Ning Update: Introducing Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning Mini

[Eric Suesz]

Our CEO, Jason Rosenthal, just posted a blog post about our upcoming plans and pricing. I thought I would reprint it here for Creators. 

"I’m excited to introduce three new versions of the Ning Service that we will roll out in July. When we announced two weeks ago that we were going to refocus on paying Ning Networks and phase out our free service, we knew there would be many questions about what the new Ning would look like. Our goal with these offerings — as explained below — is to enhance the experience Network Creators have on Ning, and by extension, the experiences your members have as well. 

What will we be rolling out in July? We’ll start with many of the things Network Creators have been asking for and extend the service from there. The end of Ning promotional links, leading to a more customized, branded experience for you and your members. An ad free experience and the option to run your own ads — if you like. Easy content export and back-up. The end of Ning ID and ability to add Facebook and Twitter sign-in. API access for a more integrated experience. The ability to charge for membership and accept donations. We’ve listened to your more frequent and pressing requests and combined them with our current premium services into three new product offerings — Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning Mini.

For full comparison of the three plans, click here.

Our pricing plans offer incredible value relative to our current Premium Services. For example, your Ning Network currently has the option to Use Your Own Domain, Remove Create Links, and Run Your Own Ads. You can take advantage of all of these services for about $55/month right now. With the Ning Plus, you’ll be able to have them all for $19.95/month. We will also offer current Network Creators a one-time annual pricing discount that provides even greater value.

We also recognize that many small non-profit, family or other small group Ning Networks have limited budgets, and we value what you’ve created on Ning. For $2.95/month or $19.95/year, Ning Mini provides a powerful set of features to continue to grow and engage with your members — ad-free or with your own ads.

We’ve also heard from many Network Creators who use Ning in the classroom as an integral part of their curriculum. I am particularly excited to announce that a major education company will be sponsoring Ning Mini Networks for educators in primary and secondary education. Ning will remain free for K-12 educators and their students. We’ll have details on this program soon!

We will roll out Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning mini in July. Current Network Creators will have 30 days following the roll-out to decide which plan best fits their needs. For Ning Creators using our free service who choose to move to another service, we will offer a simple way to export all of your content.

We know there’s a lot of questions, including how to choose a plan, when you can sign up and what happens if you don’t choose an option. That’s why we’ve created a place with all the details about this new offering, including details, a timeline and FAQs (also available in Spanish, here). I look forward to your feedback, both in the comments below and on Creators."

[Rafael]

Excellent! Now, I'll be paying less for many more powerful features. Thanks Ning, and my best wishes to the Ning Team.

[Melissa B]

Agreed! It seems to work for me.

[Arik Johnson]

This. Is. Awesome.

[Ren Inso]

Could be better if there is another product offering between Mini and Plus.

Such for a community based groups, members can be more than 150 (500 probably) although others are dormant, mostly just go online if there is something special on the site. Add groups, events, no videos(as this always eat up the bandwidth) and use own domain.

Just my ideas.

[Tammy Hendrix]

Could be better if there is another product offering between Mini and Plus.

I agree.

[P. Smith]

I do too.

[Cat]

I agree also that something between mini and plus would be ideal.

[EAM]

That was my first thought - or up the member cap on the first level.

Great news on the edu networks!

Looking forward to hearing and reading more.

[Caroline Cerveny]

I would agree - something inbetween would be very helpful. I would also see a different pricing for recognized 501C-3 organizations. Most other services do take this option into account!

[Tom]

I like the mini option for my peace site, but I woul dlike to keep using my own domain. I don't want to lose my SEO rankings by de-mapping my site to a Ning url.

[Richard Michael]

For those who think the Mini plan is great, have you looked at the side-by-side comparison?

It's obvious that Ning's plan is to get everyone on to the $200 a year Plus plan or above.

If you're running an existing network, you'll be hard-pressed to continue with Ning with anything but the Plus plan.

These are all the takeaways.

Can you imagine any scenario where 150 members could even come close to generating 10GB of bandwidth with 1 GB of total content in a month?

No Chat -- It certainly isn't worth paying for in its current incarnation. Now you have to pay more to get it.

No Events -- This is one of the best implementations in all of Ning, now it's gone.

No Groups -- You have to pay substantially more for a groups feature that really doesn't have features I'd be willing to pay extra for.

No Notes and Pages -- There's already a content size limit, just another reason to force you to the intended plan.

No Invites for members -- Well, that will certainly keep the membership low. Over the last year we've witnessed more and more constraints on invitations. Will the constraints be removed now that we're paying for it? Or will we pay and still have all those recently added constraints.

Run your own ads? - Yeah, in one of the three text boxes you're allotted.

No CSS -- The CSS is already limiting and awkward to use, so it doesn't measure up as a paid feature.

No Language -- The Language editor is already awkward to use, so now to keep the few things that we've identified where to make a change, we have to pay.

No Feature controls -- So you can't moderate photos and videos.

No mention of Layout. Will the Mini plan have access to the Tab Manager and the Main page layout? Not that there'll be a lot to do with these with all the above features removed.

No mention of member Profile Questions. Are there any available on Mini?

There's a lot more taken away, but some of those things could reasonably be called premium features.

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So schools don't already use any of these features? The Mini subsidy for schools is a diversion. Can you imagine schools continuing to use it without groups, events, notes and pages, or chat?

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So, Ning.

Here's my simple suggestion for the Mini plan.

Includes all features currently available, but no new features will be added.

Includes 1 GB of content of the network's choice.

Includes 10 GB of monthly bandwidth.

Includes statistics on content and bandwidth, so that large content items and high bandwidth members can be identified.

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Unfortunately, I don't think that will meet the revenue projections goal that will be needed for a public offering or a sale of the company.

[mrsdana]

I TOTALLY AGREE.