Updated: January 18
Today Quartzy is announcing a change that impacts our academic, government, and other non-profit labs. Historically, only our commercial customers in biotech and industry have paid to use Quartzy. On July 1, 2023 we will implement a yearly subscription fee for all our customers.
We want to make this as easy and disruption-free as possible for every laboratory that currently uses Quartzy. Read on to learn more about the new Nonprofit Package features and special incentives for current labs. Click here to find videos and materials to assist with this change.
Why are you making this change?
We embarked on a journey over 10 years ago to develop an end-to-end lab supply management platform. We started with the problem of inventory management, and from there we’ve developed all of the features and functionality you know today.
Our customers tell us that Quartzy saves them thousands of hours and dollars every year. They experience fewer experimental delays from stock-outs, less internal lab conflict because everyone knows where everything is, and more continuity when lab personnel turnover. They enjoy cost savings from reducing duplicate orders and by taking advantage of our competitive product pricing.
Over the past few years, we’ve added substantial functionality to Quartzy to help increase productivity even further.
We now offer a host of integrations with other software platforms, a mobile app, and an e-commerce platform. We have a team of experts in our Customer Success and Support teams who help scientists make sure they have what they need to do their experiments.
You said Quartzy would always be free for academia
We did say that, and at the time we truly believed that it was possible to keep Quartzy running on the lab supply e-commerce business alone. We were wrong. The platform, the number of active users, and our behind the scenes support team have grown dramatically, and it is no longer sustainable for us to keep Quartzy free.
We’re so grateful for the years you’ve spent using Quartzy and want to ensure you’ll be able to stay with us in the future. We’re working to give existing users who have supported us over the years as much notice as possible and offering simple pricing to make the transition as easy as possible.
What is the Academic Package?
We created the Quartzy Academic Package to ensure that as your academic or non-profit lab grows and your needs change, you won’t need to upgrade to receive premium features. We’ve added custom request fields and customized approval flows, the two most important features for larger labs, to our standard feature set for academic and non-profit labs.
How much will it cost?
For labs that joined Quartzy before July 1, 2023, the annual Academic Package subscription will cost $99 per user seat per year. Labs that join after will pay $149 per user seat per year. Additional seats can be added at the original joining rate after July 1. There are no student only license options at this time.
Most labs find that setting up with one seat per person creates the best request tracking and reporting experience. Seats can easily be reassigned to new lab members as needed. For example, a lab with a laboratory manager, two research assistants, and two student rotation spots would pay 5 x $99 per year ($495/year).
Many of us at Quartzy came from academia, and we know how tight budgets can be. We’re doing everything we can to make this transition a win-win for everyone. Click here to contact our support team (support@quartzy.com) and discuss how we can help you with the transition.
We aren’t planning any subsequent price increases right now, but current labs have the option to select multiyear contracts to lock in their $99 pricing as long as they like.
Discounts and incentives for non-commercial labs
As an existing user we have a special program where your cost will effectively be $0 for your first 12 months. For your first year of Quartzy, you’ll receive a monthly shop credit that matches your annual fee. You can use this credit to shop from our catalog of more than 10 million lab supplies from over 1800 leading life science brands.
As a subscriber, you’ll also have access to our savings team that can take a holistic view of your spending and find places where we can save you additional money, which can result in a net savings for your lab even including your subscription fee.
We’re already an approved vendor at almost 200 universities, and we’re rolling out new punchout functionality that syncs Quartzy with your purchasing system, making it even easier to use those credits. If you’ve never purchased from us before, we have some resources here to help you, or you’re welcome to reach out to us at support@quartzy.com with any questions.
Our goal is to make it easy for you to keep using Quartzy. If you have any questions or concerns about your bill or how to use your shop credit, we are happy to work with you.
Organizational licenses
Many universities and departments opt to join Quartzy with an organizational license arrangement. In this case, the platform is free for all researchers at the organization. If you would like to learn about pricing at the organizational level, please reach out to sales@quartzy.com.
What do I need to do?
