Pricing Feedback
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I think it’s time we start flipping the script on this thread and start posting the alternatives we find since we’re not getting answers, but a run along and run around.
One option I’ve found is that with Blogger.com, you can purchase a domain for just $12 per year, and assign it to a blog on blogspot. Now I know this is not going to work for bloggers and small businesses (with exception of maybe a few), but blogspot blogs are still great for basic blogging, and this option could save a lot of money if you only need a very basic blog, and there is no storage limit that I’m aware of.
Also Siteground does offer multiple plans, and last I looked, they were running a sale.
Before I switched to wordpress.com I used to self-host at Powweb.com and as I remember, they offered a reasonable price.
I’m very interested to know of some other options you all might know of.
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Now I know this is not going to work for bloggers
I meant more professional bloggers vs small bloggers that do it for fun.
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Also Siteground does offer multiple plans, and last I looked, they were running a sale.
I take back what I said about them. WordPress.com Pro plan is actually the winner over their plans,. If you need 50 or more GB, you’re out of luck there.
Still interested in other alternatives.
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I logged back in to see if a la carte options have been announced some three weeks after the price change… but of course there’s nothing, not even a rough ETA. If it’s such a priority to get them out, why couldn’t the new prices have been delayed until a la carte was also ready? Or at the very least, why can’t the old plans be reinstated while a la carte gets figured out?
And there still hasn’t been an e-mail about any of this! It wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of WP.Com users don’t even know about these changes since not everyone looks at the News blog. Whatever your intentions, it sure looks as if WP.com tried to sneak in these huge changes and only got found out when users noticed the storage bug and started posting on the Support forums (which gets checked even less than the News blog). And we’re supposed to trust that a la carte options are totally in the works and will be reasonably priced, after all these shenanigans??
I hate to sound cynical, but none of this has given me cause for hope that WP.Com plans to offer anything approaching its previous Personal/Premium tiers. I’ve moved my sites to different platforms that 1) are much more reasonably priced and 2) are far easier to use since they are tailored for static sites (Carrd) and personal blogging (Blogger) rather than the one-size-fits-all bloated behemoth that WP’s block editor has mutated into over the years.
It sucks. My blogging “home” has been WordPress for years, I’ve helped so many friends and colleagues set up their dev logs and writing portfolios and book club blogs on WordPress. But everything about the way this pricing update has played out shows that hobby blogs and the like are not welcome. It’s not even worth giving us a heads up before cutting us loose. What a shame.
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WP: “We are listening…”
Listening is a very passive activity. The number of posts to this thread suggests a lot of people who are waiting for action/responses.
WP: “let you all know when we have official updates regarding your feedback”
As Renkotsuban stated, I haven’t seen an official message regarding the price/plan changes at all so far. I don’t count a post on the News page of this forum – which I didn’t know existed until I was directed to this forum by other bloggers to register my dissapointment with WP.
I used to get regular pop-ups on my WP dashboard about 2-factor authentication. Has there been a pop-up or alert about price/plan changes there? NO. Every other company I deal with on and off-line (ebay, google, paypal, insurance, my bank, estate agent, etc) sends me an email when their Terms/Conditions/Cost change. Has there been an email to all customers from WP? NO.
I feel that the add-ons and details you keep saying are coming “soon” were never part of the plan. They are a catch-up attempt not to lose customers who keep expressing their displeasure with the surprise changes.
I’m still a WP customer for now, but I’m not a happy one, nor do I have any trust in the company going forward. -
Also, having moved off of WP.com, I can say that I definitely do not miss having my dashboard cluttered with “Blog like an expert” articles even after dismissing them for the umpteenth time. Or being constantly nagged to turn my blog entries into podcasts, or to pay someone on Fiverr to design a logo for me, etc. These are all complaints for my Personal plan site btw, so much for paying to get rid of ads.
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I feel that the add-ons and details you keep saying are coming “soon” were never part of the plan. They are a catch-up attempt not to lose customers who keep expressing their displeasure with the surprise changes.
I second this. Like I said, whatever WP.com’s intentions, it certainly does look as if you were hoping most people wouldn’t notice the price changes (therefore unable to raise a stink over it) and would be railroaded down the line to either upgrade for significantly more money than before, or leave the platform and stop taking up resources that could be going to Pro users. Unfortunately, people noticed the storage bug which led to them noticing the price change. I know this is getting into tinfoil-hat territory, but I mean… how else are users supposed to take this, when three weeks later there still hasn’t even been an e-mail about this. Or when we are told that a la carte is a priority, but not enough to wait for it to actually be ready before rolling out the new plans. (I still can’t get over this??)
I will stop posting in this thread, I know that none of my feedback is useful anymore since I am just repeating myself, but seriously: you all could have saved yourselves SO MANY HEADACHES if you’d communicated with users well in advance. Instead you burned so many bridges by trying to sneak a fast one past us all. Just, wow.
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I remember a blog post WPput out some time ago bragging about it’s ability to set up a page like a “link in bio” sort of like Linktree. I thought that was a great idea for someone needing a home page just for that, with the ability to build other pages around it… I don’t think it’s a good idea for $180 a year though.
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As a personal plan user I hate this change. Custom domain, some space to write and post pictures, no ads, no need to worry about patching. That’s all I needed and personal plan was perfect for that.
You bet I won’t be paying 180$ for that and if I wanted to, there are loads of options for managed wordpress, which offer more than new pro offering.I also dislike how this is communicated, no email, no official change, just a small banner in admin panel that I am now on legacy plan. How is it possible, that such massive change requires me to go dig on forum posts?
