Hump Day: A Refresh Has Arrived!

[ZLTRGO]

Just now, Charles said:

Yes, that's right.

Wouldn't it be better to have a sub-forum where other people can't see your post?

[opentype]

2 hours ago, Jordan Miller said:

 it's a slight increase and hopefully nothing game changing for you. 

I knew the prices would rise with this site relaunch, but I expected more a generous correction for inflation for new orders (not renewals). But the changes are far from slight. And for people like me who have many licenses, it actually threatens my entire business, because the price change is multiplied by the number of licenses. And the new terms make it all even worse. For my oldest license, I had an upcoming renewal of $85 as the last payment in this financial year. Now that jumped to $310—well over 300%! Yes, it’s for 12 months, but I still need to pay it NOW without having earned this money through the site or even planned for it. And even if would manage with this one site, I certainly can’t manage it for 5 self-hosted licenses and their upcoming renewals. 

And it didn’t had to be this way. There is the established system of grandfathering existing prices while only charging more for new customers for example. Or it could be a slow transition that is announced a year or two in advance, so we could have prepared for it someone. Dropping these drastic price and terms changes on us like a bomb, effective and possibly charged immediately, was a bad move. 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by opentype

[Sonya*]

There are still "online visitors" instead of "page impressions" in the Frequently Asked Questions section https://invisioncommunity.com/buy 

I hoped there would be better condition for niche communities and/or multiple licenses holders. E.g. self-hosted licenses entirely without support. Or affordable monthly cloud price. 

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Sonya*

[Marc Stridgen]

6 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

There are still "online visitors" instead of "page impressions" in the Frequently Asked Questions

That looks to have been an oversight, so will get this reported

[Clover13]

My client area shows my annual renewal as 2x from what it was for every 6 months (i.e. no change)  Yet when I look at renewal pricing in the Pricing, it's actually less?  I'm totally confused at this point as to what my pricing will be.  Can someone at IPS review and PM me?

Also, not a big fan of the transition to Community Support with Priority Support skyrocketing in price.  I rarely used Priority Support, but it was a nice security blanket to have in the event of something going wrong and my site being down.  And I got it precisely because I couldn't rely on Community Support being available and actively answering questions while my site was down.  Hoping the upcoming updates to Community Support @Jordan Miller alluded to help offset this in some way, likewise assuming this will be followed more responsively by Invision Community Staff?

[Marc Stridgen]

11 minutes ago, Clover13 said:

My client area shows my annual renewal as 2x from what it was for every 6 months (i.e. no change)  Yet when I look at renewal pricing in the Pricing, it's actually less?  I'm totally confused at this point as to what my pricing will be.  Can someone at IPS review and PM me?

I can PM you if needed, but what you are seeing there is that priority support that you previously paid renewals for, is no longer on your license. This is because priority support now is actually a different product to what it previously was. So in your case, priority support was removed, then the increase applied which you see over 12 month, not 6. If you do need further information let me know and I can open a ticket with you for more detailed figures

13 minutes ago, Clover13 said:

Also, not a big fan of the transition to Community Support with Priority Support skyrocketing in price.  I rarely used Priority Support, but it was a nice security blanket to have in the event of something going wrong and my site being down.  And I got it precisely because I couldn't rely on Community Support being available and actively answering questions while my site was down.  Hoping the upcoming updates to Community Support @Jordan Miller alluded to help offset this in some way, likewise assuming this will be followed more responsively by Invision Community Staff?

You can be assured that the support areas are indeed well staffed. In fact they have been now for some time, as you can see if you take a look through those areas. The primary focus will be on our community and support with our customers through that medium. 

[Jordan Miller]

38 minutes ago, Tripp★ said:

"we want to be as transparent as possible"

So springing a wild price increase out of the blue is being as transparent as possible, is it? What utter nonsense.

Yeah I do see how it comes off like that. There was no great way to share this news. There's an email being sent out in the near future as well explaining things further. 

[ZLTRGO]

If I had known that this will happen, I would have never invested so much money into extra apps/plugins on the store ouuuuf.

Really doesn't feel good for "old" customers.

[Dll]

17 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

There was no great way to share this news. 

In advance would have been a start. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Dll

[Square Wheels]

1 hour ago, Jordan Miller said:

Respectfully disagree. 😇 I know I'm biased, but it would be cool to stick with us to see what other things we have in the works for you all. 

Again, change comes very slow, and often we get things we never asked for.  "Pay us lots of money and wait to see what you get..."  I don't think so.

I am not a happy customer at this time and still feel this was done to suit the big customers.

Moving to your online plan is not an option for me.

Like others have said, we have options, and it looks like many of us will exercise those options.

