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Ning Announces Price Increase - June 21, 2011

Ning Plus and Pro Pricing Increase

Just announced by Ning's CEO Jason Rosenthal, effective after July 20, 2011, Ning's Pro and Plus Subscription Plans will increase. You will have the opportunity to purchase your plans on an Annual basis to maintain the current pricing.
The new pricing will be:

According to Jason, Ning has added all kinds of new features in the past year, with major investments for an improved platform, better platform performance - - making Ning subscriptions more valuable.

He mentions the following features that have been implemented this past year:

Ning Design Studio, Social Sign-in, Leaderboards, Like Buttons and Ning Everywhere.

He then talks about the "up and coming" "Paid Access", which will enable Ning Network Creators to charge for membership for a Network or Special Content. Ning Network Creators may take issue or be confused with the mention of the "Paid Access" module in this announcement. There's an additional monthly fee to activate the new module when it's available: $19.95. It's not included in the "more valuable subscription" features.

Mr. Rosenthal completes the announcement with comments about the upcoming Activity Feed that will offer better member engagement.

My immediate thoughts are:

The new Activity Feed rocks, no doubt about it. Ning Members can add Status Updates from the home page, comment on other member's Status Updates, make comments on Photos, Videos, etc...play videos inline, and more.
The other new Features are great too. There's no denying it.
The platform has hit an all time high on uptime, instead of downtime, at about 99% uptime according to Ning.

But here are the questions:

How will Ning Network Creators react?
Is Ning soon to be the platform of choice for the larger player? Is it becoming too cost prohibitive for smaller business?
What do you think?

To be fair, I'll tell you all what I feel about the increase, in a little more detail:

I feel it's a bit too sudden for some NCs. And I feel the "paid access" should be included. Aside from those I'm okay with it - - especially if we continue to receive a stronger and better product. But, would I be okay with yearly increases? Absolutely not.

Ning provides a phone number for anyone who has questions about this upcoming change. Jason encourages you to give them a ring at 888-278-4386 if you are located in the U.S. or Canada, or 650-713-3158 if you are located outside of these countries.

Join the Conversation...

See original announcement on Creators

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on June 22, 2011 at 2:20pm

Fantasyland,

No, once available, it's considered an add-on. You are not required to subscribe to the add-on.

Best,

Jen

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Permalink Reply by RV Campers on June 22, 2011 at 1:34am

This sounds like the way Micro$oft does things. You have pay for every 'upgrade', whether you like it or not, at least with M$ you can stay with the old system. Is Ning not counting volume increases to gain more money? I wonder if they are trying to hedge for losing members? Anybody know the numbers? They came up with the 'get your members to pay idea to fool you into going along. Now you will start losing members. They're betting you have too much work, time, and BS&T into your Ning network to quit.

Bottom line, they will use the age old excuse when a company 'hurts' the customer or employee ..."Hey, I'm trying to run a Business here!" IMHO

MJB

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Permalink Reply by Tips by Alex/JenSocial on June 22, 2011 at 7:58am

+1, I personally hate M$.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Halbert on June 22, 2011 at 2:37am

I cannot understand how Ning can justify charging us $20 per month for access to PayPal

particularly because PayPal provides the service for all website owners on terms here https://www.paypal.com/za/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-overview-...

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Permalink Reply by Tips by Alex/JenSocial on June 22, 2011 at 8:12am

I just fire a bug in help center and then I know why they need to increase the price.

They have national and International Customer Service Calls! Is that 24hrs? Anyone try and have good experience? Don't know the international call can speak Chinese or not? LOL

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Permalink Reply by YouBihar on June 22, 2011 at 10:17am

These people are arm twisting into handing money to them. Either cough up or forget your network.

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Permalink Reply by Mike on June 22, 2011 at 1:07pm

I for one thing the paid access add-on makes sense as being a separate paid feature, at least when considering the history of Ning. Many networks will likely never need nor want to charge for paid access and so will never use the system but the programming and labor had to be paid for from somewhere. Make those who use it pay makes sense. There seems to be a double standard coming from some of the complaints here, wanting Ning to charge a fee per each feature so that they dont' have to pay for what they don't use, but then in the same paragraph they complain when Ning goes and does just that, offer a paid service for something that not every network will use. See the hypocrisy there?

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Permalink Reply by JenSocial on June 22, 2011 at 1:59pm

Since I've shared my thoughts on this, I'm not going to respond much more. But, for what it's worth - - I am reading the comments because I'm interested in how you all feel about this. I mostly wanted to make a place for you to feel comfortable to speak freely about your thoughts on the new price increase.

Best Regards,

Jen

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Permalink Reply by www.overtone.cc - Jens on June 22, 2011 at 3:51pm

Actually I am not willing to pay this increase. Why? Because your staff ignored that the event calendar needs an upgrade since more than one a year and longer. The NING Help Center tickets are full of standard replies and do not match the key if I report tickets. One ticket about a music player issue is still open since April 2011 - that's not what I like to support. My site is a "stands by for it own" Ning site - I am network creator since July 2007 and now it is really too much ... how they are handling with us. I didn't receive any announcements diretly via email - just a forum post and a backlink in the dashboard ... that 's unprofessional.

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Permalink Reply by shadowradio on June 22, 2011 at 4:43pm

thats why wall.fm is better real people responding to real issues

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Permalink Reply by www.overtone.cc - Jens on June 23, 2011 at 5:26am

Thanks for this hint.

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Permalink Reply by Magic Happens on June 23, 2011 at 8:52am

Well moving to another place may sound goo but are they good? Do anyone have information about this?

I remember last year everyone --well not everyone-- went to spruz.com and after a short time it was not free like they stated in the beginning and even cut back the members you are permitted to have for free. Then the next step was a paid plan. So l would think other network will be doing the same, get us there then slap us with some disappointing news.