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I agree with the post author that the tactic of allowing users to exceed plan limits and then upping their bill (yes, even with the 7 day notice email) is shady

I agree with the post author that the tactic of allowing users to exceed plan limits and then upping their bill (yes, even with the 7 day notice email) is shady. I hate this kind of behaviour from my tools - it feels like I am constantly being watched for when I "slip" and can be charged more without recourse. If you are going to use this behavior, provide a switch to enable hard limits on usage so a user cannot blunder unto having their budget blown by accident. Edit: Also, why does the CEO have direct access to cancel user accounts and send them direct messages? Surely they have more important things to do?

crispyporkbites 6y ago
In many alternative scenarios you hit a sudden spike in traffic that could make your business thousands and the hosting company starts blocking people from accessing your site because you exceeded the quota. 7 day notice of upgrading seems much more reasonable in that case
- mhaberl 6y ago
  That is fine IF you warn your customer about scaling BEFORE the customer gives you the credit card. This system does make sense for some customers, it does not for others, some will agree and subscribe to the service, some will not.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > That is fine IF you warn your customer about scaling BEFORE the customer gives you the credit card. Ghost is pretty clear on their signup pages. For example, if you go over your traffic limits: https://ghost.org/pricing/ https://ghost.org/pricing/ > Average views per month > Views refer to the number of requests to your site each month. These are tracked much like an analytics 'pageview' - and are incremented with each page or API request. > We never disable sites for traffic spikes, so no need to worry about the front page of Reddit or HN. If you exceed your limit consistently on a 3 month rolling average, we'll just let you know that you need to upgrade. And for staffing: > Staff users > Staff users refers to the total number of active team members invited to Ghost Admin whom you collaborate with. For the purposes of billing, we only count staff users who have logged in at least once in the last 30 days. > If you have lots of authors of posts who are not logging into Ghost Admin on a regular basis, they won't count towards your plan limits. And if you don't want to upgrade they tell you how to avoid it before charging.
    - mhaberl 6y ago
      My mistake, you absolutely are right There is a purple section "Our simple + fair billing policy" that is pretty clear. I actually looked at the pricing page before commenting, but somehow missed that
      - DanBC 6y ago
        I agree that this is hard to find. When I visit the site there are tiny, very pale, question marks that expand these boxes.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        >There is a purple section "Our simple + fair billing policy" that is pretty clear. I don't know. Some of the wording doesn't seem consistent with what happened. >We simply email you to let you know when it's time to upgrade. At least I don't think "it's time to upgrade" means that "we are upgrading you".
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      “...we’ll just let you know that you’ll need to upgrade,” sounds very much opt in (or lose services), while the author was instead told he will be upgraded unless he opted out. That’s a distinction that certainly matters to me. I’d be upset in the author’s shoes.
      - thefreeman 6y ago
        Only if you exceed your traffic limit consistently on a 3 month rolling average will they even try to upgrade you. That seems very fair to me. OP is trying to make this about traffic but it's really because he knowingly had more then 2 active staff accounts.
        nacs 6y ago
        OP clearly states that it's about the active staff accounts. The concern is still valid -- they claim 3 months of excess before attempting an upgrade but give 7 days warning as soon as you go over the staff limit? They should either limit the staff amounts or give you longer than 7 days.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  Fine for a business, but for a personal blog I'd rather have visitors temporarily blocked than get a huge bill. Such a blog doesn't make money.
justinclift 6y ago
> Also, why does the CEO have direct access to cancel user accounts and send them direct messages? Surely they have more important things to do? They're probably still a small start up, where lots of people still do multiple roles.
- martyvis 6y ago
  >They're probably still a small start up Sounds like they are determined to stay small.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Yeah, no wonder. Shooting down paying customers while in startup phase? I'm all for firing annoying/needy (service) customers but this is far from being the case here.
  - digianarchist 6y ago
    It’s clearly a lifestyle business that enables John to bounce around South East Asia.
mhaberl 6y ago
> Also, why does the CEO have direct access to cancel user accounts and send them direct messages? Surely they have more important things to do? Not every company is a 100k employees company with CEO deatached from mudane operations - why would not a CEO of a small company be involved in customer support etc. Though in particular this case, customer care is not his strong side :)
- gus_massa 6y ago
  It can happen in big companies too, like in this old post of Raymond Chen "Can I talk to that William fellow? He was so helpful" https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091123-00/?p=15943 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091123-00/?p=15...
londons_explore 6y ago
> I agree with the post author that the tactic of allowing users to exceed plan limits and then upping their bill It's only the same as pay-per-use, which loads of other companies use. If you use network bandwidth on AWS or GCP, they're going to bill you per gigabyte, and there is no 7 day grace period or action required on your part to get a big bill.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  On AWS, I sign up to be billed at per gigabyte. I don't sign up for a 100 GB bandwidth bucket and at 101 GB AWS automatically upgrades me to the 1000 GB bucket.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    AWS has exactly the same problem with not allowing you to limit spend. And lots of individuals and small businesses are uncomfortable with using it for that reason.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      Yeah, google cloud provides a page to programatically cap your spending: https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/notify#cap_disable_billing_to_stop_usage https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/notify#cap_disa... Why don't they just provide a big red button to enable caps instead?
      - londons_explore 6y ago
        > Why don't they just provide a big red button to enable caps instead? So many companies have departmental budgets and need the ability to guarantee a bill not more than $X. It seems crazy GCP doesn't have a budget limit option. In fact, AppEngine used to have a budget limit option, and they've just removed it!
        graham_paul 6y ago
teddyh 6y ago
> I hate this kind of behaviour from my tools Things which behave like this are not your tools. They belong to someone else. The tool is you, for using them.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  Ghost is open source and self-hostable, so you can very much make it your tool.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    Like the person I was commenting, I was making a general statement, not talking about Ghost in particular.

