Matt

Yes. I think the changes to support will be beneficial in the longer term. I truly do. More complex issues will be moved to tickets by our team.

Ok, so if your Invision Community license expires, you can: - Update any marketplace apps that are still active but only until they expire. If you want to renewal an app, or buy new apps you need to renew your license (and if you have missed upgrades due to not having an active license, go ahead and upgrade to the latest version). Many things were updated yesterday, the site, the self hosting prices, and we launched a new range of cloud packages which offer huge increases in media storage, and we dropped the online user limit.

You do not need to give us $1000 to get support. Our peer-to-peer community-led support forums still exist. We have created new support forums which are staffed. What you experienced in the past from 'unofficial' forum support will not be representative of what support you will get now. Oh boy, I think it's only fair to tell you that I've only just reached Checkpoint 3 with Duolingo. If you need a meal ordering, or a hotel reservation booking, I can do that. But for this, I'm going to have to rely on Google translate. 😄 Ok, well - I think you're expressing your thoughts and opinions which I respect. I know Zapier isn't free but it's a popular app that can really help plug in your community to your existing workflows.

I am just illustrating the change isn't as daunting when you break it down. We're used to speaking in terms of 6 months, and now we're talking in terms of annual costs. So even if we went from $25/6 months to $50/year it feels like a big jump. I understand that for you, your support enquiries are private. But you are not illustrative of most customers. 🙂 As always, if you have account issues or something to discuss in private, then use the contact us link. I believe that we will improve support, and not take anything away with this change. We will build a support community right here, the same thing we do for our customers. You'll get full transparency as to what issues our customers face before you purchase, or even as an existing customer. You might find tips or help for issues before opening a ticket. I realise that any change is often met with resistance, but give it a while and you may be surprised. Zapier is being unlocked for self hosted customers in the next release. Drop us a message and we'll issue you a 6 months invoice. I do not want to be responsible for any soft tissue injuries in sensitive places.

I think the floodgates are open 😅 I do not enjoy reading that people are upset. We could have done better with the announcement via email, but I think whatever we did on this topic would have met with a similar reaction. I want you to know that no one is forcing you out of the door.

That's a lot to digest, I'll do my best. I think we do understand the market quite well. We live and breathe it daily. There's no revelation that smaller communities are closing or moving to social media. It's just a change, like all the other changes we've faced over the last 20 years building community platforms. I don't think it's fair to say that we haven't added any major features in the last 2 years. Our blog shows the following large features added in that timespan: Activity stream email subscriptions 3 improvements to spam management Achievements system (badges, points, rules, ranks, etc) Better PWA support including service worker and notifications where supported Zapier A new health dashboard with better reporting Highlight topics in forum view when staff reply A new solved post feature Anonymous posting Sign in with Apple Brought the marketplace into the Admin Panel Trial functionality added to commerce A new clean default theme Improvements for theme designers Page builder widgets Private staff notes on topics New view modes for forums and topic lists Topic summary sidebar ACP Dark mode Improvements to notifications Brand new stats dashboard with live updating widgets Club improvements Performance and security updates Search insight stats Stock photo picker built in Blog categories Invite and referral functionality added RSS feed improvements (including image support) And those are just the headlines. All of that functionality is available just by paying the renewal which for forums is now only $80/year. I understand that you're upset, and I read every word you wrote.

Fair points, appreciate the candour. I hear you. Maybe just give it a try? It's easy to throw out a thousand mental barriers as to why something won't work. You might actually find it a better system for most support issues. If you have an account issue or something private to discuss, just use the contact us link.

Morning Davy. You're right, it's our fault that we chose to not raise prices for over a decade and then made a decades worth of price changes overnight (well over-day but that's not a saying). Yes, the hobby market is declining for sure. Social media and other free apps have pulled a lot of business away from community platforms like ours. It's just change, and life is full of change. We want to keep creating a market leading platform that brings millions of people together. We want communities of all sizes, from boutique to brand to bring people together with our products. We are not drawing lines and saying "We're not for you". If you had the forum product, the cost of the increase is $2.50/month. I understand any increase can be hard to stomach. If your renewal is imminent and would prefer to pay for 6 months this one time, then just get in touch and we'll take care of that. We understand that people are upset and considering leaving. That's a reaction I empathise with. However, first reactions are rarely the right ones. Thanks again for your thoughtful feedback.

We absolutely care about our customers. I will be replying to as many posts as I can today. The email was queued up days ago. We had some issues with the changeover so I paused the email until we were clear they had been resolved. The email went out 4 hours after the site was put back on, which we felt was a priority so customers could get support, download updates and so on.

I don't think it would be fair to increase it again anytime soon. 🙂 In the future, we feel that smaller price increases a little more regularly will help for sure.

I want to point out that "no ticket support" isn't what we're changing. After Jan 1st 2022 (until then you can use tickets as normal) we are asking that you post in our community support forum which are actively staffed by our team who will then triage and move more complex issues into a ticket, or into our internal bug tracker. I understand your point about trust too.

