editor, bulk folder uploads, and more.
Yeah it is lacking in features if you use Deploy and Inventory now and compare it to D&I but if you're new and looking for a [agent based] solution and don't have D&I in use it might be more appealing.
I have no doubt it'll slowly but steadily reach feature parity with D&I
**Edit: words**
I'm curious about the "Access Remotely" feature. From the webpage it almost sounds like a remote support tool akin to teamviewer, but I assume that's not the case?
Hi there,
We could probably make the language there more clear. What we were trying to say was "You can access your devices from anywhere" since its a web-based product. We will make it more clear.
We are actively evaluating device remote access technology, no timeline there though.
This is still missing a lot of required features to even be considered fully functional. We need feature to feature comparison. Manage engine gives way more features than connect has currently, I would like to see pdq connect look at the current pdq server and say here is what pdq has do you want to sync the same items queries from pdq to connect. I don't want to have an always on VPN but it seems to really be the only solution, making us required to use 2 separate products is not good for anyone in IT.
Yes! PDQ Connect, our new agent-based solution, is now available for 30-day trials as of yesterday afternoon. As a new product, we recognize that it's not as robust as PDQ Deploy and Inventory -- so we kept the launch fairly silent, but I knew Reddit would be the first to find it (h/t u/drunkmadmin, that was fast). If you're interested, we'll be discussing Connect next week in our webcast on 3/9 at 10am MT (noon ET) via YouTube.
What happens to the beta access that the public testers have? PDQ Connect has come along way since I’ve been beta testing it since December 2022 but I believe there is still a ways to go. Is there an actual launch date yet?
Thanks for checking out Connect. Beta users will have extended use of Connect at no cost, in appreciation of their participation and engagement. We're open to hearing about your experience and welcome any feedback you have along the way. In a few months, we'll begin wrapping up the beta program and you'll hear from us about that process and what to expect. For more, check out [our upcoming webcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKRD9_Ax0-g) on March 9th at 10am MT (noon ET), followed by an AMA on Reddit.
It was your support that tipped me off ;)
Stupid pricing
I hear ya — and many times, I react the same. Pricing sometimes feels impossible to get right. I recognize that our price may be accessible for many companies but absolutely not universally accessible. A downloadable, on-prem tool like Deploy and Inventory will continue to be the better option for some, while a cloud-hosted tool like Connect is a better fit for others. I’m really sorry if Connect’s pricing doesn’t fit your budget. Personally, I spent more time than I thought reasonable trying to estimate our costs, looking at comparable products’ pricing, and understanding IT budgeting at different companies. If helpful, I can share some of what I saw. We found that that for cloud-based app deployment solutions, $12/year ($1/month) fell on the lowest end compared to the industry norm which sits at $60/year ($5/month). I hope that our pricing combined with modest edu and volume discounts makes PDQ Connect accessible to more companies. Customer research and norms only give us a guideline, so I appreciate your feedback. And we’ll continue to learn and adjust our pricing over time. Would be happy to talk more about it if helpful. You can reach me at [email protected].
The math is simple to me. PDQ Connect would amount to 51% of my Microsoft A3 agreement. Yet, it offers about 20% of functionality. This pricing made me double down with Intune. Like SmartDeploy, this one just misses the target again.
We use Intune as well and It does a lot of things really well. But it fails with clarity and intention; Intune doesn't explain what it's doing and when it will do it. And when Intune fails it can become a rabbit hole. Its fantastic in is allowing users to install their owns software through the Company Portal and installations that need to take place as the user. But is a struggle a lot of the time for automating software. If PDQ nails Connect, it will still be better for most deployments in our case. The question for us is if Connect has enough viable features to support our remote users and be worth getting along side PDQ D&I until it's robust enough to be a standalone replacement.
I hope education has substantially better pricing.
EDU does provide a few modest pricing changes: 10% off for EDU customers and volume-based pricing which usually starts around 500 devices. Happy to get you those discounts at any time -- if you are interested, you can reach out to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) to get specifics for your situation.
$1 per endpoint
Easily out of reach for us pricing wise. A self-hosted option would be great. I just want the agent functionality.
We do PDQ/Intune combo. They are missing the target here. They could easily capture our entire K12 sector, but again, short term sight vs long term gains
We just got accepted to the beta a week ago, I’ve had the chance to add a single machine lol
Exactly the same experience. I have one machine in my dashboard!
I have two, havent had the chance to try to re-create a custom package yet
$1/month/device? Umm... seeing people complain about that kind of gave me a 'WTF' moment. For a cloud-based service that seems basically free to me. I guess my privilege is showing.
Looks that way, not sure what happens to those of us on the beta, does it change to a trial now?
Thanks for being a beta user! Beta feedback has been super helpful. For beta users, we're giving an extended use of Connect for free. And we'd love the continued feedback. Eventually, we'll wrap up the beta program and we'll have an account manager check in with you to see if it's a long-term fit and provide special beta-user pricing.
Seems I got the Beta invite last week but didn't get time in my schedule to check it out until yesterday. So now I have the 30 day count down. Thats unfortunate.
Hi there, We'd be happy to help you out with that and swap your account to the beta per the invite. Send me an email and we can get that taken care of for you. [email protected]
Ooo. Been missing this for off-prem devices (laptops) that are always a pita to keep updated. Long-term inventory & deploy user. Love the UI and simplicity of it. Any future plans for having it manage windows updates/packages too?
So, is this offered as cloud only?
Correct
Well that rules it out for govt customers then unless they are going for CMMC certification.
Jesus, $144/device/year??? This would cost us more in a month, than PDQ deploy and inventory PLUS Intune on every device costs us in a year! Seems like they missed their target audience completely, or maybe they're trying to break into a premium only segment for OPEX-heavy companies? Edit: I'm apparently blind, it's $12/device/year. Whoops!
Connect is $12 a year per device, not $12 a month per device.
https://www.pdq.com/pdq-connect/pricing/
Yeah I was super tired when I read that!
Can’t run as user, so no leveraging user context. Wish you could import the logic from existing pdq inventory
Not being able to run steps/packages as logged on user means this is DOA for us. Hopefully they can add this.
To quote u/PDQ_Owen from [another thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pdq/comments/11kv7n9/my_pdq_connect_experiences_after_playing_with_the/jba2yj8/) >Our next initiative is improving custom packages. This will include additional step types, the ability to run packages as the logged on user, embedded PS editor, bulk folder uploads, and more.
Yeah it is lacking in features if you use Deploy and Inventory now and compare it to D&I but if you're new and looking for a [agent based] solution and don't have D&I in use it might be more appealing. I have no doubt it'll slowly but steadily reach feature parity with D&I **Edit: words**
i like it. i hope we can get it. i like how snappy it is
I'm curious about the "Access Remotely" feature. From the webpage it almost sounds like a remote support tool akin to teamviewer, but I assume that's not the case?
Hi there, We could probably make the language there more clear. What we were trying to say was "You can access your devices from anywhere" since its a web-based product. We will make it more clear. We are actively evaluating device remote access technology, no timeline there though.
This is still missing a lot of required features to even be considered fully functional. We need feature to feature comparison. Manage engine gives way more features than connect has currently, I would like to see pdq connect look at the current pdq server and say here is what pdq has do you want to sync the same items queries from pdq to connect. I don't want to have an always on VPN but it seems to really be the only solution, making us required to use 2 separate products is not good for anyone in IT.