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WordPress.com Forums » Ideas

Please be more up front about upgrade pricing

  1. bobfet1
    Member

    I think WP.com should make it a lot easier to find the pricing for the upgrade features. The best would be if the prices were directly on the main "premium features" page that summarizes all of the paid features: http://en.wordpress.com/products/

    Right now, there is no explicit direction on how you can find this information, only prompts to sign up for a free account. This is very frustrating. Only after a fair amount of searching through the forums and support site did I learn that I needed to sign up for an account before I could see the pricing. And even if I had just signed up anyway, it wouldn't have been 100% clear where to find the prices unless I had spotted the "Upgrades" link on the blog dashboard.

    Since putting the pricing right next to the page that describes the products is fairly obvious, I'm assuming there was some decision made to put this information behind the registration wall? Whatever logic went into that, IMHO this is the wrong thing to do and makes it harder on people who are interested in the service. Just tell me the prices!

    At the very least, put a note on that page saying that you can view the pricing options when you sign up for free. This direction would still be helpful even though the more direct option would be better.

    It is just annoying and feels shady when companies hide their pricing. It feels weird when a company like Automattic does something like this, when all other indications are that it is very forward-looking and customer-focused.

  2. t3ck
    Member

    This thread has been moved to the ideas forum.

  3. 8rbkcla
    Member

    Well I spent 5 minutes looking for where this thread was moved to in the ideas forum and couldn't find it by browing or by searching for "pricing" or "upgrade".

    t3ck - perhaps you might include a link to where this discussion can be continued for the benefit of people who arrive at this page via google and aren't experts at wp.com navigation.

    So anyway, I wish to echo the comments of @bobfet1

    I have a client and i think it'd probably make sense for them to host their blog on wp.com premium. All I want is a quick sense of how much it'll cost them per year. Twenty minutes later and I still don't have an answer.

    Given the quality of the IA on the rest of wp.com, I can't believe this is an accident. What's the thinking behind making pricing hard to find?

    For me, it just comes across as shifty and I'm sure that's not the intent.

  4. timethief
    Member

    I have a client and i think it'd probably make sense for them to host their blog on wp.com premium.

    There is no such thing as wordpress.com premium hosting. Here at wordpress.com one is either (1) approved to be in and paying for VIP hosting, (2) or they have a free blog being free hosted by wordpress.com.

    (1) Anyone with a wordpress.com blog can locate the various upgrades and prices for them here > Dashboard > Upgrades.

    (2) Alternatively clicking "Upgrades" on the support documentation page one finds links to each upgrade and can click through them and locate the prices for them. http://en.support.wordpress.com/topic/upgrades/

    (3) All upgrades are per year and per blog. As such, you will need to renew upgrades after each year – and – if you have multiple blogs, you will need to purchase the upgrades for each individual blog, as necessary.

    (4) All of the same wordpress.com TOS provisions apply to any free hosted blog whether or not it has a specific upgrade or multiple upgrades. See > http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  5. booris
    Member

    I would also like to echo the comments of bobfet1 and 8rbkcla.
    Right now, the prices are hidden away in a sneaky fashion.

    I originally came here to get some numbers to present to a client in order to advocate for them moving their campaign sites to wordpress.com. Now, 15 minutes later, I still don't know the prices which is frustrating, and I've instead found a forum thread discussing the issue...

  6. thesacredpath
    Member

    Ummm, hidden?

    In your dashboard click "upgrade" in the left-hand navigation module. The prices are right there on that page in plain sight - and in bold.

    Need to know more about the upgrade? click the title of the upgrade on the upgrades page in your dashboard and you are taken to the support page which explains what the upgrade is, does and doesn't do.

  7. thesacredpath
    Member

    Of course if you don't have a blog here, you would not see the "upgrade" tab in the global dashboard. In that case I would agree... hidden.

  8. sfreeman
    Member

    I am also considering porting another hosted blog to wordpress, but the pricing isn't in the obvious place. I'm not even going to consider WP until I know what I'm in for, so I'm not going to register a name with you until I find out. If I hadn't persevered a little I wouldn't have found this discussion.

    Whoever has designed your promotional material either knows something really clever--or they don't.

  9. raincoaster
    Member

    It's the latter. I don't think WP even HAS a marketing person. All their communications people think in Geek, not English.

  10. sfreeman
    Member

    Even better, the No Ads option is not even priced on the web site. It appears that I have to set up a blog and then upgrade it to find out how much it will cost.

    Come on people, you can do better than this.

  11. raincoaster
    Member

    *
    Add a Domain
    Registration $5.00
    Mapping $9.97

    VideoPress
    The three magic words: upload, store, share.
    $59.97

    Space Upgrades
    5GB $19.97
    15GB $49.97
    25GB $89.97

    Unlimited Private Users
    $29.97

    No Ads
    http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/go-ad-free/
    $30 a year

  12. sfreeman
    Member

    Thanks. Now if they could just put all those numbers on the upgrade summary page...

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    Tell them to make me a job offer.

  14. taletellerin
    Member

    Tell them to make me a job offer.
    You rock, raincoaster!

  15. art55
    Member

    I share the disappointment and frustration expressed by others about finding pricing without signing up.

    Monetizing any product is challenging, and the highly competent team at wordpress.com certainly have built a great product (the wordpress software) and have a right to try to make a living from it. However I question if these obfuscated prices are a good tactic for doing so.

    To find clear pricing, I finally caved and started a "dummy" blog. At the same time I emailed their support.

    I was surprised to get a clear message back from support within minutes stating the pricing (no comment on my complaint about hidden pricing though...).

    As you can see in the posts above, their pricing is very reasonable for the services provided. I ended up recommending wordpress.com as one option to my relative seeking a quick blog for his business that needs to be up TODAY. But I'm also now shopping for alternatives that are more forthright in their presentation. I would not be doing so if the prices had been easily found.

    Why ? In short - wordpress.com still looks like a great product at a fair price, but I now have a bad taste in my mouth. The prices were certainly being made intentionally difficult to find. So now I'm left wondering what other little tricks someone in marketing may have up their sleeves to make my decisions more difficult....

  16. ronsrealm
    Member

    I have to agree with TT and TSP on this one - no secrets, nothing hidden.

    There isn't a problem (if you can't see Upgrades on your dashboard sidebar, expand it and all will be clear). With the sidebar minimised, it's the cog-wheel-like icon near the top, which reveals itself when you hover the cursor over it.

  17. justjennifer
    Member

    I can imagine that it is frustrating not to find upgrade pricing readily available when browsing the site. Thing is, before you can upgrade you have to sign up for a free blog. When you do that you also agree to the fascinating Terms of Service at the same time.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-started/
    http://en.wordpress.com/tos/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
    http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/

    WordPress.com is a great product(!!) at a fair price (free!) as long as you are aware that there are certain rules of the game.

    Cheers!

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