4 ms·

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 acce

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.
  - underwater 6y ago
    The page says "you can pick a plan later" and that users can "upgrade", which implies to me that people opt into and manually control the pricing plan they want. But what they have actually behaves more like usage tiers in reality. It also says that staff are considered active if they've used the product within the last 30 days. How could the OP get usage back below the threshold with only 7 days notice?
    - samastur 6y ago
      By removing those accounts
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.

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.
- underwater 6y ago
  The page says "you can pick a plan later" and that users can "upgrade", which implies to me that people opt into and manually control the pricing plan they want. But what they have actually behaves more like usage tiers in reality. It also says that staff are considered active if they've used the product within the last 30 days. How could the OP get usage back below the threshold with only 7 days notice?
  - samastur 6y ago
    By removing those accounts

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.