Opportunities › Secure remote access for team collaboration › Proposed app
Plainway
Private team access to servers with SSH included in every paid plan
- Score
- 39
- confidence 59
- Evidence
- 4
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 3
- named in sources
- First version
- 60 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2019
- Established market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Teams configure SSH access rules and review detailed session logs at their desk, not on the go. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Plan
Team plan$0 extra
- Seats used
About this appAI proposal
Plainway gives a technical team private access to its servers, laptops and internal services without opening public ports. SSH is part of the core product, not an add-on, so every member of a paid team can use it the day you sign up.
It is built for small engineering teams that compared remote access tools and got stuck on which tier includes which feature. You pick a plan by the number of people, and the plan page lists exactly what you get, in one table, with no hidden gates.
Access rules read like sentences: who can reach which machine, as which user. Every session is logged, and a member can be removed in one step.
- Tagline
- Remote access with a price you can read.
- Voice
- PlainDirectCalm
- Why this name
- Plain says what we promise: clear pricing and clear access rules. Way is the path to your machines.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
SSH in every paid plan
Every paid seat gets SSH to team machines. No feature gates between tiers; tiers differ only by seat count and limits.
No member yet
One-table pricing
The price page and the in-app billing screen show the same single table, so you know what you have and what the next tier adds.
No member yet
Access rules in plain words
Write rules like 'backend team can SSH to staging as deploy'. Plainway shows who is affected before you save.
No member yet
Session log
See who connected to which machine, when and for how long. Export the log for audits.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#0F4C4ADeep Teal · primary#F6F3ECPaper · surface#1B2422Ink · text#E3A23BSignal Amber · accent#5C8A5AMoss · data, success
Typography
Aa
Plainway
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Remote access with a price you can read.
PricingAI proposal
Starting point to test, set inside the range on Netbird's pricing page (€6 to €12 by usage) and Tailscale's ($1 to $18 a month). The difference is that SSH is in every paid tier.
Free
Free
- Up to 3 members
- SSH included
- 5 machines
- 7-day session log
Team
$6 a month
- Per member per month
- SSH for every member
- Unlimited machines
- 90-day session log
- Quick share tunnels
Business
$12 a month
- Per member per month
- Everything in Team
- 1-year session log and export
- Priority support
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Users invite others. A team admin invites colleagues and contractors, who install the agent and join the team network. Quick share links also show the product name to teammates and guests who open them.
- Do they become customers?
- Invited members are mostly inside the paying team already. Guests who open share links may run their own teams; test whether any sign up and how often.
- First customers
- Engineering teams of 5 to 30 people that run their own servers and have already compared Tailscale and Netbird pricing.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News: Post a plain pricing comparison and a Show HN with the one-table price page.
- Dev communities: Answer pricing and SSH questions in self-hosting and DevOps forums and subreddits.
- First milestone
- Ten teams of at least five members on a paid plan within 90 days, with SSH use in over half.
Why people already pay for this
- Public claimTailscale's pricing structure is confusing because SSH features are not available in the paid tier immediately above the free tier when users want multiple users to have SSH access.
- Public claimPricing clarity and feature availability in the tier structure is a significant decision factor for teams choosing between remote access products.
- VerifiedTailscale's pricing page lists 4 paid plans, from $1 to $18 a month, plus a free plan and prices on request for larger customers
- VerifiedNetbird's pricing page lists 2 paid plans, from €6 to €12 by usage, plus a free plan and prices on request for larger customers
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Mesh networkingOpen WireGuard-based tunneling and relay serversEncrypted device-to-device connections with relays when direct paths fail.
- This app · SSH accessShort-lived SSH certificates via a small host agentLets rules decide who can log in without sharing static keys.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalReliable NAT traversal, relays and device agents on three operating systems are hard; a PWA only manages the network and cannot be one.
- CommercialTailscale and Netbird already have users and free plans. Clear pricing may not be enough to make teams switch.
- RegulatoryStoring session logs and handling access to customer servers raises security audit and data retention expectations.
- PlatformClient agents need OS permissions to create network interfaces, with app store and driver signing steps.
- Intellectual propertyName needs a trademark check; 'Plainway' may be close to existing names.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.