# help us decide about a price hike for beeminder premium plans **URL:** \ **Category:** uncategorized\ **Created:** [July 10, 2014, 7:05am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512 "2014-07-10T07:05:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 7:05am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/1 "2014-07-10T07:05:27Z")
Hi fellow Akratics, Guess what! We want to increase the prices for the Beeminder premium plans. Don’t worry, we’ll grandfather existing premium people (hurry!). It’s been over a year since we first introduced them and a whole bunch more yumminess has been added (to premium plans, and Beeminder in general). [1] You all seem to like Beeminder so much that we thought we’d ask for your help in deciding how to do this. Currently the premium plans are like this (or look at [beeminder.com/premium](http://beeminder.com/premium) if you’re signed in to Beeminder): Bee Lite ($5/mo): custom goals, configurable retrorratchet, tips of the day Plan Bee ($10/mo): unlimited freebees, autoratchet Beemium ($25/mo): free shortcircuiting, access to our devel chatroom (realtime support) Beekeeper ($200/mo): your own actual human And here’s what we’re thinking of announcing: Bee Lite: $8/mo Plan Bee: $16/mo Beemium: $32/mo Beekeeper: $256/mo What do you think? Thanks everyone! Danny and Bethany and the rest of the Bee Team [1] Since we introduced premium plans Beeminder in general got: Zeno polling, new integrations (Duolingo, Jawbone, Draft, Code School), much of the Android awesomeness, new world order! (precommit-to-recommit), pessimistic presumptive reports, scheduled breaks, supporters, and literally hundreds of small improvements. Bee Lite in particular got configurable retroratchet a while back, which just got better this weekend with the ability to retroratchet to any amount of safety buffer including making today an eep day. Plan Bee just got the ability to change your URLs (which we have mixed feelings about since we hate broken links, but for Plan Bee people, ok). And Beemium is now the only way to shortcircuit the pledge schedule (we got rid of the ability to pay to shortcircuit a while ago). We’re also about to add a default minimum pledge in account settings for Beemium people, since a big draw of Beemium is making sure you always have motivating amounts pledged. – [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://"Daniel Reeves" Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) ---
**Author:** ![cremoer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/cremoer/32/3600_2.png) [@cremoer](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/cremoer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/2 "2014-07-10T12:39:39Z")
Hi Daniel, I think the whole general improvements you did are not so interesting for the pricing for the premium users. Because you did them anyway, and in the end they are paid by all users which derail, and should not only be paid by the premium users (unless you have only premium users 🙂 ) Apart from that you have to decide yourself, if an increasement of 60% within one year is a fair rate… I don’t mind, I’m grandfathered 😉 (hopefully also in the case I decide to pay the rest of the fee for a lifetime membership) Another aspect is, that there are many apps with a monthly payment, like evernote, trello and so on. They all cost 5 bucks per month, and 8$ sounds a little bit high… Oh, you know, beeminder is a little bit expensive… I hear the people say down in the streets 😉 Only my humble opinion… Have a nice day! Best wishes from good ol’ Germany – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Rob\_Felty](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/rob_felty/32/678_2.png) [@Rob\_Felty](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Rob_Felty)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:59pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/3 "2014-07-10T12:59:11Z")
I would get rid of the plan bee level, to simplify pricing. Maybe move one feature up and one down. Then you can better justify the bee lite increase, and hopefully get more beemium users – sent from my phone On Jul 10, 2014, at 6:39, “Kay Krämer” [cremoer71@googlemail.com](mailto:cremoer71@googlemail.com) wrote: Hi Daniel, I think the whole general improvements you did are not so interesting for the pricing for the premium users. Because you did them anyway, and in the end they are paid by all users which derail, and should not only be paid by the premium users (unless you have only premium users 🙂 ) Apart from that you have to decide yourself, if an increasement of 60% within one year is a fair rate… I don’t mind, I’m grandfathered 😉 (hopefully also in the case I decide to pay the rest of the fee for a lifetime membership) Another aspect is, that there are many apps with a monthly payment, like evernote, trello and so on. They all cost 5 bucks per month, and 8$ sounds a little bit high… Oh, you know, beeminder is a little bit expensive… I hear the people say down in the streets 😉 Only my humble opinion… Have a nice day! Best wishes from good ol’ Germany – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![cremoer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/cremoer/32/3600_2.png) [@cremoer](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/cremoer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/4 "2014-07-10T13:12:23Z")
Bad idea! 🙂 Am Donnerstag, 10. Juli 2014 14:59:13 UTC+2 schrieb robfelty: > I would get rid of the plan bee level, to simplify pricing. Maybe move one > feature up and one down. Then you can better justify the bee lite increase, > and hopefully get more beemium users > > – sent from my phone > > On Jul 10, 2014, at 6:39, “Kay Krämer” \<[crem...@googlemail.com](mailto:crem...@googlemail.com) > \\> wrote: > > Hi Daniel, > > I think the whole general improvements you did are not so interesting for > the pricing for the premium users. > Because you did them anyway, and in the end they are paid by all users > which derail, and should not only be paid by the premium users (unless you > have only premium users 🙂 ) > > Apart from that you have to decide yourself, if an increasement of 60% > within one year is a fair rate… I don’t mind, I’m grandfathered 😉 > (hopefully also in the case I decide to pay the rest of the fee for a > lifetime membership) > > Another aspect is, that there are many apps with a monthly payment, like > evernote, trello and so on. They all cost 5 bucks per month, and 8$ sounds > a little bit high… Oh, you know, beeminder is a little bit expensive… I > hear the people say down in the streets 😉 Only my humble opinion… > > Have a nice day! > > Best wishes from good ol’ Germany > > – > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [akratics+u...@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+u...@googlegroups.com) \. > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Rob\_Felty](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/rob_felty/32/678_2.png) [@Rob\_Felty](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Rob_Felty)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/5 "2014-07-10T14:11:18Z")
