Ecwid announces new service plans. No price changes for our existing users.
Posted 5 September, 2012 by Qetzal. Posted in Ecwid NewsHi Fellow Ecwid Users,
We have some updated service plan information to share with you. Ecwid will be changing our plan offerings in October, and wanted to let you know what new choices will be available for you and for our future customers. The new Ecwid service plans will include the following options: www.ecwid.com/plans-and-pricing.html
If you already are a registered Ecwid user on our free (Basic) or premium (Silver) plans, you will continue to receive the same level of service you currently receive today – forever. There will be no change to the current features or pricing you receive, unless you choose to upgrade to one of our new service plans.
Existing Ecwid Free Plan Users
If you currently have a free Ecwid store, then you will retain all of the free features that you have today, including your 100 product limit.
Existing Ecwid Premium (Silver) Plan Users
We sincerely appreciate our users who already have upgraded to our Silver plan. Thank you. All of our current Silver users will retain their existing features (including your 20,000 product limit) and pricing forever.
Why the changes?
Ecwid has grown and learned alot over the past two years, and our users, partners and others in the e-commerce marketplace have provided valuable feedback to us along the way. Today, we understand very clearly the selection of services that we need to offer globally, and what it will take for Ecwid to prosper so that we can continue to provide the best shopping cart in the world – including the best free and premium options available anywhere. Further details on our service plan changes are available in the following FAQ.
Update (30 October): Our new plans have been released. After the initial announcement of new plans we have received a lot of great feedback from you, our Ecwid community. Thank you all. Your feedback, kind words and support help us greatly. These plan changes will benefit the whole Ecwid community.
And one more thing: after some considerations we decided to remove the monthly transaction volume limit in our new plans. So all new plans have unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited monthly transaction volume and 0.0% transaction fee. A truly unique offer.
FAQ on New Ecwid Service Plans
What are the new Ecwid plans and how will they be priced?
The new plans and pricing can be found on the “Pricing” page on our website. We will continue to offer a “Free” plan, in addition to three new premium options.
What about existing Ecwid users? Will pricing and plans be grandfathered?
We want to ensure that our current users can continue using Ecwid seamlessly. Therefore, our current customers will retain their existing price, plan and feature functionality. We will grandfather plans and pricing for all of our existing users.
I am a free user currently. What will happen to my store?
You will keep the same free features you have now, including the product limit of 100 items (note: the new “Free” plan allows 10 items only).
Will we still be able to create and use free stores?
Of course. One of Ecwid’s key goals always is to offer an affordable solution that enables everyone to start selling online with a completely free plan, with no transaction fees or other hidden costs. Ecwid always will have a free plan available for our users.
When will the new plans be available and the changes take effect?
We’re planning to launch the new plans in October and will post announcements on our Facebook page, forums, Twitter and blog, when the new plans are available.
I currently am an Ecwid Silver user. What will happen to my store?
You keep the same features you have now. You will continue to pay the same $17 per month and will keep your existing limit of 20,000 items.
What if I upgrade to the “Silver” plan before new plans are released?
In this case, you will be grandfathered and get all of the benefits of the “Silver” plan now and after the plan change, so it is a great idea to upgrade now.
I still have questions about these new plans
We’re open to all of your questions, suggestions and feedback. Please send them to
billing@ecwid.com
I think you guys are moving in the right direction, but this hasn't been fully thought out.
So lets says I'm on the free plan and I get hit by a Hurricane, which just happened and we were without power for about 2 days. So I'm without power for 2 days and I go over the monthly transaction volume, without power I cannot access the internet, so new customers will lose sales because their customers will have some kind of error messages stating the store has hit it's monthly transaction volume and they will need to go else where in order to purchase?
Can you guys clarify the process here for everyone? It seems very confusing and doesn't clearly point out the what happens to customers who try to purchase on a store that just recently hit it's monthly transaction volume.
Derek Bess,
Thank you for the good question, Derek. Yes, we need to clarify this thing further.
One of our main goals and drivers for our decisions is to make sure Ecwid merchants will never have disriptions in their selling. This affects our product decisions a lot. For example if you are on the "Silver" plan and your credit card has expired, you will still have 7 days before we downgrade you. And if you contact us, we will extend this grace period without questions. Even if you are downgraded, we will not remove any extra products, they will be still be available for purchase. And so on.
