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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 GapArt on June 27, 2011 at 2:10am

They also deleted my comments about Paid Access...

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Permalink Reply by GapArt on June 27, 2011 at 2:51am

Maybe creators should start a campaign in the hope that NING will reconsider its policies.

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Permalink Reply by Administrator☼JenSocial on June 23, 2011 at 5:08pm

All right I have heard a rumour that people who pay monthly will have to pay $10 more.

How true is this statement. Some Creators are worried over this steep priiiiiiice hike.

Is it just another rumour to add fuel to the fire or is it true?????

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Permalink Reply by JenSocial on June 23, 2011 at 5:22pm

Not sure what you mean by rumor Deb. It's an announced price increase, and what this discussion covers. So yes, the increase is correct. It's $5 more for Plus, and $10 more for Pro.

19.95 to 24.95

49.94 to 59.95

Best,

Jen

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Permalink Reply by Administrator☼JenSocial on June 23, 2011 at 9:21pm

Thanks Jen

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Permalink Reply by Magic Happens on June 23, 2011 at 8:46pm

I may had quote that price on creators or to one of my administrators. l stand corrected. It is as Jen quote it.

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Permalink Reply by Awakened Journey on June 24, 2011 at 7:23am

Disspointing also, and may just lead me to cancelling my subscription/site earlier than planned. Members already are having problems and losing favorite features. ie: they can no longer upload photos to blogs and group posts. The new photo uploads are not connecting, and the message they get is "do you want to open or save (the photo)" followed by "the publisher cannot be verified" and no photo-upload option. This is ridiculous and in today's technology/platforms seems unacceptable.

I think it would be big of Ning, not to mention consciounable, to give the first big round of us members a break and keep to a lower cost. Certainly not to raise it.

Tsk, tsk.. Ning is becoming a "greedy big corporation" mentality and word is getting around. Disappointed.

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Permalink Reply by shaun lewis on June 24, 2011 at 9:47am

Not to sound negative but it really just shows you that we really do not have any control, it's not ours and many don't make a pennie off of their site, and what if months down the road as your site continues to gain more popularity and they up the payment again and again and again ....I'm kinda bummed but it's lfe I guess. I think many will leave but with the payment going up there will be no hurt in anyones pocket but will just give more reason to update again soon Ning payments.

Watch, I bet in November it goes up to $69.00

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Permalink Reply by Garfield Creator on June 26, 2011 at 11:54am

I will speak tentatively because I have been suspended from Creators and I know Eric is a member of Jen Social. I sent him a gift in hopes I will garner goodwill and hopefully improve my chances of being reinstated.

First, I want to say Ning is great service and I have nothing bad to say about them. Everyone should be thankful for all they do and all the new features they bring us. There is nothing wrong with the price increases because the value we are getting from them is way more than we paying for.

Eric works really hard to be able to address all these issues and should be appreciated a lot more than he is on Creators. He must be under a lot of pressure so we should help him out by not complaining about the price increases or posting info about alternative services. If Eric is listening I am sorry for using a curse word to express my frustration even if it made another Creator laugh. I should have been suspended without warning. You did the right thing. I should be embarrassed and I promise I won't ever do it again.

Ning is #1. I wish everyone would stop this negativity towards Ning and just pay them.

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Permalink Reply by Garfield Creator on June 26, 2011 at 2:21pm

I myself, for the record, am fine with the price increase. I just have an issue with (and this is uncontested) "paid access" being made available approximately 5 days before yearly renewals are due. Especially when Ning seemingly having had close to a whole year to work on "Paid Access" seemed to give priority to almost every other feature other than that. I feel this now makes the population of possible "paid access" users limited to only those who can afford it and not everyone who could participate in helping to generate revenue for Ning. However, resourceful creators have not waited to come up with their own versions of paid access.

I have my own personal nickname for "Paid Access" and that is "Survival of the biggest" which I feel has already been acknowledged by Ning. If a network does not have a solid base they could be taking a $20 monthly bet on their ability to cover their costs.

(Going back to work on the Best of the Week Template)

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Permalink Reply by Writer Chick on June 26, 2011 at 4:07pm

I was one of the complainers, but it was the TIMING that set ME off. (plus the fact that a lot of the features in the "rear-view mirror" haven't benefited me very much.) I was so happy to read their updated roadmap and even left a nice comment of praise and then just a little while later this price increase is announced. Whoever is in charge of their PR lacks a sense of perfect timing. LOL

I've sent a nice whiny broadcast message (thanks to Garfield and his AWESOME Best of the Week Template) detailing about the higher fee and asking for donations. I've already had several people contact me about donating. (And, I don't deal with Paypal. I'll take their 3.4% skim and put it in my own pocket...thank you very much. LOL)