[WP V0RT3X]

The higher prices will have a big impact on the Marketplace too.

- Many ppl will leave IPS -> less sales in the MP.

- The ones that don't leave won't invest as much as before in addons.

- Less addon sales will make devs switch to other platforms.

- Less and bad supported addons will frighten new customers

(that and the high prices for the basic backage of course).

[Adriano Faria]

2 minutes ago, Darth Vortex said:

The higher prices will have a big impact on the Marketplace too.

You bet. Right now I'm not support Blogs and Gallery and I'm developing my own Tracker, which means Pages is dead for me too soon.

Resources prices probably will increase too.

[ReyDev]

6 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

You bet. Right now I'm not support Blogs and Gallery and I'm developing my own Tracker, which means Pages is dead for me too soon.

Resources prices probably will increase too.

I want to remove my some licenses. How can i do it? 

[Ramsesx]

In 2017 I paid 550$ for this:

Now it's increased near 50%, the renewal went from 190$ to 280$ / year.

For me, the price increase is still bearable, as long as my income from the forum does not drop significantly. But for hobby communities, such prices are probably harder to bear. By the way, these hobbyists are free advertising media for Invision, as they promote their product. Ultimately, new forum operators orientate themselves on the platforms in which they themselves are active. If they disappear from the market, this advertising also disappears. Another very important aspect is the existing add-ons of a forum platform provider, these are and always have been a driving force for a successful community, see vBulletin. Some developers have already spoken out about the price increases. If this price increase causes them to turn away from Invision, this will also lead to lower licence sales in the long term. So this new development could lead to a downward spiral.
I don't understand why developers as important as openfont and Adriano have to pay licence fees at all, because without them Invision would certainly not be where it is now. Without developers, without high quality addons, no customers, to put it bluntly. Just because of a few hundred dollars more revenue you risk losing everything you have built up over the years. This is not a wise decision because the developers are the be-all and end-all of any successful forum platform. 

(translated by DeepL)

[Dll]

5 minutes ago, Ramsesx said:

I don't understand why developers as important as openfont and Adriano have to pay licence fees at all, because without them Invision would certainly not be where it is now. Without developers, without high quality addons, no customers, to put it bluntly. Just because of a few hundred dollars more revenue you risk losing everything you have built up over the years. This is not a wise decision because the developers are the be-all and end-all of any successful forum platform. 

 

I agree with this. I can't see why the developers who contribute popular/numerous apps to the marketplace don't get either a discounted or free licence. Anything to encourage them to continue what they're doing would be good, as without them this product doesn't look anywhere near as appealing. 

[ZLTRGO]

2 minutes ago, Ramsesx said:

In 2017 I paid 550$ for this:

Now it's increased near 50%, the renewal went from 190$ to 280$ / year.

For me, the price increase is still bearable, as long as my income from the forum does not drop significantly. But for hobby communities, such prices are probably harder to bear. By the way, these hobbyists are free advertising media for Invision, as they promote their product. Ultimately, new forum operators orientate themselves on the platforms in which they themselves are active. If they disappear from the market, this advertising also disappears. Another very important aspect is the existing add-ons of a forum platform provider, these are and always have been a driving force for a successful community, see vBulletin. Some developers have already spoken out about the price increases. If this price increase causes them to turn away from Invision, this will also lead to lower licence sales in the long term. So this new development could lead to a downward spiral.
I don't understand why developers as important as openfont and Adriano have to pay licence fees at all, because without them Invision would certainly not be where it is now. Without developers, without high quality addons, no customers, to put it bluntly. Just because of a few hundred dollars more revenue you risk losing everything you have built up over the years. This is not a wise decision because the developers are the be-all and end-all of any successful forum platform. 

(translated by DeepL)

Kinda funny, the only reason why I have chosen Invision is because of Plugins/Apps from Adriano and DawidPi(I probably have like over 15-20+ of their plugins or so).
I'm not saying Invision is a bad Forum system, but out of the box it just lacks certain features that I really need and feel like they should be implemented by IPS themselves.

The fact that developers with a such a high amount of active apps/regular updates etc. have to pay for their licenses is in my eyes really "dumb".
Yes they earn money from it, but now with this price increase it could be a death blow for a lot of the developers ^^, maybe not instantly but definitely gradually...

If Adriano or DawidPl left this site, I could no longer update my forum to the newest version, which would also make me not renew my license and in the long run 100% move to another platform.

I feel like this will end bad, terrible in the long run.