The situation with monthly transaction volume isn't an exception. Even if you hit by a limit, your customers will still be able to place orders in your store. No error messages. No restrictions in the storefront or during checkout. However you will need to upgrade to _process_ these orders. And if for some reason you cannot upgrade right now (credit card changes can take some time, we know), just contact us at billing@ecwid.com and we will extend the paid period while you're fixing the billing issue.
How the transaction volume is calculated: it is the total sum of all Accepted and Queued orders for the last 30 days. If you're going to hit the limit soon, you will see a warning in the control panel. If some order has been cancelled or you placed some test ones, just switch their statuses to "Cancelled" or "Declined" and they will not be counted.
And I want to mention again that our current "Silver" merchants will not have any monthly transaction limits.
Qetzal,
Thanks that clears things up real good for us.
Hello, Ecwid team!
Will new implemented features of Ecwid be avaible to my Silver account?
Thank you in advance.
Yes, new features will be available to existing "Silver" users.
Hi,
I have a free site at the moment that doesn't have a full 100 products in it. After the new plans come into effect will I be limited to only the products already in the cart or I can still add up to the 100 as per the existing free account without having to upgrade?
Thanks.
You will still be able to add up to 100 products under your "grandfathered" Free plan.
I really think that you guys have shot yourselves in the foot on this one. We have gone from a $17 plan with no transaction limits and 20,000 products to a $15 plan with 100 products and a transaction limit of $5000. That is really very very unfortunate and as for the free plan of 10 products and a $2000 transaction value, words cannot express how badly this has been judged. I would bet that you have listened to an outside voice and decided to do this. I will have to move on to opencart and will have to make a move to move my clients away. At last count that was 15 free clients and 23 silver plan clients; yes I know that for the silver plan guys things stay the same but we can no longer trust that another major change could be around the corner.
Very unfortunate and sad, but the best of luck!
sketchprinting,
Thank you for your feedback. It is appreciated. One comment though:
If we introduce major changes, we always make sure they will not affect our current users. New plans isn't the first big Ecwid change. And every time existing users were "grandfathered".
Qetzal,
Qetzal, "Grandfathered" means nothing to us developers who have adopted your platform for our customers. Ecwid was our best solution for customers in that we could rapidly customize and integrate and provide them with an affordable solution. We have been vested into your product. We no longer have a solution from you to offer our customers and prospects (one that is viable). So you've hurt us and we no longer seek to have a partnership with you and will be using alternatives. The above poster mentioned "Open Cart", but there are a couple of better options IMO. If anyone wants to know my suggestions, message me, as I don't feel it would be appropriate to post them in an Ecwid forum. To add to the above post, we have 24 free clients and 33 silver plan clients. We're not a reseller though, we have just adopted the Ecwid platform for our clients because it used to be the best solution. Not anymore
Mud Stomp,
Thank you for your feedback. We've answered there: http://www.ecwid.com/blog/ecwid-news/ecwid-announces-new-service-plans-no-price-changes-for-our-existing-users.html/comment-page-1/#comment-684
Since last posting I have checked out the other options and in terms of price for 100 products you guys are cheaper, and importantly you have no transaction fees, but you are unique (as far as I can see) in having a transaction limit, but please realise one thing, the others (volusion, bigcommerce etc) are offering a full cms website and hosting all included in the price).
I have also seen above that the current registered free plans will carry on being free, I have the same question as Oak Grove above, I have a client with 70 or so products and another with (at the moment) less than 20, will they be able to add upto 100 products under the free plan they are on.
sketchprinting,
1. Even with the new plans Ecwid is cheaper than other hosted shopping carts. Important things to remember:
a) Ecwid doesn't have any transaction fees. Instead you have a flat transaction limit for some plans and no such limit for the "Unlimited" plan . Why is it better? Let me show you. For example a hosted shopping cart has a 1.0% transaction fee. You process $4000/month. In our case, you will pay us a $15 flat fee for the "Venture" plan. If you use that service, you will pay $40/mo. A big difference.
