We have decided to change our prices and pricing infrastructure in 1 month’s time. Starting on March 26th, Skritter will cost $9.95/mo, you will no longer be able to purchase multiple months of Skritter service at a discount price, and billing will be done primarily via credit cards on a month-to-month basis.
If you are currently a paid user, this change in prices will only affect you when your subscription expires (e.g. if your account expires in June 2010, you will only be migrated to the new system in June). Between now and the 26th of March, existing users will still be able to buy Skritter through the old 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 month Paypal/Google Checkout payment system, but we are migrating away from the old system and so new registering users won’t have access to those payment options. If you want to continue paying with Paypal or Google Checking after March 26th, you will be able to pay for a 6 month subscription at the monthly rate.
The free trial will still be 2 weeks long, but we will require billing information during registration like Netflix, 37 Signals’ Basecamp, and World of Warcraft. Because we realize that auto billing can sometimes catch people unaware, we are continuing our 100% refund policy and we will email new users 5 days and then again 1 day prior to being billed.
We are discontinuing the use of discount coupons, so if you have such a coupon, the code on it will cease to function in 30 days. We will continue to use coupons for institutional sales, but end user coupon discounts will cease functioning.
Institutional rates will be unaffected by these changes. To date we have done our institutional pricing separately from individual pricing, and it will continue to be done that way.
There are three big reasons we are changing the billing and pricing system:
1) To increase ease of use and simplify the signup process We’ve done a lot of one-on-one usability testing, and many of the testers had difficulty understanding how much Skritter cost at a glance which led a significant number of them to believe Skritter was significantly more expensive than it really is.
2) To satisfy prospective customers People keep telling us they don’t like Paypal and Google Checkout. Since we launched we have heard from quite a few people who wanted to pay but didn’t want to use or didn’t understand Paypal and Google Checkout.
3) To satisfy existing customers Among current users, most would prefer to just use a credit card. We have been gathering data using the homepage poll about how many people want to continue paying with Google Checkout and Paypal (with and without existing balances). The results are clear: you would rather use your credit card without a third party service.
Since this is the first time we have made a big change in service, we wanted to give everyone one month’s time before making the changes. If you have more questions or would like any clarifications, drop us a line and we’ll do our best to help out.
