Dear friends and partners,

As we put the final touches to Shira, we’ve been thinking hard about how to make sure that Shira sticks around for the long-term.

As a non-profit, our entire mission is to make people safer as they use technology, and do so by building open-source, privacy-preserving technology. But if you’re familiar with open-source or public interest technology, you know that tools come and go: they get built by motivated teams who want to make a difference; they receive some initial funding from funders; and soon fizzle out as funders move on to the next sexy tech. Not all open-source tech goes this way (thankfully!) but this is an all too-common pattern. 

And this is what we want to avoid. We want to ensure that what we’re building today, in close partnership with a community of digital security educators, is sustainable and enduring. We want to make sure the designs and the code we develop, and the phishing quizzes and educational material our users build, are here to stay. This is why we’re making Shira available for a fee.

In March, then, when we release Shira to the public, this is what you can expect:

  • A Starter plan that is completely free and comes with basic customization options. This is a great way to test out Shira or for organizations with limited needs to get started in anti-phishing education. 
  • A Pro plan that will cost $220 per month with most features accessible without any limit. This will fit educators or organizations who are ready to engage in robust and sustained anti-phishing training. We’ll have significant discounts for small and mid-size non-profits to make sure this is accessible to all those who need it.
  • An Enterprise plan for organizations who need custom or specialized services on top of Pro features. For example, we can support your team in building custom quizzes tailored to your team’s specific needs and threats, or deploy Shira with your organization’s branding.

You can see these plans in more detail here. 

We see version 2.0 of Shira, which we’ll launch in March, as the beginning. We’ve received a ton of incredible ideas and recommendations from our community to turn Shira into a collaborative platform for anti-phishing education. And we hope that this paid model will allow us to make this a reality.

Since we made Shira available to select partners in October, we’ve seen an encouraging level of uptake. Over 30 organizations have already registered and shared feedback about their experiences, which we’re gradually implementing into the app. Some have used Shira extensively. One digital security organization used Shira in a dozen workshops for human rights groups. Another one, a reproductive health non-profit, deployed Shira quizzes internally to train 200 staff members. 

As you start using Shira, let us know if there is something you’d like us to prioritize as we continue adding more features and polishing the user experience. And if you want to brainstorm how to bring anti-phishing education to your community, or which plan would be the right fit for your organization, get in touch! 

See you in a few weeks for the release of Shira’s most requested feature: private quizzes! 
Raphael from the Shira team ✌