If you process $15,000/month, you will pay us $35 for the "Business" plan. If you use that service, you will pay $150. A very big difference.
And I want to remind you that existing "Silver" users will not have any monthly transaction limits at all.
b) Ecwid doesn't have any limits of storage and data transfer (i.e. bandwidth). It is a big thing: a lot of other services will force you to upgrade as soon as you get some traffic or upload a lot of product images/files. Ecwid will not.
We don't know any hosted shopping cart that offers unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth and such product limits at prices Ecwid will do.
2. The others are offering a full CMS website and this is their weak point, actually. This is the pain point Ecwid is designed to solve. If you already have a website and want to add a store to it, "the others" will force you to throw it away and rebuild it from scratch. You will need to have a site and store on separate domains ("example.com" and "store.example.com"), in this case it will also be needed to change the store'design (i.e. invest more money).
Ecwid solves this problem. You can add it to your existing website keeping its design and you will get a store that works as an integral part of the site. And at the same moment the store will use our servers, so our team does all the technical work.
Yes, they will be able to add up to 100 products under their "grandfathered" Free plan.
Qetzal,
Good answers! Don't agree with the CMS comment but the rest do actually make good sense, just that some of my clients got scared, I will point them to your post for their own assurance.
Thank you.
Qetzal,
Please don't feel that I am having a go at you guys, I think what you do and what you have created is brilliant but it seems a massive jump, as I said from 20000 products and no transaction limit to just 100 products and a transaction limit. It is good that you are allowing the current free and silver account holders to have their current limits but for new customers after the end of september it becomes a far worse deal then it currently is. One client has asked me for a new store soon and I have to tell him that he will have to pay, so I am trying to get him to get signed up before the end of september and get it for free.
If it was me I would do the following
FREE account
100 products and a $5000 transaction limit
Silver account $5 per month
250 products and a $10000 transaction limit
Gold account $15 per month
1000 products and a $20000 tranaction limit
Platinum account $50 per month
10000 products and a $50000 transaction limit
(Then charge a fee of $10 per extra 1000 products and an increase of $10000 in transaction)
Also have a Developer account for web designers like myself.
Diamond account $99 per month
Total of 50000 products split between various clients and unlimited transactions - for instance we could give each client 500 products and $10000 per month transaction (we could decide on how we share this out, just like a web hosting reseller account)
then charge us a fee of $10 per extra 1000 products
Still not too late to change.
And unlike the poster above I do agree with what you said about the cms, obviously not from a web designers point of view but it is a good point.
sketchprinting,
Thank you for the suggestions and feedback!
So will silver plan members become unlimited members with the $17 a month pricing? Also, i see multi tier pricing listed as an option on the new plans page, when is that going to be released?
Austin Hutchison,
Yes, the Silver plan users will be almost equal to those with the new Unlimited plan. The only difference is the product limit: Silver users will keep their current 20,000 products limit, whereas the "Unlimited" users will be able to have unlimited number of products.
Bulk discount pricing for your products in Ecwid is already released and is available to Silver account users.
Смотрел на выходных по телеканалу Россия 24 репортаж о Ecwid. Гордо провозглашалось что данный продукт сделан в Ульяновске. Вот только не могу понять, почему страница на родном для всех Ульяновцев Русском языке урезанная, а на английском всё есть? даже этих изменений описанных здесь нет на Русском?
Эквид это продукт, который сделали в Ульяновске для глобального, мирового рынка. А общепринятый язык общения в мире - английский.
Hello,
I would suggest a similar plan like :
Option 1 :
Choose products :
100 products - FREE
500 products - $10
2500 products - $25
5000 products - $45
Monthly transaction volume - Pricing
Volume Range : $ 0 - $ 2000 / FREE
Volume Range : $ 2001 - $ 5000 / $10
Volume Range : $ 5001 - $10000 / $20
Volume Range : $ 10001 - $20000 / $40
Volume Range : $ 20001 and up / $60
So your total monthly amount will be depended from the volume range table.
Example :
Products : 760, September '12 volume : $ 8950
Price : $25 + $20 = $ 45 total
* prices are for display purposes
What you say?
Marios Kivilgim,
Thank you for the suggestion, we will think it over.
As of now i have seen a new news that ecwid store prices are going to hike at the end of september.
