16 ms·

I would rename their "Hobby" plan. It's condescending. People don't pay ~$240 / yr to have a status page for a hobby site.

• giovannibajo1 13y ago
  Seconded.
• waleedka 13y ago
  That's probably intentional. A lot of people would buy the higher plan simply to avoid buying the "hobby" plan.
• jonny_eh 13y ago
  I've seen businesses choose a plan up from a perfectly good lower run plan simply because the name of it was something like "Solo" and didn't think it fit. It's just clever marketing to anchor people towards the middle.
  • nhebb 13y ago
    Unless they actually don't want customers in the lower tier, I think they could channel customers to the middle tier without insulting potential lower tier customers. They could call it the Solo plan, Micro plan, Bootstrapper plan, or even Lil' 'Strapper plan and come off as less insulting. I doubt they were purposely trying to insult anyone, but with a thousand roadblocks to growth, knocking down one of them by changing a plan name seems like a quick win.
• patio11 13y ago
  I routinely give out "Call the low plan 'Hobby'" advice. Here's why: a) Price-sensitive customers with side businesses often either affirmatively identify of hobbyists (I would have said that about myself for the first 5 years of my business -- at which point $20 a month would have made it somewhere around the 10th most expensive thing I was buying, by the way) or are willing to buy it without thinking too much about the name. b) At larger customers, there are social reasons to avoid putting Hobby on a purchasing card / requisition form / etc where one does not have any technical/quota/etc objections against the lowest-tier plan. I've told the following anecdote two dozen times but it's still good: I was once instructed by a boss to get CrazyEgg set up. We were in the $9 a month Hobbyist tier. I put in a requisition for it and he redlined the Hobbyist and price, went to the pricing page, and picked the Enterprise tier (at $500 at the time, IIRC). When I pointed out that I was intimately familiar with the numbers and sure we could make do with Hobbyist, he said (translated loosely from the Japanese) "Eff if I'm going to pass a request for Hobbyist services to [my boss]." c) See the anecdote above? I can tell you the anecdote. I can't show you the data. But trust me, the anecdote has scaled for companies before.
  • rmc 13y ago
    Isn't this similar to why Windows XP came in 2 versions, "Home" and "Professional"?
  • nhebb 13y ago
    Actually, I thought about your CrazyEgg anecdote as I was writing my comment. Having worked for a large Japanese company for several years, I did see a cultural difference between what US and Japanese managers were willing to sign off on for purchase req's. But aside from that, I do think a $9/month CrazyEgg plan is within the scope of a true hobby site, whereas $20/month for a status page service isn't. The proof is in testing, but my gut tells me that customers could be segmented without using a plan name that is arguably demeaning.
• warcode 13y ago
  Would definitely take them out of the 'dick move' category. Thinking I would pay 2/3 the cost of my vps for a status page is a bit crazy.