When we simplified our pricing, some folks asked if it was such a good deal for customers that we would be losing money as a company. I calculated what the initial revenue hit would be before making the decision. We decided it was worth it to make Micro.blog Premium more appealing. It would pay off in the long run.
I’ll share a couple more details for folks who are curious. Monthly recurring revenue was down about 2% as soon as the change rolled out. As I blogged about, some people who might be paying $15/month would see their cost go down to $10/month. This was in line with expectations.
The old pricing was optimized for people who might want to pay for lots of blogs, but the reality is that almost no one wants to do that. Micro.blog is for normal people, not enterprise customers. The new pricing better fits the customers we want to have. People who have a main personal blog and might want to experiment with an extra blog or two later. People like us!
Now that it has been a couple weeks, I’m even more confident that this change has been great. We’ve already seen more people upgrade to Micro.blog Premium, making up for most of the initial revenue loss. The interface for upgrading and downgrading is much easier than before. Less friction means we can nudge more people to give Micro.blog Premium a try for a month.
There are still a couple lingering glitches with trials and upgrades that I’m working through this week. Overall, couldn’t be happier with the change, and I think Micro.blog customers are happier too.
Chris Enns I'll add my voice as someone who is more tempted to upgrade to premium now than I was before the pricing change.
Miraz Jordan That's great news Manton. I realised I need to keep my two blogs separate as they have separate 'identities', but I'm considering adding a second small blog, or even a single page site, to one of them. It's so good to have this flexibility.
Esteban Umerez I'm glad it's working out for you, guys. It's been great for me, no doubt. I was actually considering that the Premium tier was overkill for me since I don't upload audio bits and nobody subscribed to the Newsletter (sigh/lol), but the changes have made me stay in the Premium tier and happily so. I've already created a second blog and I have more ideas I want to explore, so it's been a great improvement.
Simon Woods @Miraz Agreed; that is exactly the kind of news a lot of people will be happy to see. Also, as with your situation Miraz, I need to maintain separate accounts but still want to add more blogs even within those.
It's great to see Micro.blog continuing to offer so many good options for people specifically, whilst not also excluding customers who have ideas other than "general life blog".
Bob Loftin @manton the new model is saving me $10 a month. Thank you. I was happy to pay the 20, so I really appreciate what you’re doing.
Manton Reece @z428 Right, I think it's simpler for everyone not to have to worry about any add-on features that are priced separately... $1 for that, $2 for the other thing... Just a flat $5 or $10.
Khaled Abou Alfa I’ll add that I am now locked into Premium, whereas before I might have flirted with the idea that I could get by with the standard tier…not anymore. I think overall great call in the long run.
Phil Bowell I’ve upgraded to Premium since the change and plan to use some simple one page sites. It’ll probably make me consider some other things I hadn’t tired before (like the bookmarking and high lighting).
Jan Erik Moström FWIW I never felt any reason to update to Premium earlier, I don't do podcasts, I don't track my reading, I take notes in other apps, I keep bookmarks in another app, etc. But the five sites feature ... a no brainer. Currently working on a move from WP to micro.blog
Christopher Wilson Glad to hear it's working out. I could have seen it going either way but it certainly does make premium a more enticing package.
Dan Alcantara it was instrumental in my upgrading, especially as an expat with friends and family back in the states who want regular updates on us when we’re not on Facebook or Insta.