As of now i am a free member and tomorrow if i go for the existing plan which is for $17.
and in the next month at the time of renewal if do not subscribe again for 2 months and then again come back, so then what will be the subscription fee after those 2 months.
Awaiting for your reply.
You will be able to subscribe to the old "Silver" plan.
Another solution plastered!
very ridiculous to think that the best solution on the market today, will become another one of those companies that limit the client (if you paid clicks "X" if you breathe pays "Y")
I prefer to believe that you are making these changes to force the customer to migrate to free account plan silver.
If not that ... you do not bring any innovation ... will be forgotten soon!
If my account is limited'll cancel and request all persons who indicated they cancel their accounts too!
Over Importados,
Thank you for your feedback. Please refer to my comment that describes why this change is important and necessary for every Ecwid merchant: http://www.ecwid.com/blog/ecwid-news/ecwid-announces-new-service-plans-no-price-changes-for-our-existing-users.html#comment-684
I have been recommending and integrating Ecwid sites for my clients for almost 3 years. Ecwid had something unique in its integration and pricing. These new pricing changes are very unfortunate. The $17 Silver plan (with its unlimited everything) is now $99??? Really Ecwid? Even the business plan is inferior to the old Silver plan and double the price at $35. I can no longer recommend Ecwid and will be using an alternate option for future carts. Developers like myself, look for these types of solutions for customers, where we charge for the development, but they can have an affordable cart with no or a low monthly fee. Now your pricing is no different than the other expensive hosted carts out there.
You may think that this is not a "bait & switch" tactic as you are allowing grandfathering for existing customers, but this is definitely a "bait & switch" for developers that had adopted your product for their customer base.
I would assume there are many other developers out there like myself who will no longer be recommending Ecwid. It's a shame, because I had become very adept at integrating and customizing Ecwid.
*I'm writing this post logged in from one of my customer sites.
David Faria
I am very sorry to her it, this upsets me a lot.
You said that Ecwid was the best solution for your customers. It isn't easy to be the best and this requires constant changes and improvements. The change of Ecwid pricing is one of such changes which is required to be done if we want to keep Ecwid the best in the future.
Our users want to use a platform which is constantly evolving: new features, new innovations, because it will bring them more sales. Developers and web studios who use Ecwid want the same thing, because it makes easier to resell Ecwid to their clients. And in order to do this, we should charge fair and adequate price for the services we offer.
A quick example: let's imagine there is a great web developer who charges $5/hour for his work. His clients are happy, because they can get a great work at a very cheap price: the average price on market is $40/hour.This developer needs to eat and support his family in order to continue his work and his $5/hour rate doesn't help him with this at all. So he decides to raise his rate to $25/hour, still much less than the average rates of his competitors. Will his clients be happy? No and I totally understand why. Is it a necessary and required change? Yes.
Even with the new plans Ecwid costs less than competitors. For example let's check the new "Unlimited" $99/month plan that offers unlimited numbers of products, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, no transaction fees or revenue limits. If we check the prices of other hosted (SaaS) shopping carts (where all the technical stuff is handled by cart's team), we will see that 1) almost no one offers the same plan - they all have some additional limits, for example bandwidth ones 2) A few who offer the same plan charge from $170/month - it is 70%+ more than Ecwid price! The same thing applies to other Ecwid plans as well.
In your other comment your said that '"Grandfathered" means nothing to us developers'. I think quite the opposite, it is very important for developers and web studios. We saw many examples of prices changes of other companies without "grandfathering" and it hurted the developers a lot: they had to explain their existing customers that they need to pay more for the solution they recommended them. With Ecwid you don't need to explain anything: all existing paid users will continie to get the same level of service for the same price. I think it is a good thing.
Price increases are always not welcome and happy news. I totally understand this as well as your dissatisfaction and reaction. Unfortunately this is the required step in order to keep Ecwid successful and the best. By the way, this is the first step in the implementing our "Project partners" program, which will allow any developer or stuidio to re-sell the co-branded version of Ecwid with good discounts. For such developers the price change is actually the good thing: they can charge more for their work, they will get bigger discounts, etc.
