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Comment by meritt | Hacker News Reader

Rough numbers here because BOX hasn't reported full 2017 yet but:

    Dropbox 2017: $1107M Revenue
    Dropbox 2017 Paying Users: 11M
    ARPU: $100 [1]

    Box.com (Q4-16 to Q3-17): $479M Revenue
    Box.com (Q3-17) Paying Users: 9.7M - 10.2M [2]
    ARPU: $47 - $49 [3]

    [1] $1107/11
    [2] "over 17% of our registered users [57M] were paying users"
    [3] 479/10.2 to 479/9.7

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Wow, I assumed that Box would've had a higher ARPU given it's focus on enterprise.

Me too. I'm trying to find better ARPU metrics to ensure I'm not misunderstanding that vague "over 17%" statement. As a company they tend to report "Number of Paying Customers" which are businesses and only occasionally reference individual user accounts.

Though simply looking at per user per month pricing:

    Dropbox for Business has $15, $25, and Enterprise
    Dropbox Individual has Free, $10, and $20
    Box.com has $5, $15, $25, and Enterprise

The math doesn't even really make sense though. Dropbox's ARPU is $8/user/mo whereas Box is $4/user/mo. Either the my math is wrong or Box offers some pretty steep Enterprise discounts that work out to <$5/user/mo.

I wouldn't be surprised if the enterprise discount is in fact <$5/u/mo. Seems like a simple conversation, "Why am I paying more per person even though I'm a large client?"

Digging deeper into Dropbox's finances is astounding too. They've added about $150m in additional revenue each year, while cutting their net losses by $100m each year.

Box offers a significant discount on Enterprise to Universities through Internet2.

https://www.internet2.edu/products-services/cloud-services-a...

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