We wanted to provide all of our users with ample notice, which is why you’ll have until July 1, 2023 to make a decision on whether to subscribe. As noted above, there are some special incentives we're providing if you subscribe earlier. In February, you’ll have the option to subscribe on your own within the app, but if you’d like to set up a time to discuss this change with your account manager now, contact us at support@quartzy.com.
What new features can I expect will be made possible from this change?
Our vision at Quartzy is to build a platform that ensures that our customers achieve their research milestones by always having the supplies they need to do their experiments. We’re incredibly excited for the features and functionality that a subscription model will enable us to invest in.
We envision a future where machines, electronic lab notebooks, LIMS systems, and even journal articles can talk to Quartzy to facilitate the quickest possible availability of supplies when scientists need them; a future where lab managers don’t spend hours on mundane repetitive tasks or hunting down backordered supplies, and instead ensure lab personnel and facilities are functioning at peak performance.
We want Quartzy to close the “lab management loop” by connecting with accounting platforms so lab managers and accountants are automatically in sync with each other. We call this vision “the connected lab.” It’s an exciting and ambitious vision, which requires continual investment.
Here are the areas in which we plan to invest in the coming 1-2 years:
Track what you have with more granularity
Because Quartzy’s inventory is already integrated with your purchasing and receiving workflow, it automatically updates as you conduct your regular day-to-day lab supply process. You know what you have and where it is. But we can make Quartzy Inventory even better. We plan to build things like more granular locations, easier to understand data hierarchy (e.g. Ethanol shows up as one line with different quantities in different locations), usage tracking, and automatic SDS population.
View Quartzy data in other applications and send it from those applications into Quartzy
The life science software landscape is rapidly growing, and Quartzy is one of the first companies to take an ecosystem approach. Over the past year we launched our first public developer platform, empowering you to access your Quartzy data in other applications, and even send new data from other software you use into Quartzy. Some examples include: receiving Slack alerts when things are received or ordered, sending data to google sheets for analysis, requesting new products in Quartzy without leaving your Benchling protocol, and automatically generating POs in NetSuite right from Quartzy.
We plan to continue investing in this area. Imagine if your liquid handling robot could automatically request pipette tips when it was running low! Or if you could request all the supplies mentioned in a journal article with one click. We’re just at the beginning here.
Easily buy items from Quartzy if you’re at an organization with an e-Procurement / purchasing system
If you are at an academic institution, company, or non-profit that uses an e-procurement system (e.g. Jaggaer, Coupa, Oracle, Ariba, etc) and want to buy something from Quartzy, right now you need to manually copy and paste everything from Quartzy into that system to place the order. It’s a huge pain! We are currently implementing Quartzy punchout experience to any interested customers. Users at existing punchout sites love this feature because it makes checking out from Quartzy super easy. If you would like to have Quartzy added to your purchasing system, please reach out to us at bd@quartzy.com.
Better reporting
By using Quartzy, labs can glean incredibly important insights into their lab operations. They can follow their purchasing habits, understand how fast they consume supplies, learn who is buying the most or which projects are the “hungriest”, and even predict which supplies they’ll need in the coming weeks/months. However, right now they need to download their history and run analyses on their own to visualize this data. We’re investing in the capability to deliver actionable reports to you automatically so you can make important decisions without manual effort.
Bottom line: We’re investing in making the connected lab a reality!
Supplying your lab should be a seamless experience, not disconnected chaos. We’ve built tools that significantly streamline your lab supply experience and with this transition we’ll be able to build even more value faster!
Summing it up
We’ve spent years building Quartzy to serve the life science community. It’s been especially rewarding to support research in academic, non-profit, and government labs, and to think that some discoveries have been made even a little bit faster because of all our team’s work. We’re excited for the next phase of our platform because it represents a doubling-down on our vision to build the “connected lab” and on our commitment to ensuring researchers always have what they need to do their experiments.
As you reflect on the next steps for you and your lab, I hope you take a moment to consider the value that Quartzy provides to your lab’s productivity. We want you to continue on this journey with us and are committed to partnering with you to keep Quartzy part of your research program. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at support@quartzy.com.
