Please don't take my demo models hostage 😢

Speckle Help
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Dear Speckle,

I understand you’re a business. That means that you need people to pay for using Speckle, such that you can pay cloud costs, the amazing Speckle team, and that you need to need to start making a profit (at some point).

I might have missed some news or comms or something, but I did come to me as quite a surprise and a seemingly drastic measure that this morning I was still able to access my demo models, and then this afternoon I get this “Plan limit reached” pop-up:

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Also from Python I can’t reach my demo model data anymore:

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I’m now getting the feeling that my data is “taken hostage”, because I can only access my data when I pay a subscription, which is something I thought Speckle would never do. I know this might sound a little dramatic, because I know that my data is not locked in some proprietary data format, but these (in my perception) sudden changes did leave me quite surprised and confused.

What’s going on?

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Thanks for taking the time to write, and for explaining both what you’re seeing and how it landed.

First, to be clear on intent: Speckle is not locking away or “holding hostage” user data. We don’t revoke ownership of data, and we don’t prevent export or migration into open formats. What you’re encountering is enforcement of plan limits on active usage, not a change in our position on data access or openness.

I’m not taking this as a shot at points-scoring about prior announcements and comms. Even with advanced communication, hitting a limit mid-flow can feel abrupt and disruptive, and that reaction is understandable.

What has changed is not the existence of limits, but their enforcement. Until recently, many workspaces operated outside the intended scope of the free plan without interruption. That was never sustainable in the long term, so we’ve moved from soft limits to consistently enforced ones.

A few important clarifications:

  • Your data has not been deleted.
  • Your data has not been converted into a proprietary format.
  • Your account has not been closed.
  • This is not a retroactive paywall on past work.

Once a plan limit is reached, access to active models and API calls is paused until the workspace is back within limits or upgraded. That includes SDK access, which explains the Python errors you’re seeing.

One specific clarification on versions: there is no limit on how many versions a model can have. On the free plan, there is a limit on how old a version can be and still be retrievable. Sending the same data again creates a new version that becomes accessible again under the free plan, provided the workspace is within its limits. This does not require a paid subscription; it is simply refreshing the active version.

If this workspace is genuinely being used for demos, learning, or personal experimentation, there are usually ways to resolve this without moving to a paid plan, and we’re happy to help you work through that. If the workspace is being used continuously, programmatically, or at scale, that usage now sits outside what the free plan is designed to support; that boundary has existed for a long time, and is now being applied consistently.

If you want, share a bit more about how you’re using this workspace and what you need access to right now, and we can help you find the least disruptive path forward.

2 Likes
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Thanks for the quick reply and extensive, clear explanation, and please excuse me for the late reply.

At Bedrock.engineer we are using a few free workspaces with demo models that show how Speckle is an amazing open-source solution for visualizing subsurface data (ground investigation data, ground models, geotechnical & geohydrological analysis results) in a web-based BIM environment and for making the data easily accessible to all stakeholders.

Ground risks are an important factor is project risks and often the cause for project cost or time overruns. We believe that reducing these ground risks starts with creating better understanding of these risks, which starts with better communication between geo-experts and stakeholders from other disciplines.

Buildings and civil structures are built on earth. So, BIM models shouldn’t float around in a vacuum, but also show the relevant subsurface data.

We are using these demo models in free workspaces to win work, but are strong believers that open-source is a restaurant, meaning that we will pay after having a good meal. In other words, we will pay once we start using Speckle in earnest on projects, and we will give back by contributing code, docs, examples and tutorials as well as by advocating for Speckle.

As always, thanks for the great support :smiling_hearts_spockle: