3 ms·

Medium now charges $75 for custom domain

14 points by ko3us 10y ago

ko3us 10y ago
Such a shame that a high cost is charged for custom domain handling. Such a huge price increase. Originally for free. Yes that wasn't sustainable. But $75?? You can buy a domain for $5pa Free SSL using LetsEncrypt. I get Medium are looking for a revenue model, but this is ridiculous. Why not provide enterprise blogging or something they can charge enterprise for. Take on the Wordpress kingdom and get into big business.
- reacharavindh 10y ago
  Don't know if I'd pay $75 for custom domain Medium when there are Hugo, Ghost, Pelican and such free great alternatives for static blogs. But, man do I really wish my work bought something like Medium and replaced the cumbersome Wiki pages. My own Wiki pages are ugly and a pain to manage tables, images and text.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- munchbunny 10y ago
  That honestly doesn't feel too bad. $75 is a pretty low price to pay if you care enough about the custom domain and the branding capability that comes with it. Perhaps they could tier it so that there's a "vanity" tier and a "branding" tier, that way people who really just want the vanity URL can have it for cheaper.
  - ishyFishy 10y ago
    $75 is roughly 11,495 LKR here, so it's not really cheap for the rest of us on the far side of the world. :/
raleigh_user 10y ago
Can confirm I opted out of the custom domain today when emailed back with the $75 charge. The cost isn't bad but it rubbed me the wrong way doing the form two months ago and heard nothing back until today. 15 emails/tweets unanswered. Completely understand charging but was turned off by the lack of response/acknowledgement.
kuon 10y ago
I can really understand medium.com needs for a decent revenue model. But a 75$ one time fee for a domain seems really a desperate measure to cash in. I'd be willing to pay, say 5$/month for premium service, including a custom domain, but a 75$ one time fee only for that is not justified to me.
- exclusiv 10y ago
  It doesn't make sense to me. The more successful sites will be around longer - so $75/one-time probably means less lifetime value versus the $5/mo you suggested which I think makes more sense. But they probably need more cash sooner. And $75 one time will just push the masses to alternatives.

14 points by ko3us 10y ago

ko3us 10y ago

Such a shame that a high cost is charged for custom domain handling. Such a huge price increase. Originally for free. Yes that wasn't sustainable. But $75?? You can buy a domain for $5pa Free SSL using LetsEncrypt. I get Medium are looking for a revenue model, but this is ridiculous. Why not provide enterprise blogging or something they can charge enterprise for. Take on the Wordpress kingdom and get into big business.

reacharavindh 10y ago
Don't know if I'd pay $75 for custom domain Medium when there are Hugo, Ghost, Pelican and such free great alternatives for static blogs. But, man do I really wish my work bought something like Medium and replaced the cumbersome Wiki pages. My own Wiki pages are ugly and a pain to manage tables, images and text.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
munchbunny 10y ago
That honestly doesn't feel too bad. $75 is a pretty low price to pay if you care enough about the custom domain and the branding capability that comes with it. Perhaps they could tier it so that there's a "vanity" tier and a "branding" tier, that way people who really just want the vanity URL can have it for cheaper.
- ishyFishy 10y ago
  $75 is roughly 11,495 LKR here, so it's not really cheap for the rest of us on the far side of the world. :/

raleigh_user 10y ago

Can confirm I opted out of the custom domain today when emailed back with the $75 charge. The cost isn't bad but it rubbed me the wrong way doing the form two months ago and heard nothing back until today. 15 emails/tweets unanswered. Completely understand charging but was turned off by the lack of response/acknowledgement.

kuon 10y ago

I can really understand medium.com needs for a decent revenue model. But a 75$ one time fee for a domain seems really a desperate measure to cash in. I'd be willing to pay, say 5$/month for premium service, including a custom domain, but a 75$ one time fee only for that is not justified to me.

exclusiv 10y ago
It doesn't make sense to me. The more successful sites will be around longer - so $75/one-time probably means less lifetime value versus the $5/mo you suggested which I think makes more sense. But they probably need more cash sooner. And $75 one time will just push the masses to alternatives.