why is it a bad idea? On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 7:12 AM, Kay Krämer [cremoer71@googlemail.com](mailto:cremoer71@googlemail.com) wrote: > Bad idea! 🙂 > > Am Donnerstag, 10. Juli 2014 14:59:13 UTC+2 schrieb robfelty: > > > I would get rid of the plan bee level, to simplify pricing. Maybe move > > one feature up and one down. Then you can better justify the bee lite > > increase, and hopefully get more beemium users > > > > – sent from my phone > > > > On Jul 10, 2014, at 6:39, “Kay Krämer” [crem...@googlemail.com](mailto:crem...@googlemail.com) wrote: > > > > Hi Daniel, > > > > I think the whole general improvements you did are not so interesting for > > the pricing for the premium users. > > Because you did them anyway, and in the end they are paid by all users > > which derail, and should not only be paid by the premium users (unless you > > have only premium users 🙂 ) > > > > Apart from that you have to decide yourself, if an increasement of 60% > > within one year is a fair rate… I don’t mind, I’m grandfathered 😉 > > (hopefully also in the case I decide to pay the rest of the fee for a > > lifetime membership) > > > > Another aspect is, that there are many apps with a monthly payment, like > > evernote, trello and so on. They all cost 5 bucks per month, and 8$ sounds > > a little bit high… Oh, you know, beeminder is a little bit expensive… I > > hear the people say down in the streets 😉 Only my humble opinion… > > > > Have a nice day! > > > > Best wishes from good ol’ Germany > > > > – > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to [akratics+u...@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+u...@googlegroups.com). > > > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). > > > > – > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![kkyang](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/kkyang/32/108_2.png) [@kkyang](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/kkyang)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/6 "2014-07-10T14:48:49Z")
So if I’m at bee lite for $5 a month and decide down the line I want to upgrade to plan bee, would I need to pay the new price? Thanks! On Thursday, July 10, 2014 3:05:28 AM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > Hi fellow Akratics, > > Guess what! We want to increase the prices for the Beeminder premium > plans. Don’t worry, we’ll grandfather existing premium people > (hurry!). It’s been over a year since we first introduced them and a > whole bunch more yumminess has been added (to premium plans, and > Beeminder in general). [1] You all seem to like Beeminder so much that > we thought we’d ask for your help in deciding how to do this. > > Currently the premium plans are like this (or look at > [premium – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/premium) if you’re signed in to Beeminder): > > Bee Lite ($5/mo): custom goals, configurable retrorratchet, tips of the > day > Plan Bee ($10/mo): unlimited freebees, autoratchet > Beemium ($25/mo): free shortcircuiting, access to our devel chatroom > (realtime support) > Beekeeper ($200/mo): your own actual human > > And here’s what we’re thinking of announcing: > > Bee Lite: $8/mo > Plan Bee: $16/mo > Beemium: $32/mo > Beekeeper: $256/mo > > What do you think? > > Thanks everyone! > Danny and Bethany and the rest of the Bee Team > > [1] Since we introduced premium plans Beeminder in general got: Zeno > polling, new integrations (Duolingo, Jawbone, Draft, Code School), > much of the Android awesomeness, new world order! > (precommit-to-recommit), pessimistic presumptive reports, scheduled > breaks, supporters, and literally hundreds of small improvements. > > Bee Lite in particular got configurable retroratchet a while back, > which just got better this weekend with the ability to retroratchet to > any amount of safety buffer including making today an eep day. > > Plan Bee just got the ability to change your URLs (which we have mixed > feelings about since we hate broken links, but for Plan Bee people, > ok). > > And Beemium is now the only way to shortcircuit the pledge schedule > (we got rid of the ability to pay to shortcircuit a while ago). We’re > also about to add a default minimum pledge in account settings for > Beemium people, since a big draw of Beemium is making sure you always > have motivating amounts pledged. > > – > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![cremoer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/cremoer/32/3600_2.png) [@cremoer](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/cremoer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/7 "2014-07-10T16:46:17Z")
Because I use this plan! 😃 – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/8 "2014-07-10T19:36:23Z")
Hey Kenny and Kay, good question! The simple way for us to implement this would have you paying the new price if you switched frequency. My instinct is to call that fine since (1) eternal grandfathering for people who just want to stick to what they have feels quite generous and (2) switching to lifetime means a pretty huge discount – [Exquisitely Fair Pre-Pay Discounts | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/fair) – so it should save money even at the new prices. If you have the opposite instinct, that that would feel frustrating or at all slap-in-the-face-y, we’ll reconsider that. Oh, and more to the point: even if you sign up or upgrade or switch to yearly or lifetime today you’re still grandfathered. It’s not just people already premium before I started this thread. That’s in fact part of the point of this, to induce lots of y’all to sign up for premium now while it’s cheap rather than procrastinating indefinitely as akratics are wont to do. 