New First Responder Pro-deal Coming in 2024

Starting January 1st, 2024, active first responders with a demonstrated need for mapping will be eligible for a 50% discount on all paid subscriptions. Read on to hear from CalTopo founder Matt Jacobs about these changes to the current first responder account structure.

Today we’re announcing a significant shift in the free and discounted accounts we provide to first responders, to an across-the-board 50% pro-deal. If you have an existing first responder account, it will renew as-is in 2024, and in 2025 you will be asked to reapply under the new program. This change does not affect team accounts, or anyone who has not applied to be part of the first responder program.

CalTopo first launched paid subscriptions in October 2015, and the first responder account program dates back to that launch. At the time, my goal was to make it easy for anyone on an incident to use CalTopo’s advanced planning functionality without having to wait for an agency purchase approval in a time-sensitive situation. Initially, the primary benefit of a first responder account was the ability to generate large-format PDFs.

The first responder program is largely unchanged from its launch eight years ago, but CalTopo looks almost unrecognizably different. One major change is the introduction of CalTopo Teams in 2017, which made it easy for an agency to purchase a single account covering all of its members. We took this a step further with the introduction of mutual aid incidents / events in 2020, allowing teams to temporarily widen the scope of their account to include convergent resources at no additional cost. With CalTopo Teams, everyone on an incident has access to our full suite of functionality, regardless of their individual account status.

The introduction of the mobile app in 2019 also broadened CalTopo’s use case from planning to line-level response. As teams have pivoted from static PDFs to live tracking and coordination, the average responder’s needs have shifted from our web-based planning features to mobile functionality like offline layers.

The app also led us to introduce a new mobile-focused account level, and free first responder accounts now include a selection of both mobile and pro functionality. The functionality included in this hybridized account is difficult for us to keep track of internally, much less to explain. While first responders wanting our pro-level functionality can currently upgrade to a pro account at a 50% discount, we can’t provide the same discount for a mobile subscription without losing functionality when compared to a first responder account. This complexity also extends into our codebase, requiring extra work to track which features are enabled for whom, and who can upgrade to what.

We’ve spent a long time debating how to bring our first responder program in line with our current mobile/pro/desktop account structure, in order to simplify both our codebase and our communications with end users. Ultimately, we kept coming back to giving first responders a flat 50% discount on our individual subscription plans. For anyone wanting a full pro account, nothing changes, and for a first responder wanting a discounted mobile account, that is now an option.

For everyone who currently has a free, non-upgraded first responder account, in 2025 you will need to convert to either our standard free account or to a paid one. We realize that this will be a loss of functionality, but hope that we are giving you adequate warning to adjust your workflow, that you understand the rationale behind this decision, and will continue to use CalTopo in some capacity. As a reminder, if your agency has CalTopo Teams, you already have access to all of CalTopo’s functionality and there is no need to get a separate first responder account.

We remain committed to providing a high quality geospatial platform that you can count on for everything from small emergencies to large-scale disasters. We are also committed to keeping our platform as widely accessible as possible, and only took this step after careful consideration.

Matt Jacobs

Founder, CalTopo