[Adlago]

I've been wondering for a few hours whether to leave an opinion or not ...
I can accept new prices - it is clear that you have an argument for this.
But!?!
Even 4.6.6 does not offer a performance boost, especially for mobile.
Too many sites that allow Google ads - Web Vitals have desperately bad results - I don't see anything in this direction in your work, developers.
And what should owners of these sites do? Google lowers their revenue, you increase their license!
Apart from your own budget, don't you have an interest in performance improvements for your clients?
You have good enough developers and you can easily solve all the requirements for Web Vitals. Why don't you do it?

I wonder if I'm wondering, but your new site is also performing poorly

 

Your FCP and LCP results for the last few hours are deteriorating.

You have also allowed duplication ID of "elSigninButton_mobile".

https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Finvisioncommunity.com%2Fforums

In short - nothing new, but more expensive.

 

[rnorth6920]

2 hours ago, rnorth6920 said:

Great, my renewal is in 14 days. 

And to add to this, the payment will be processed on Sep 23rd or 24th based on previous renewals. So actually, I have LESS THAN 9 days notice to prepare for a payment that is more than twice my anticipated renewal costs.  100% unacceptable!

[ReyDev]

20 minutes ago, Ramsesx said:

In 2017 I paid 550$ for this:

Now it's increased near 50%, the renewal went from 190$ to 280$ / year.

For me, the price increase is still bearable, as long as my income from the forum does not drop significantly. But for hobby communities, such prices are probably harder to bear. By the way, these hobbyists are free advertising media for Invision, as they promote their product. Ultimately, new forum operators orientate themselves on the platforms in which they themselves are active. If they disappear from the market, this advertising also disappears. Another very important aspect is the existing add-ons of a forum platform provider, these are and always have been a driving force for a successful community, see vBulletin. Some developers have already spoken out about the price increases. If this price increase causes them to turn away from Invision, this will also lead to lower licence sales in the long term. So this new development could lead to a downward spiral.
I don't understand why developers as important as openfont and Adriano have to pay licence fees at all, because without them Invision would certainly not be where it is now. Without developers, without high quality addons, no customers, to put it bluntly. Just because of a few hundred dollars more revenue you risk losing everything you have built up over the years. This is not a wise decision because the developers are the be-all and end-all of any successful forum platform. 

(translated by DeepL)

I think the users of Invision should have a discount, because they choose one by comparing different platforms. As a developer, I may not have a problem with this price increase, but the customers of this platform and marketplace may leave. for me, as a new developer paying $100 more a year is not important. The problem is that platform and market customers are shrinking.

[shiobi]

Sorry but I can't afford this... it was already too expansive for us.

I have an Argentine community, so all income are in Argentine pesos (with more than 45% inflation). I literally cannot pay this amount because we cannot afford the money we raised. I don't really know what to do.

 

I will most likely need to say goodbye to Invision Community 😔

[Ramsesx]

There's an styling issue on the notification and message icons (Vivaldi / Firefox on windows) when hovering, the i-header__background overlaps the tooltip message. 

[Kjell Iver Johansen]

Could anyone explain how to not buy Blogs and Gallery in the marketplace? It is not so popular on my site.

I understand the price-increase and I do not have a problem with that personally on my two sites. But I don't like the way IPS communicate news like this. It is kind of hidden in a sort of "Hump day" stuff that suppose to be good mood humour? I don't get that part.

[Jordan Miller]

1 hour ago, Clover13 said:

Also, not a big fan of the transition to Community Support with Priority Support skyrocketing in price.  I rarely used Priority Support, but it was a nice security blanket to have in the event of something going wrong and my site being down.  And I got it precisely because I couldn't rely on Community Support being available and actively answering questions while my site was down.  Hoping the upcoming updates to Community Support @Jordan Miller alluded to help offset this in some way, likewise assuming this will be followed more responsively by Invision Community Staff?

I can see why this might be a bit ehh at first, but I've seen first-hand how many times we answer similar questions privately via email. Shifting support to the community should become super useful to free us up a little so we can focus on expanding the platform. I know, very PR-ey response but what I mentioned is what we're aiming for. We're not going to abandon you guys. 

[Charles]

1 minute ago, Kjell Iver Johansen said:

Could anyone explain how to not buy Blogs and Gallery in the marketplace? It is not so popular on my site.

I understand the price-increase and I do not have a problem with that personally on my two sites. But I don't like the way IPS communicate news like this. It is kind of hidden in a sort of "Hump day" stuff that suppose to be good mood humour? I don't get that part.

Everyone should receive an email by this time tomorrow with all the details. Remember only a small percentage of clients hang out on our site. We have thousands of clients to email.

[Jordan Miller]

10 minutes ago, Ramsesx said:

There's an styling issue on the notification and message icons (Vivaldi / Firefox on windows) when hovering, the i-header__background overlaps the tooltip message. 

 

Thanks for this ! We noticed too. We'll get it sorted asap ;]