🙂 [premium – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/premium) One more item for consideration: What if we added a Fuzzy Buzzy plan at $2/mo (less than 7 cents a day!) with the only perk being the warm fuzzy feeling of supporting Beeminder (maybe also tips of the day)? On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 7:48 AM, Kenny Yang [yangkennyk@gmail.com](mailto:yangkennyk@gmail.com) wrote: > So if I’m at bee lite for $5 a month and decide down the line I want to > upgrade to plan bee, would I need to pay the new price? > > Thanks! > > On Thursday, July 10, 2014 3:05:28 AM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > > > Hi fellow Akratics, > > > > Guess what! We want to increase the prices for the Beeminder premium > > plans. Don’t worry, we’ll grandfather existing premium people > > (hurry!). It’s been over a year since we first introduced them and a > > whole bunch more yumminess has been added (to premium plans, and > > Beeminder in general). [1] You all seem to like Beeminder so much that > > we thought we’d ask for your help in deciding how to do this. > > > > Currently the premium plans are like this (or look at > > [premium – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/premium) if you’re signed in to Beeminder): > > > > Bee Lite ($5/mo): custom goals, configurable retrorratchet, tips of the > > day > > Plan Bee ($10/mo): unlimited freebees, autoratchet > > Beemium ($25/mo): free shortcircuiting, access to our devel chatroom > > (realtime support) > > Beekeeper ($200/mo): your own actual human > > > > And here’s what we’re thinking of announcing: > > > > Bee Lite: $8/mo > > Plan Bee: $16/mo > > Beemium: $32/mo > > Beekeeper: $256/mo > > > > What do you think? > > > > Thanks everyone! > > Danny and Bethany and the rest of the Bee Team > > > > [1] Since we introduced premium plans Beeminder in general got: Zeno > > polling, new integrations (Duolingo, Jawbone, Draft, Code School), > > much of the Android awesomeness, new world order! > > (precommit-to-recommit), pessimistic presumptive reports, scheduled > > breaks, supporters, and literally hundreds of small improvements. > > > > Bee Lite in particular got configurable retroratchet a while back, > > which just got better this weekend with the ability to retroratchet to > > any amount of safety buffer including making today an eep day. > > > > Plan Bee just got the ability to change your URLs (which we have mixed > > feelings about since we hate broken links, but for Plan Bee people, > > ok). > > > > And Beemium is now the only way to shortcircuit the pledge schedule > > (we got rid of the ability to pay to shortcircuit a while ago). We’re > > also about to add a default minimum pledge in account settings for > > Beemium people, since a big draw of Beemium is making sure you always > > have motivating amounts pledged. > > > > – > > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) > > – > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) ---
**Author:** ![drmaciver](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/drmaciver/32/80_2.png) [@drmaciver](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/drmaciver)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/9 "2014-07-10T19:48:26Z")
On 10 July 2014 21:36, Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) wrote: > One more item for consideration: What if we added a Fuzzy Buzzy plan > at $2/mo (less than 7 cents a day!) with the only perk being the warm > fuzzy feeling of supporting Beeminder (maybe also tips of the day)? So one problem I think is that honestly the premium plans all mostly feel like this anyway. You’ve built a really good service that I like a lot… the problem is that basically all the things I like are present in the free plan, and everything added by the premium plans is pretty uninteresting on top of that. (OTOH you’ve reminded me that I do like the service enough to support it more than the measly $5/month I was paying, so I’ve upgraded my account anyway) Obviously this is massive backseat driving and you should feel free to ignore everything I say, especially as I have literally no idea what your user patterns look like, but I rather feel like you might be better off removing functionality from the free plan into the bee lite plan than raising the prices on the premium ones. – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/10 "2014-07-10T20:52:01Z")
This is super valuable feedback! Let me quote ourselves from [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium) (under “No Carrots For You”): Seriously, we are all about the stick. We do not intend to hold important features as dangling carrots. Premium plans are still an experiment but we’re committed to keeping the non-premium Beeminder a highly functional tool for maximizing the awesomeness of humans prone to procrastination and other forms of akrasia. In fact, the only things that we’re going to charge for are: 1. Features that directly thwart our revenue model, i.e., unlimited freebees and free short-circuiting (or in the future: choosing the beneficiary of your commitment contract [1]) 2. Things that may confuse newbees (we’re not sure yet whether customizable retroratcheting and auto-ratcheting fall in this category) 3. Goodies that are incidental to the process of beeminding, like fitness tips 4. Things that cost us money to provide (we may make the SMS bot a premium feature for this reason) I hope I didn’t overcommit us with that. I no longer think that “the free version of Beeminder must be a fully functional anti-akrasia tool” is an important principle. I might like the idea that anyone who’s at all serious about Beeminder should be premium, which is obviously not the case now. In any case, here’s a list of possible current features to make premium: 1. SMS bot (HT dyang) 2. Retroratchet 3. Take A Break 4. fancy data nerd features like turquoise swath and moving average line (HT Paul Fenwick) 5. private graphs 6. [widgets – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/widgets) 7. weaselproofing 8. no-mercy recommit 9. auto-quit 10. fine print 11. supporters 12. panic threshold 13. goal unit rescaling And here are potential future premium features: 1. choose a beneficiary or at least charity percentage 2. zeno SMS (could also think about international SMS, which costs more and has to be set up for each country in twilio) 3. super exclusive google group (maybe akratics anonymous could become that after moving to discourse?) 