The latest changes, in plain words. We update this every time something worth telling you goes live.
Pricing
Two plans, with storage in both
We had four plans that only differed by seats. Now there are two, and you can tell them apart in seconds. Studio is $39 a month. It gives you three team members and 250GB. Studio Pro is $69 a month. It gives you five team members and 500GB. It also adds better reports, your own branding and faster support. And it does more things for you on its own. Pay yearly and two months are free. You can add more storage to either plan, from $10 a month for 250GB. When storage is full, no file is ever deleted. Clients keep their access and new uploads pause. Freelance crew still never count as team members. We still take 0% of what your clients pay you. Everything stays free through October 31. Paid plans start November 1, and the first charge is on November 30. Studios already here keep Founder pricing, $36 and $60, for as long as they stay.
BookingsEmail
Your client can move a booked call themselves
Booking a call used to be set in stone. Pick the wrong day and all you could do was email the studio and hope. Now every confirmation and reminder has a link to move or cancel. Moving a call shows the same date picker as the first booking, with the held slot marked. You are told the moment someone books, moves or cancels. The message has their email, phone and note, and a reply goes straight to them. You set the rules too. How much notice, how far ahead, whether clients may move at all, and how many times. And the join link is a real link you can tap, in every email and text reminder. No more dead text to copy and paste two minutes before the call.
PerformanceGalleries
Pages open faster, and films stop stalling
Clicking a page used to show nothing for two and a half seconds. Now it answers in 113ms and tells you what it is doing while the rest loads. Under the hood, the app moved next to its database. The lookups were never slow. The trips back and forth were. The schedule also stopped waiting on badge counts it does not need to draw. On the client side, a phone no longer gets the 57 Mbps master file. Films are cut into steps from 360p to 1080p. The player starts on the lowest step and climbs. On a good 4G connection, the same film went from five stalls in forty-five seconds to none.
CatalogueBookings
Your price list is now the page clients buy from
There is one price list, and it is what clients read. Drop in the PDF you already email out, a photo of a printed sheet, or paste a note. It comes back as services, packages and questions and answers. You check it all before anything is saved. Each package is a full-width frame, and its cover can be a film. You group them under tabs you name yourself, each priced in its own currency. The Pay button opens a booking form that takes a deposit. So the page that quotes is the page that books. And Studio › Booking pages walks you through the whole task, start to finish. It tells you what is left, not which screens exist.
Bookings
Write your own booking and contact forms
Every studio used to get the same fixed questions. So a wedding filmmaker who wanted the ceremony time had to ask in a follow-up email. Or never asked. Now you write both forms yourself. Add your own questions: text, pick one, pick several, number, date or time. The app checks the type, so 25:00 and 31 February cannot happen. On the booking form you also choose what can be bought. You pick which add-ons and payment plans show, which discount codes work, and which fields are hidden, optional or required. Keep more than one form. A wedding booking and a company booking are not the same chat. Every rule is checked on our computers, not just in the browser.
Docs
27 new pages that say exactly who this is for
Honest comparisons against HoneyBook, Studio Ninja, StudioBinder and Production Slate. Each says plainly where the other one beats us. Practical guides on paying second shooters, tracking crew hours on a shoot day, and 1099 versus W-2 crew. Pages for wedding, video production, content and portrait studios. And a real help centre that says what the product does, and what it does not. bckendIQ stays free through 31 October while we work out pricing with the studios using it.
UX
One workspace bar, on every page
The three places you open all day now sit in one bar. It stays put on every screen. So finding your way no longer depends on which page you are on.
GalleriesPrivacy
A gallery link shows photos, and nothing else
Share a gallery without showing anything about money. Invoices, contracts, forms and receipts now live only on the client’s own page, behind their six-digit code. Galleries also show the client’s own name, everywhere it appears.
AutomationEmail
The app chases what has gone quiet, for you
Six reminder ladders now run on a schedule. They chase unanswered shoot requests, unsigned contracts, unpaid invoices and unfinished forms. They also chase galleries nobody has opened and late deliveries. Every message goes out on your letterhead. A backlog never sets off a burst of stale reminders.
Email
Clients hear back the moment they act
When a client asks about a shoot, signs, picks photos or pays, they now get a reply straight away. You get a task. So nobody is left wondering whether a form went through.
Bookings
Confirm, sign and pay as three separate steps
Booking is no longer one all-or-nothing step. The client confirms the details, then signs the agreement, then pays. A real signature is needed before the studio books a date, a job or an editor. Booked clients can pay what is left. A paid deposit says so.
Payments
Every studio brings its own Stripe account
Payments now go straight into your own Stripe account. There is no bckendIQ account in the middle, and bckendIQ never holds client money. Apple Pay and Google Pay appear on the payment page once your keys are connected. Next to the box where you paste your secret key, the page says exactly what happens to it.
Payments
Payment plans, sold with the package
Split a booking into part payments. Use 50/50, 30/50/20, or your own split. The plan is attached to the package when you quote. You can edit a plan, and read it back without applying it. It shows on the invoice next to the deposit it covers.
Galleries
Send a gallery again without losing the old one
Upload a fixed set as version 2 from inside the gallery. The old version is kept. Client notes stay on the version they were written about. A new version never inherits notes that were already dealt with.
Contracts
Contracts get written for you or brought in, not typed
Bring in an agreement you already have, or write one from a template with your own fill-in fields. Contracts show correctly for the client every time. Both sides sign, and both sides get a copy.
Comms
Message any client from one inbox, even before they book
The Inbox now reaches people who have only asked about a shoot, as well as booked clients. Each thread is tied to the person it belongs to. So a chat is never cut off from the record it is about.
Galleries
Upload a whole folder at once
Pick the folder and upload the whole shoot in one go. There is no cap on how many files. Big sets are sent in batches on their own. RAW files show using the preview stored inside them. Galleries sort by file name, so a set reads in the order you shot it.
UX
Dark mode, on every screen
A new switch in the top bar flips between Light, Dark and System. System follows your device. Your choice is remembered on each device, on every page in your workspace.
Onboarding
Anyone can sign up and start a studio in minutes
You no longer need an invite. Sign up, set up your studio, and start using bckendIQ right away.
Communications
Real open rates for your emails
Emails you send to many people now report a true open rate. We count opens by domain, so the numbers show who really read the message.
Payments
Contractor pay, tracked from start to finish
Managers record each contractor payment and follow it through every stage, with status badges and a full history. Contractors set how they want to be paid and watch the status on My Earnings. They get a push alert the moment a payment is marked paid. There is a history per contractor and a one-click CSV export.
Payments
Shareable payment receipts
Every payout now has a clean receipt page with its own private link. It can be opened or shared without signing in.
Marketing
Cleaner headings on the front page
We fixed an old bug where the tails of letters were cut off on the coloured headings. A smoother first look for everyone arriving from search and social.
InternalReliability
Better bug reports
New detail pages let our own admins see bug tickets from every studio in one place. Plus six core upgrades to the bug-report flow used inside studios.
Feedback
Send us your ideas straight from the app
Studio owners and leaders can now send feature ideas straight to the bckendIQ team. No more threads lost in Slack.
UX
Fewer "Saved!" pop-ups
We removed the noisy "Saved!" pop-ups on everyday save, update and create steps. Less interruption, same confidence.
UX
Edit and Delete tucked into a small menu on the contractors list
Edit and Delete for each row moved into a three-dot menu on the contractors list. So the table has room to breathe.