I'm sorry to hear that you're thinking of leaving. I hear you on costs. Everything seems to be getting more expensive. Hosting costs keep rising, even things like Netflix creep up on you. Rising costs suck. It's the same rising costs we face every day keeping the lights on and paying our team for their hard work. I can't disagree with any of that. 🙂 I understand that in the past forum support has been peer-to-peer and we've been very firm that we only offer 'real' support in tickets - so I totally get that now we're saying 'use the forum and let us decide what needs to be a ticket' is a big change and we have to prove that this will not result in a bad experience for everyone. We've already got a head start on this, if you check out the support forums now you'll see our team super active in there. I appreciate your honest feedback, thank you.

They are certainly welcome to do that. It's hard to get traction on a new site and harder to build trust to sell items which is why we put so much effort into our marketplace and putting it front and central in the Admin Panel where tens of thousands of community administrators can browse for new add-ons. You can keep getting updates from third party apps until those third party apps expire, regardless of your Invision Community license situation.

Thanks for the feedback. I realise the annual change is a lot to digest but once we get past the first renewal, I feel an annual renewal makes more sense. It's less to think about, fewer invoices, and fewer payments to make. I understand the shock of seeing $25 every 6 months to $80 a year. It's a big leap in numbers. The truth is that the $25 renewal fee that was set in 2005 was just barely covering a single ticket, let alone development time. Keeping in mind that we do not charge a new license fee for every major release, even $80 a year (or to go back to 6-month thinking $40 every 6 months) is still good value when you consider that you are getting a market leading platform that gets new functionality added very regularly. Broken down monthly, it's $6.66 a month for a market leading platform with rapid support when you need it. We should have increased the price annually to keep track with inflation - which has eroded nearly 30% from the dollar value over the past 15 years or so. Simply put, that $25 renewal is worth 30% less just because the cost of living (and thus our running costs) have increased. We haven't removed support. As above, we will keep your ticket access until Jan 1st 2022 (or if your current license renewal expires later, then when your renewal expires). The support forum is now staffed and your request will be triaged to get you the best help in the fastest way.

100% not, no. You have until January 1st 2022 to keep using email ticket support. After that, simply drop your support needs in our support forum where our staffed team will triage them. We understand that some support issues are complex and require us logging into check data, etc. so tickets will still be very much in use for this.

You absolutely do not need to pay $1250 to have a bug fixed. You keep email ticket support until 1st Jan 2022. We ensured that all current license holders had months to adjust to how to get support. So things carry on as normal for you with regards to support. In the future, you would just post it in the support forum and our team will take care of it. If you check out the support forums now you will see that virtually every single topic has a team response, and many of the topics have had the topic converted into a ticket for a developer to examine and communicate with you. You do not need to spend $1250 to ask us questions. We are right here on the forum or if you want to raise something in private, please use the contact us link. If you need support, please use the ticket system as normal. After Jan 1st 2022, you can reach us in the support forum. If you need to share private information, just state that and we'll convert it into a ticket for you. We are not removing support, just changing how to get it. We are not removing support, just changing how you get it after 1st January 2022. Take a look at our support forums now, you will see very fast responses from our team. We are staffing the support forums to ensure that no question is missed. Release cadence is relative. We are making more regular releases and are now dropping into a monthly release schedule with new features being released within them. We are no longer holding up major releases for 9 months. We want to create a support community that benefits you as the customer. Our staff will read every single topic posted and triage them into either tickets, our internal bug tracker or drop an answer if they think that will be the best approach. We are not removing support, we are not removing the ability to talk to us, we are not removing the ability to get help. We are just changing how you get it. Absolutely never submit logs. After January 1st 2022, just post a topic with a brief overview, let us know you have data to share and we'll convert it into a ticket. We can even delete your topic if you request it. If it's really private, then you can use the contact us link. We are not removing support. I know I'm repeating myself, but I wanted to reply to as many people as possible. Priority support is different from the ticket support license holders get. As above, you have until Jan 1st 2022 (or when your license renews if renews past that date) to use tickets as normal. After that, the support forum is monitored and triaged by staff. Zapier is available to self-hosting customers. $80/6 months is $160 a year. That's a $90 increase. You do get support. I would not even call it basic. You have tickets until Jan 1st 2022, and then triage via the support forums. These forums are staffed, you can already see this by looking in the support forums. As above, support has not gone or being taken away. We want to build a rich support community here on our own forums. Most support tickets are simply "how do I do this" type questions. If these are visible on the forum, then it is more likely that you will find your answer before having to open a ticket and wait for a reply. If the support issue you have is more involved, we will convert it into a ticket for you. This is what is already happening on the support forums. Hi Tom, I looked at your account and I can only apologise for giving you a heart attack. The renewal cost of $235 is actually wrong. The rebuild we ran to recalculate prices did not account for cancelled apps. I've re-run the rebuild and your renewal price has now gone from $120/year to $175/year - an increase of $4.58 a month. To others who have seen double prices, please go and check your client area. It's likely you also had cancelled products that have been incorrectly folded into the renewal cost preview.

Added to our tracker, thanks.

Happy for you to stick in a ticket my friend. I'll take a look on your install.