4. expose more advanced settings 5. weasel-immunity (opposite of weaselproofing, where you can self-service cancel charges and undo recommit) 6. expose more advanced settings 7. profile badges? (HT dyang) 8. early access to new features? (HT dyang) [1] [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium/#BEN) On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 12:48 PM, David MacIver [david@drmaciver.com](mailto:david@drmaciver.com) wrote: > On 10 July 2014 21:36, Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) wrote: > > > One more item for consideration: What if we added a Fuzzy Buzzy plan > > at $2/mo (less than 7 cents a day!) with the only perk being the warm > > fuzzy feeling of supporting Beeminder (maybe also tips of the day)? > > So one problem I think is that honestly the premium plans all mostly feel > like this anyway. > > You’ve built a really good service that I like a lot… the problem is that > basically all the things I like are present in the free plan, and everything > added by the premium plans is pretty uninteresting on top of that. > > (OTOH you’ve reminded me that I do like the service enough to support it > more than the measly $5/month I was paying, so I’ve upgraded my account > anyway) > > Obviously this is massive backseat driving and you should feel free to > ignore everything I say, especially as I have literally no idea what your > user patterns look like, but I rather feel like you might be better off > removing functionality from the free plan into the bee lite plan than > raising the prices on the premium ones. > > – > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) ---
**Author:** ![alice](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/alice/32/43_2.png) [@alice](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/alice)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/11 "2014-07-10T21:33:49Z")
1. how much does that cost us? 2. what, no, everyone needs to retroratchet 3. what, no, everyone needs to take breaks 4. +1 5. +1 but do provide a reasonable reason for this 6. i dunno, i feel like we would rather encourage more widget use 7. what, no, there should not be barriers to weaselproofing 8. what, no, there should generally not be barriers to basic anti-akrasia things like this 9. +1 10. what, no, we should combine title and slug and description and fine print into just title and fine print 11. maybe? eesh. feels like a barrier. but maybe. 12. noooo. we blame ourselves for beeminder not having sufficiently effective reminders for anyone; this proposes becoming even more blame-worthy 13. only if it’s falling under “general tricky tools” 14. shrug. brains are weird. 15. +1 16. shrug, brains keep being weird 17. what, no, refactor settings to make them less advanced 18. +1 19. what, no, refactor settings to make them less advanced 20. wut 21. brains are so weird On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 1:52 PM, Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) wrote: > This is super valuable feedback! Let me quote ourselves from > [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium) (under “No Carrots For You”): > > Seriously, we are all about the stick. We do not intend to hold > important features as dangling carrots. Premium plans are still an > experiment but we’re committed to keeping the non-premium Beeminder a > highly functional tool for maximizing the awesomeness of humans prone > to procrastination and other forms of akrasia. In fact, the only > things that we’re going to charge for are: > > 1. Features that directly thwart our revenue model, i.e., unlimited > freebees and free short-circuiting (or in the future: choosing the > beneficiary of your commitment contract [1]) > 2. Things that may confuse newbees (we’re not sure yet whether > customizable retroratcheting and auto-ratcheting fall in this > category) > 3. Goodies that are incidental to the process of beeminding, like fitness > tips > 4. Things that cost us money to provide (we may make the SMS bot a > premium feature for this reason) > > I hope I didn’t overcommit us with that. I no longer think that “the > free version of Beeminder must be a fully functional anti-akrasia > tool” is an important principle. I might like the idea that anyone > who’s at all serious about Beeminder should be premium, which is > obviously not the case now. In any case, here’s a list of possible > current features to make premium: > > 1. SMS bot (HT dyang) > 2. Retroratchet > 3. Take A Break > 4. fancy data nerd features like turquoise swath and moving average > line (HT Paul Fenwick) > 5. private graphs > 6. [widgets – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/widgets) > 7. weaselproofing > 8. no-mercy recommit > 9. auto-quit > 10. fine print > 11. supporters > 12. panic threshold > 13. goal unit rescaling > > And here are potential future premium features: > > 1. choose a beneficiary or at least charity percentage > 2. zeno SMS (could also think about international SMS, which costs > more and has to be set up for each country in twilio) > 3. super exclusive google group (maybe akratics anonymous could > become that after moving to discourse?) > 4. expose more advanced settings > 5. weasel-immunity (opposite of weaselproofing, where you can > self-service cancel charges and undo recommit) > 6. expose more advanced settings > 7. profile badges? (HT dyang) > 8. early access to new features? (HT dyang) > > [1] [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium/#BEN) > > On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 12:48 PM, David MacIver [david@drmaciver.com](mailto:david@drmaciver.com) > wrote: > > > On 10 July 2014 21:36, Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) wrote: > > > > > One more item for consideration: What if we added a Fuzzy Buzzy plan > > > at $2/mo (less than 7 cents a day!) with the only perk being the warm > > > fuzzy feeling of supporting Beeminder (maybe also tips of the day)? > > > > So one problem I think is that honestly the premium plans all mostly feel > > like this anyway. > > > > You’ve built a really good service that I like a lot… the problem is > > that > > basically all the things I like are present in the free plan, and > > everything > > added by the premium plans is pretty uninteresting on top of that. > > > > (OTOH you’ve reminded me that I do like the service enough to support it > > more than the measly $5/month I was paying, so I’ve upgraded my account > > anyway) > > > > Obviously this is massive backseat driving and you should feel free to > > ignore everything I say, especially as I have literally no idea what your > > user patterns look like, but I rather feel like you might be better off > > removing functionality from the free plan into the bee lite plan than > > raising the prices on the premium ones. > > > > – > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). > > – > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) > > – > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![drmaciver](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/drmaciver/32/80_2.png) [@drmaciver](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/drmaciver)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/12 "2014-07-10T21:46:32Z")