I know that I can stay on legacy plan, but with no commitment on how long will it be possible I might as well migrate now. What a shame.
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So it will be possible to stay in one of the old plans indefinitely, as there are still those who keep upgrades from the time before them.
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I am so dissappointed. I was working on building a website and gathering my content on the free version and was planning to upgrade and purchase the Personal plan at $4 per month later this month! I am soooo sad.
What you have done is gotten rid of a whole bunch of users as now WordPress.com is no longer a solution or a viable option for anyone wanting a personal website, or maybe someone doing a freelance biz or something small like a hobby blog.
I’m actually really shocked that wordpress.com would do such a thing and completely cut out the middle.
Also, how could you make such a HUGE change without sending out emails and announcements to all of your users? That makes me feel like wordpress.com is a questionable company that cannot be trusted. Any decent company sends at least 2 announcements about it. Once to let people know changes are coming and some dates, and then a second to let people know the specifics and when. You gave no one a chance that were working on projects to follow through with anything.
At a Pro plan price, it’s not a given that someone would use WordPress.com so you are going to loose a lot of people to competition now, as taking away that $4 and $8 per month price point, once people have to consider $15 per month, now they will look at all the other platforms as they are more comparable. Weebly/Sqaure still has a Personal at $6. And if someone is going to pay $15 per month, there are better options.
I’m just really bummed because all the work I started doing on a special project I will now have to research to find another platform and redo it all.
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I am so dissappointed. I was working on building a website and gathering my content on the free version and was planning to upgrade and purchase the Personal plan at $4 per month later this month! I am soooo sad.
I echo this loudly. I will not make anymore attempts at small projects on your platform. Go in my account and see how many websites I’ve purchased since 2014, and how many I have set to expire now. Also if I have a big project, I’ll be looking at other platforms.
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No update on the supposed ala carte options. A very cynical move. I’ve shifted all of my content to Wix for $8.50 a month which gives me everything I need and which WordPress expects me to pay $15 a month for. Highly recommend Wix as a potential solution for people who feel betrayed by what WordPress has done.
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I had to let my plan renewal lapse as I was briefly unemployed. I went to renew it today and found out about this absurd price increase.
I can’t afford £180 a year for a hobby, especially not as a lump sum, and there’s no option to add my domain on the free plan, even with a fee. Or even redirect my old blog posts, so I’ve effectively lost the longevity, links and SEO benefits of a blog I’ve enjoyed working on since 2017. I also had a customised theme, with CSS so I could hide spoilers etc, which is presumably gone.
Thanks, WordPress.
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I understand that this is a business and all that. But the lack of any communication prior to just dumping and running is just poor execution. I let my paid plan lapse for a bit while I tried to think what I actually wanted to do with it. Now the previously reasonable plan I was going to re-up for what is literally just a hobby is replaced by something that costs $180. No thanks.
No company interested in actually fostering relationships with their paying customers would do this. All legitimate companies give some kind of advanced notice of pricing changes. All legitimate companies engage with their customers rather than put out a post on a discussion board and then do nothing (which is all we can assume given the lack of any further communication). This is not a company that I feel comfortable doing business with, whatever their perceived reasons for the changes are.
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A cheaper plan that supports plugins was definitely necessary. However, I don’t like the mandatory annual subscription model at all. I have multiple sites and for various reasons wouldn’t want to commit to an entire year for all of them. Every host I know of allows a monthly option. Even if it’s a little more expensive, it is a must-have in a market that values flexibility.
I also would like to see discounts for multiple sites. Most hosting plans supports, so if you have 2 or 3 sites, maybe smaller in size, you don’t get fleeced.
Great first step. Probably another package that mirrors the Personal, in order, but I don’t need it so I’ll let someone else make that argument.
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No. These new plans only apply to new sites created after March 31, 2022. If you have a legacy plan, you are welcome to stay on it.
If this is the case I’ll continue to renew and will be happy to stay on my current Pro plan of $8/mo billed annually, but $15/mo would be a non-starter for me and I would definitely move my blog to a self hosted solution before paying nearly twice what I have been paying.
I agree with others that the unannounced rollouts were uncool and not completely out of character for Automattic. It seems like this is just how Matt rolls.
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I’m certainly trying to command this entire forum topic. I know my face is all over the place here, however it needs to be pointed out that your long time customers are your best advertising source. I used to praise this company and recommend it to anyone that seeked help from me to get their websites started. I can’t do that anymore. The following is now what I’m telling people…
Purchase your website somewhere else if you don’t want to get ripped off just to build your brand. They were offering plans of just $48 with 6gb storage, $96 for 13gb, or $300 for 200gb if you need a business model plan. These were all per year prices. Now since March 31st, 2022, they only offer a highly crippled free plan with 1gb that is ad supported (can’t complain about that for free except previously you got 3gb), or for $180 a “gimmick “Pro” plan with only 50gb, which per gigabyte is actually more expensive than their Business plan. This company has switched to a model that no longer serves hobby bloggers, or very small businesses. It seems they only want to trap big game players into their system for a plan that will cost you $180 a year, or VIP at $2,000 per month. I advise shopping around. Been with this company for my websites since 2014, but I can no longer recommend them. But if the $180 plan works for you, more power to you. I personally have stopped purchasing domains and setting up any website with them that would cost me money.
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