crispyporkbites 6y ago

In many alternative scenarios you hit a sudden spike in traffic that could make your business thousands and the hosting company starts blocking people from accessing your site because you exceeded the quota. 7 day notice of upgrading seems much more reasonable in that case

mhaberl 6y ago
That is fine IF you warn your customer about scaling BEFORE the customer gives you the credit card. This system does make sense for some customers, it does not for others, some will agree and subscribe to the service, some will not.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > That is fine IF you warn your customer about scaling BEFORE the customer gives you the credit card. Ghost is pretty clear on their signup pages. For example, if you go over your traffic limits: https://ghost.org/pricing/ https://ghost.org/pricing/ > Average views per month > Views refer to the number of requests to your site each month. These are tracked much like an analytics 'pageview' - and are incremented with each page or API request. > We never disable sites for traffic spikes, so no need to worry about the front page of Reddit or HN. If you exceed your limit consistently on a 3 month rolling average, we'll just let you know that you need to upgrade. And for staffing: > Staff users > Staff users refers to the total number of active team members invited to Ghost Admin whom you collaborate with. For the purposes of billing, we only count staff users who have logged in at least once in the last 30 days. > If you have lots of authors of posts who are not logging into Ghost Admin on a regular basis, they won't count towards your plan limits. And if you don't want to upgrade they tell you how to avoid it before charging.
  - mhaberl 6y ago
    My mistake, you absolutely are right There is a purple section "Our simple + fair billing policy" that is pretty clear. I actually looked at the pricing page before commenting, but somehow missed that
    - DanBC 6y ago
      I agree that this is hard to find. When I visit the site there are tiny, very pale, question marks that expand these boxes.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      >There is a purple section "Our simple + fair billing policy" that is pretty clear. I don't know. Some of the wording doesn't seem consistent with what happened. >We simply email you to let you know when it's time to upgrade. At least I don't think "it's time to upgrade" means that "we are upgrading you".
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    “...we’ll just let you know that you’ll need to upgrade,” sounds very much opt in (or lose services), while the author was instead told he will be upgraded unless he opted out. That’s a distinction that certainly matters to me. I’d be upset in the author’s shoes.
    - thefreeman 6y ago
      Only if you exceed your traffic limit consistently on a 3 month rolling average will they even try to upgrade you. That seems very fair to me. OP is trying to make this about traffic but it's really because he knowingly had more then 2 active staff accounts.
      - nacs 6y ago
        OP clearly states that it's about the active staff accounts. The concern is still valid -- they claim 3 months of excess before attempting an upgrade but give 7 days warning as soon as you go over the staff limit? They should either limit the staff amounts or give you longer than 7 days.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
Fine for a business, but for a personal blog I'd rather have visitors temporarily blocked than get a huge bill. Such a blog doesn't make money.

justinclift 6y ago

> Also, why does the CEO have direct access to cancel user accounts and send them direct messages? Surely they have more important things to do? They're probably still a small start up, where lots of people still do multiple roles.

martyvis 6y ago
>They're probably still a small start up Sounds like they are determined to stay small.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Yeah, no wonder. Shooting down paying customers while in startup phase? I'm all for firing annoying/needy (service) customers but this is far from being the case here.
- digianarchist 6y ago
  It’s clearly a lifestyle business that enables John to bounce around South East Asia.

mhaberl 6y ago

> Also, why does the CEO have direct access to cancel user accounts and send them direct messages? Surely they have more important things to do? Not every company is a 100k employees company with CEO deatached from mudane operations - why would not a CEO of a small company be involved in customer support etc. Though in particular this case, customer care is not his strong side :)

gus_massa 6y ago
It can happen in big companies too, like in this old post of Raymond Chen "Can I talk to that William fellow? He was so helpful" https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091123-00/?p=15943 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091123-00/?p=15...

londons_explore 6y ago

> I agree with the post author that the tactic of allowing users to exceed plan limits and then upping their bill It's only the same as pay-per-use, which loads of other companies use. If you use network bandwidth on AWS or GCP, they're going to bill you per gigabyte, and there is no 7 day grace period or action required on your part to get a big bill.

Hamuko 6y ago
On AWS, I sign up to be billed at per gigabyte. I don't sign up for a 100 GB bandwidth bucket and at 101 GB AWS automatically upgrades me to the 1000 GB bucket.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  AWS has exactly the same problem with not allowing you to limit spend. And lots of individuals and small businesses are uncomfortable with using it for that reason.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    Yeah, google cloud provides a page to programatically cap your spending: https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/notify#cap_disable_billing_to_stop_usage https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/notify#cap_disa... Why don't they just provide a big red button to enable caps instead?
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      > Why don't they just provide a big red button to enable caps instead? So many companies have departmental budgets and need the ability to guarantee a bill not more than $X. It seems crazy GCP doesn't have a budget limit option. In fact, AppEngine used to have a budget limit option, and they've just removed it!
      - graham_paul 6y ago

teddyh 6y ago

> I hate this kind of behaviour from my tools Things which behave like this are not your tools. They belong to someone else. The tool is you, for using them.

scrollaway 6y ago
Ghost is open source and self-hostable, so you can very much make it your tool.
- teddyh 6y ago
  Like the person I was commenting, I was making a general statement, not talking about Ghost in particular.