One relatively simple option for saying “Look, we’re sorry, we changed our minds on how well we can sustain this free thing” is: 1. Provide a new “limited” free account with a reduced feature set 2. Grandfather in everyone who currently has a free account as being able to keep it in its current state 3. Say “we’re willing to honour our previous commitment to providing an unlimited free account if you’re really upset for whatever reason that we’re not. Email us and we’ll upgrade you to an unlimited version of the free account, no questions asked (well, maybe questions asked, but we’ll do it regardless of what you answer) - it’ll still lack some of the premium features but it’ll behave like the old free accounts” In terms of premium features which would push people to upgrade… have you considered limiting the number of things you can beemind at once with free accounts (I know you do this for freebees, but I’m thinking even with pledges)? e.g. I’d consider anyone who has 10 beeminder goals is probably getting enough benefit out of it that they should really consider a premium. Maybe the same is true of anyone with 5? I’ve no idea what the right threshold here is. You’d be better placed than me to know what the goal count distribution is like. (again, obviously feel free to ignore all of this, you know your business and customers better than I do). I don’t have a strong opinion on making any of those features premium only except one: I’m already a little bothered by graphs being public by default. It would make me really uncomfortable to have to pay for them to be private (even though I don’t currently have any graphs I care about being private. The possibility of privacy is important to varying degrees to different people and I think it’s important not to punish people who need it more). Take a break also seems a bit harsh to make premium. I’d probably feel more strongly about it if I’d actually used it. On 10 July 2014 22:52, Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) wrote: > This is super valuable feedback! Let me quote ourselves from > [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium) (under “No Carrots For You”): > > Seriously, we are all about the stick. We do not intend to hold > important features as dangling carrots. Premium plans are still an > experiment but we’re committed to keeping the non-premium Beeminder a > highly functional tool for maximizing the awesomeness of humans prone > to procrastination and other forms of akrasia. In fact, the only > things that we’re going to charge for are: > > 1. Features that directly thwart our revenue model, i.e., unlimited > freebees and free short-circuiting (or in the future: choosing the > beneficiary of your commitment contract [1]) > 2. Things that may confuse newbees (we’re not sure yet whether > customizable retroratcheting and auto-ratcheting fall in this > category) > 3. Goodies that are incidental to the process of beeminding, like fitness > tips > 4. Things that cost us money to provide (we may make the SMS bot a > premium feature for this reason) > > I hope I didn’t overcommit us with that. I no longer think that “the > free version of Beeminder must be a fully functional anti-akrasia > tool” is an important principle. I might like the idea that anyone > who’s at all serious about Beeminder should be premium, which is > obviously not the case now. In any case, here’s a list of possible > current features to make premium: > > 1. SMS bot (HT dyang) > 2. Retroratchet > 3. Take A Break > 4. fancy data nerd features like turquoise swath and moving average > line (HT Paul Fenwick) > 5. private graphs > 6. [widgets – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/widgets) > 7. weaselproofing > 8. no-mercy recommit > 9. auto-quit > 10. fine print > 11. supporters > 12. panic threshold > 13. goal unit rescaling > > And here are potential future premium features: > > 1. choose a beneficiary or at least charity percentage > 2. zeno SMS (could also think about international SMS, which costs > more and has to be set up for each country in twilio) > 3. super exclusive google group (maybe akratics anonymous could > become that after moving to discourse?) > 4. expose more advanced settings > 5. weasel-immunity (opposite of weaselproofing, where you can > self-service cancel charges and undo recommit) > 6. expose more advanced settings > 7. profile badges? (HT dyang) > 8. early access to new features? (HT dyang) > > [1] [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium/#BEN) > > On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 12:48 PM, David MacIver [david@drmaciver.com](mailto:david@drmaciver.com) > wrote: > > > On 10 July 2014 21:36, Daniel Reeves [dreeves@beeminder.com](mailto:dreeves@beeminder.com) wrote: > > > > > One more item for consideration: What if we added a Fuzzy Buzzy plan > > > at $2/mo (less than 7 cents a day!) with the only perk being the warm > > > fuzzy feeling of supporting Beeminder (maybe also tips of the day)? > > > > So one problem I think is that honestly the premium plans all mostly feel > > like this anyway. > > > > You’ve built a really good service that I like a lot… the problem is > > that > > basically all the things I like are present in the free plan, and > > everything > > added by the premium plans is pretty uninteresting on top of that. > > > > (OTOH you’ve reminded me that I do like the service enough to support it > > more than the measly $5/month I was paying, so I’ve upgraded my account > > anyway) > > > > Obviously this is massive backseat driving and you should feel free to > > ignore everything I say, especially as I have literally no idea what your > > user patterns look like, but I rather feel like you might be better off > > removing functionality from the free plan into the bee lite plan than > > raising the prices on the premium ones. > > > > – > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). > > – > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) > > – > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. 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**Author:** ![kkyang](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/kkyang/32/108_2.png) [@kkyang](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/kkyang)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 3:04am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/13 "2014-07-11T03:04:33Z")