Thank you for your feedback. We'd hate to see you go away. If we could do something (besides returning the old prices) to keep you, just let me know. And thank you once again for being our customers for 3 years - we truly appreciate your support and help.
If I have a Silver plan now and then at some point in the next year want to return to free because I realise I don't need more than 100 products, will I go back to the "old" free plan (100 products max) or the "new" free plan (10 products)?
promisemestuff,
Yes, you will go back to the "old" free plan (100 products max).
Can you elaborate on this feature: "Multi-storefront tracking"?
2020Promo,
Please, refer to this article: http://kb.ecwid.com/w/page/24740703/Affiliates%20features
Aha, I was hoping it was related to this:
http://ideas.ecwid.com/forums/22031-customer-suggestions-ideas-for-ecwid/suggestions/495479-ability-to-mange-multiple-stores-from-your-account
Is there any option for using Ecwid as simply a "gallery"?
I have used Ecwid for the last 2 years almost exclusively my clients (some full stores and some simply galleries) and $17/month is doable but $35/month is going to be a hard sell.
Hi,
Do you mean a product catalog? If yes, pelase refer to this article:
http://kb.ecwid.com/w/page/27231233/How%20to%20turn%20Ecwid%20to%20a%20product%20catalog
I have Ecwid installed at http://www.texasprokartchallenge.com & use it for race registration & payment processing.
This past year we had 4 events held on different months. Could I upgrade to the Silver plan for the months we use the shopping cart & downgrade on our off months (no sales 8 months of the year) & then upgrade to the same Silver plan after downgrading to the free plan for a few months? And continue to do this for years?
I totally understand if you say no. In fact I really expect you to say no. I thought I would just ask though. We have a very seasonal use for the shopping kart & don't use it the majority of the year.
Thanks for a great product!
yaani,
if you keep your current account, you will be able to downgrade to the old Free plan and upgrade back to the Silver plan again.
Eugene Rimmer,
Thank you Eugene , that is very accommodating.
Can someone please tell me what the monthly sales volume limits are on the new plans? You mentioned the $5,000 limit on Venture plan in a post above but I can't find the monthly sales volume limits are on the other new plans.
Thanks!
Hi Ecwid/Eugene,
I was just reading your response to yaani. Please could you confirm I have understood this correctly ...
if I am currently on a Silver plan, and then I downgrade to Free, and later upgrade again when needed, I will go back to my "grandfathered" Silver plan at $17 per month?
TIA!
shcredo,
As it was mentioned many times here, yes, you will be able to do so for your existing account.
I'm still in shock to learn that the free 100 product account is now going to be 10? It's not even worth going free for that rate. But I guess that is your selling point to basically force you to go to a paid version. Are the new versions going to be compatible with at least PayPal Advanced? I'm totally bum here because you all have been my "go to guy" ecommerce software for about 3 years and now I have to look for something else really saddens me
Brian Thomas,
Thank you for your feedback.
1. For 200,000+ registered merchants including you new plans will not change anything. Merchants will continue to receive the same level of service they currently receive today – forever.
So you will still have the 100 products limit.
2. I've described the reasons behind the change there: http://www.ecwid.com/blog/ecwid-news/ecwid-announces-new-service-plans-no-price-changes-for-our-existing-users.html#comment-684
We beleive that it is the necessary change we have to do and new plans will benefit Ecwid and the whole Ecwid community.
3. PayPal Payflow Link (almost the same thing as PayPal Advanced) will be released in the next version. PayPal Advanced and PayPal Pro Hosted will be released in a short while after that.
With the new plans will there be an way to upload options and option combinations via CSV?
Brian Thomas4,
We are planning to revamp our CSV import feature in the future. It will be extended to support additional entities like options, combinations, additional images, etc.
shoot!. wish I'd seen this a few week ago.
timing is everything they say.
I didn't see this question above so I hope I'm not repeating anything.
Will the new plans raise the 100 MB file limit?
The only reason I haven't upgraded yet is I've been working on coding a self hosted option as our files tend to be around 150 to 250 MB.
carl
Carl,
Since you created your Ecwid account before new plans are released, you're still eligible for our special plans for early adopters.
No, however we're considering this option.
Drop us a line at support@ecwid.com and we will try to find a solution for you.