Could you explain “switched frequency”? I’m not quite following. so if I pay $5 a month right now for beelite and down the line I decide that I want to upgrade to plan bee. Would I pay the new price of $16 or the old price of $10? Just want to figure out if I want to commit to plan bee or bee lite right now 🙂 On Thursday, July 10, 2014 3:36:24 PM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > Hey Kenny and Kay, good question! The simple way for us to implement > this would have you paying the new price if you switched frequency. My > instinct is to call that fine since (1) eternal grandfathering for > people who just want to stick to what they have feels quite generous > and (2) switching to lifetime means a pretty huge discount – > [Exquisitely Fair Pre-Pay Discounts | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/fair) – so it should save money even at the new > prices. If you have the opposite instinct, that that would feel > frustrating or at all slap-in-the-face-y, we’ll reconsider that. > > Oh, and more to the point: even if you sign up or upgrade or switch to > yearly or lifetime today you’re still grandfathered. It’s not just > people already premium before I started this thread. That’s in fact > part of the point of this, to induce lots of y’all to sign up for > premium now while it’s cheap rather than procrastinating indefinitely > as akratics are wont to do. 🙂 [premium – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/premium) > > One more item for consideration: What if we added a Fuzzy Buzzy plan > at $2/mo (less than 7 cents a day!) with the only perk being the warm > fuzzy feeling of supporting Beeminder (maybe also tips of the day)? > > On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 7:48 AM, Kenny Yang \<[yangk...@gmail.com](mailto:yangk...@gmail.com) > \\> wrote: > > > So if I’m at bee lite for $5 a month and decide down the line I want to > > upgrade to plan bee, would I need to pay the new price? > > > > Thanks! > > > > On Thursday, July 10, 2014 3:05:28 AM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > > > > > Hi fellow Akratics, > > > > > > Guess what! We want to increase the prices for the Beeminder premium > > > plans. Don’t worry, we’ll grandfather existing premium people > > > (hurry!). It’s been over a year since we first introduced them and a > > > whole bunch more yumminess has been added (to premium plans, and > > > Beeminder in general). [1] You all seem to like Beeminder so much that > > > we thought we’d ask for your help in deciding how to do this. > > > > > > Currently the premium plans are like this (or look at > > > [premium – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/premium) if you’re signed in to Beeminder): > > > > > > Bee Lite ($5/mo): custom goals, configurable retrorratchet, tips of the > > > day > > > Plan Bee ($10/mo): unlimited freebees, autoratchet > > > Beemium ($25/mo): free shortcircuiting, access to our devel chatroom > > > (realtime support) > > > Beekeeper ($200/mo): your own actual human > > > > > > And here’s what we’re thinking of announcing: > > > > > > Bee Lite: $8/mo > > > Plan Bee: $16/mo > > > Beemium: $32/mo > > > Beekeeper: $256/mo > > > > > > What do you think? > > > > > > Thanks everyone! > > > Danny and Bethany and the rest of the Bee Team > > > > > > [1] Since we introduced premium plans Beeminder in general got: Zeno > > > polling, new integrations (Duolingo, Jawbone, Draft, Code School), > > > much of the Android awesomeness, new world order! > > > (precommit-to-recommit), pessimistic presumptive reports, scheduled > > > breaks, supporters, and literally hundreds of small improvements. > > > > > > Bee Lite in particular got configurable retroratchet a while back, > > > which just got better this weekend with the ability to retroratchet to > > > any amount of safety buffer including making today an eep day. > > > > > > Plan Bee just got the ability to change your URLs (which we have mixed > > > feelings about since we hate broken links, but for Plan Bee people, > > > ok). > > > > > > And Beemium is now the only way to shortcircuit the pledge schedule > > > (we got rid of the ability to pay to shortcircuit a while ago). We’re > > > also about to add a default minimum pledge in account settings for > > > Beemium people, since a big draw of Beemium is making sure you always > > > have motivating amounts pledged. > > > > > > – > > > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > > > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) > > > > – > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups > > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > > an > > email to [akratics+u...@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+u...@googlegroups.com) \. > > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). > > – > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. 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**Author:** ![dreev](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/dreev/32/4311_2.png) [@dreev](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/dreev)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:40am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/14 "2014-07-11T04:40:19Z")
> Could you explain “switched frequency”? I’m not quite following. Oh, yeah, by frequency I just meant how often you’re paying (monthly, yearly, etc). We nerded out on that beyond all reason, as you can see here: [Exquisitely Fair Pre-Pay Discounts | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/fair) (the Exquisitely Fair Slider, as we call it. it’s mostly me who calls it that.) But the short answer is that any changes you make – switching plans, or switching from paying monthly to paying yearly (or whatever) – happen at the new prices. So get on Plan Bee while the gettin’s good! 🙂 > so if I pay $5 a month right now for beelite and down the line I decide that > I want to upgrade to plan bee. Would I pay the new price of $16 or the old > price of $10? > > Just want to figure out if I want to commit to plan bee or bee lite right > now 🙂 – [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) ---
**Author:** ![kkyang](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/kkyang/32/108_2.png) [@kkyang](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/kkyang)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/15 "2014-07-11T15:58:31Z")
Ahh. I see. Could you explain the “auto trimming safety buffer”? There doesn’t seem to be a description on it. Thanks! On Friday, July 11, 2014 12:40:19 AM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > > Could you explain “switched frequency”? I’m not quite following. > > Oh, yeah, by frequency I just meant how often you’re paying (monthly, > yearly, etc). We nerded out on that beyond all reason, as you can see > here: [Exquisitely Fair Pre-Pay Discounts | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/fair) (the Exquisitely Fair Slider, as we call > it. it’s mostly me who calls it that.) > > But the short answer is that any changes you make – switching plans, > or switching from paying monthly to paying yearly (or whatever) – > happen at the new prices. So get on Plan Bee while the gettin’s good! > 🙂 > > > so if I pay $5 a month right now for beelite and down the line I decide > > that > > I want to upgrade to plan bee. Would I pay the new price of $16 or the > > old > > price of $10? > > > > Just want to figure out if I want to commit to plan bee or bee lite > > right > > now 🙂 > > – > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_Hellyer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/philip_hellyer/32/675_2.png) [@Philip\_Hellyer](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Philip_Hellyer)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/16 "2014-07-11T16:21:19Z")
Hi Kenny! That’s an automatic version of Retroratchet > **[Beeminder Glossary](https://blog.beeminder.com/glossary/#retroratchet)** > > By popular demand, we’ve created a jargon file! We don’t expect this to be the permanent home of this glossary (maybe it belongs with our FAQ) but it’s on the internet now so from now on you can google things like “beeminder flatlining” and hopefully... It’s my favourite feature, and the reason that I subscribed to Plan Bee. It lets me set a conservative slope on some goals, and ensures that I don’t build up too much safety buffer. Philip On 11 July 2014 16:58, Kenny Yang [yangkennyk@gmail.com](mailto:yangkennyk@gmail.com) wrote: > Ahh. I see. Could you explain the “auto trimming safety buffer”? There > doesn’t seem to be a description on it. > > Thanks! > > On Friday, July 11, 2014 12:40:19 AM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > > > > Could you explain “switched frequency”? I’m not quite following. > > > > Oh, yeah, by frequency I just meant how often you’re paying (monthly, > > yearly, etc). We nerded out on that beyond all reason, as you can see > > here: [Exquisitely Fair Pre-Pay Discounts | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/fair) (the Exquisitely Fair Slider, as we call > > it. it’s mostly me who calls it that.) > > > > But the short answer is that any changes you make – switching plans, > > or switching from paying monthly to paying yearly (or whatever) – > > happen at the new prices. So get on Plan Bee while the gettin’s good! > > 🙂 > > > > > so if I pay $5 a month right now for beelite and down the line I decide > > > that > > > I want to upgrade to plan bee. Would I pay the new price of $16 or the > > > old > > > price of $10? > > > > > > Just want to figure out if I want to commit to plan bee or bee lite > > > right > > > now 🙂 > > > > – > > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) > > – > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > “Akratics Anonymous” group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Essentiae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Essentiae](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Essentiae)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/17 "2014-07-11T22:15:42Z")
I think I agree that there are too many levels and the distinctions between them are too small. On Thursday, July 10, 2014 8:59:13 AM UTC-4, robfelty wrote: > I would get rid of the plan bee level, to simplify pricing. Maybe move one > feature up and one down. Then you can better justify the bee lite increase, > and hopefully get more beemium users > > – sent from my phone – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Essentiae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Essentiae](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Essentiae)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/18 "2014-07-11T22:21:09Z")
I think making private graphs a premium feature is really unappealing. That’s a very big deal for something like this, where you’re tracking your private data so closely. I think that’s a minimum requirement and tend towards avoiding signing up (free or otherwise) to websites that require money to keep my info private. I’m even more put off by the idea of auto-quit being a premium feature. Auto-quit is a safety measure for people who aren’t comfortable with just trusting that everything will work out great. (Not only should it not be premium, I still think it should be the default (even if it prompts an email after a week or two that says, “Hey, would you like to remove the auto-quit on this goal?” or something like that. The risk should be opt-in, not opt-out, IMO.).) These kinds of “please don’t hurt my credit card” are a matter of users feeling safe and should never be hidden behind plan walls, I think. Fine print is just a part of the contract. I don’t see it making sense behind a wall either. The other stuff is fine, but take away anything that so drastically reduces the (feeling of) safety or usability of Beeminder and you’re introducing a major barrier for the new user to overcome when there’s already a steep learning curve and a ~lot~ of scary opt-out settings. Weasel-immunity should be in the $250 plan, if at all. Beeminder needs to keep some teeth, I think, or it won’t be useful for us and, though we all think we’d be perfectly good, I would be reluctant to have that power granted to me. I can think of several graph- and privacy-related features (and some from other categories as well) that I’d love to see added and so think they’d be great additions to the various plans, but that I’ll save those for later. On Thursday, July 10, 2014 4:52:02 PM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > This is super valuable feedback! Let me quote ourselves from > [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium) (under “No Carrots For You”): > > Seriously, we are all about the stick. We do not intend to hold > important features as dangling carrots. Premium plans are still an > experiment but we’re committed to keeping the non-premium Beeminder a > highly functional tool for maximizing the awesomeness of humans prone > to procrastination and other forms of akrasia. In fact, the only > things that we’re going to charge for are: > > 1. Features that directly thwart our revenue model, i.e., unlimited > freebees and free short-circuiting (or in the future: choosing the > beneficiary of your commitment contract [1]) > 2. Things that may confuse newbees (we’re not sure yet whether > customizable retroratcheting and auto-ratcheting fall in this > category) > 3. Goodies that are incidental to the process of beeminding, like fitness > tips > 4. Things that cost us money to provide (we may make the SMS bot a > premium feature for this reason) > > I hope I didn’t overcommit us with that. I no longer think that “the > free version of Beeminder must be a fully functional anti-akrasia > tool” is an important principle. I might like the idea that anyone > who’s at all serious about Beeminder should be premium, which is > obviously not the case now. In any case, here’s a list of possible > current features to make premium: > > 1. SMS bot (HT dyang) > 2. Retroratchet > 3. Take A Break > 4. fancy data nerd features like turquoise swath and moving average > line (HT Paul Fenwick) > 5. private graphs > 6. [widgets – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/widgets) > 7. weaselproofing > 8. no-mercy recommit > 9. auto-quit > 10. fine print > 11. supporters > 12. panic threshold > 13. goal unit rescaling > > And here are potential future premium features: > > 1. choose a beneficiary or at least charity percentage > 2. zeno SMS (could also think about international SMS, which costs > more and has to be set up for each country in twilio) > 3. super exclusive google group (maybe akratics anonymous could > become that after moving to discourse?) > 4. expose more advanced settings > 5. weasel-immunity (opposite of weaselproofing, where you can > self-service cancel charges and undo recommit) > 6. expose more advanced settings > 7. profile badges? (HT dyang) > 8. early access to new features? (HT dyang) > > [1] [Announcing Beeminder Premium Plans: Bee Lite, Plan Bee, Beemium, and Beekeeper | Beeminder Blog](http://blog.beeminder.com/premium/#BEN) – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Essentiae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Essentiae](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Essentiae)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:25pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/19 "2014-07-11T22:25:17Z")
If there are people who have many goals but are never derailing, then it’s possible that they don’t need that many goals, will realize that themselves, and will cancel the goals rather than upgrade. At least with more goals, there’s the possibility that some will wind up derailed. If forced to keep them to fewer goals, many might just do that instead. On Thursday, July 10, 2014 5:46:53 PM UTC-4, David MacIver wrote: > In terms of premium features which would push people to upgrade… have > you considered limiting the number of things you can beemind at once with > free accounts (I know you do this for freebees, but I’m thinking even with > pledges)? e.g. I’d consider anyone who has 10 beeminder goals is probably > getting enough benefit out of it that they should really consider a > premium. Maybe the same is true of anyone with 5? I’ve no idea what the > right threshold here is. You’d be better placed than me to know what the > goal count distribution is like. – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). ---
**Author:** ![Essentiae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Essentiae](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/Essentiae)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512/20 "2014-07-11T22:30:42Z")
One more thought: I wouldn’t introduce any new fees (or, to bang this same old drum, any new features) until the existing features aren’t broken. There are a few sort of major things that need to be addressed, I think, before starting to talk about what plans to put these features in and how much to ask for the various plans. From just this user’s perspective, I’d prefer stability and predictability over new features, and I think new features and reorganizing the plans might be what would be required to move on this. On Thursday, July 10, 2014 3:05:28 AM UTC-4, Daniel Reeves wrote: > Hi fellow Akratics, > > Guess what! We want to increase the prices for the Beeminder premium > plans. Don’t worry, we’ll grandfather existing premium people > (hurry!). It’s been over a year since we first introduced them and a > whole bunch more yumminess has been added (to premium plans, and > Beeminder in general). [1] You all seem to like Beeminder so much that > we thought we’d ask for your help in deciding how to do this. > > Currently the premium plans are like this (or look at > [premium – beeminder](http://beeminder.com/premium) if you’re signed in to Beeminder): > > Bee Lite ($5/mo): custom goals, configurable retrorratchet, tips of the > day > Plan Bee ($10/mo): unlimited freebees, autoratchet > Beemium ($25/mo): free shortcircuiting, access to our devel chatroom > (realtime support) > Beekeeper ($200/mo): your own actual human > > And here’s what we’re thinking of announcing: > > Bee Lite: $8/mo > Plan Bee: $16/mo > Beemium: $32/mo > Beekeeper: $256/mo > > What do you think? > > Thanks everyone! > Danny and Bethany and the rest of the Bee Team > > [1] Since we introduced premium plans Beeminder in general got: Zeno > polling, new integrations (Duolingo, Jawbone, Draft, Code School), > much of the Android awesomeness, new world order! > (precommit-to-recommit), pessimistic presumptive reports, scheduled > breaks, supporters, and literally hundreds of small improvements. > > Bee Lite in particular got configurable retroratchet a while back, > which just got better this weekend with the ability to retroratchet to > any amount of safety buffer including making today an eep day. > > Plan Bee just got the ability to change your URLs (which we have mixed > feelings about since we hate broken links, but for Plan Bee people, > ok). > > And Beemium is now the only way to shortcircuit the pledge schedule > (we got rid of the ability to pay to shortcircuit a while ago). We’re > also about to add a default minimum pledge in account settings for > Beemium people, since a big draw of Beemium is making sure you always > have motivating amounts pledged. > > – > [http://dreev.es](http://dreev.es) – search://“Daniel Reeves” > Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == [http://beeminder.com](http://beeminder.com) – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Akratics Anonymous” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:akratics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout). [Next page](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/help-us-decide-about-a-price-hike-for-beeminder-premium-plans/1512.md?page=2)