(Archived) Subscription-Based Pricing?

[J-Mac 19]

So Evernote 3 will only be available with a monthly subscription?

From the Gotta Be Mobile Blog, Saturday, 03/29/2008:

Saturday, March 29, 2008 8:25:26 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Rob, Thanks for your kind words. I'm very happy that you're finding Evernote useful. Some comments to your comments, in-line: EverNote needs to put some serious work into developing an auto import from OneNote to EverNote for those wanting to make the conversion. Good idea. Or maybe, once we publish our APIs, someone else can do it for us. "I'm wondering why the EverNote web interface doesn't default to https? When forced to https, it'll stay there temporarily, but then switch back to http. I want my note information transmitted securely." Right now all user authentication happens over HTTPS. Large-scale SSL transmission of all note content is expensive (to us), and will be a feature available to premium subscribers, once we launch the premium subscriptions. "I really, really wish EverNote would allow mix of ink and text. I've asked them about it multiple times. Sadly, it is not a priority." It's very tough to do this while preserving portability and search across multiple platforms, but we've got a few options we're exploring. "How much will EverNote, with all its syncing glory, cost? Are we looking at monthly subscription fees for the syncing or will it be free with the purchase of the client. Pricing is one data piece not being provided yet. I'd like to know what their pricing model is going to be like." There's going to be a free subscription level that includes pretty much all of the features you see in the beta, including multiple clients. syncing, recognition. There's going to be a "premium" subscription level that includes things like much higher quotas, enhanced security, etc. We haven't really worked out the details on premium features, timing and price yet. "The iPhone mobile interface is totally awesome!" It's going to get a whole lot more awesome soon.

--- Phil Libin CEO, Evernote

Some thoughts about this:

• [*:e056a] So if we want our notes to be secure we will have to pay a premium?
  [*:e056a] Can anyone from Evernote tell us what other "premium" options will be available?
  [*:e056a]What exactly does "higher quotas" mean? How few notes will users be limited to without a premium subscription?
  [*:e056a] Will additional saved searches be available for an additional "premium" cost?
  [*:e056a] If a user decides he/she can no longer afford the "premium" subscription will all notes be lost? Could they be exported?
  [*:e056a] If a user defaulted on payment, would their notes be deleted?
  [*:e056a] Can you give us any information on what will be included with a "premium" subscription?
  [*:e056a] And what pricing level we can look forward to?
  [*:e056a] Are there going to be different tiers or levels of "premium" subscriptions?

I'm sure there are other questions to come...

Jim

[engberg 89]

The base Evernote service will stay free, but we plan to add a "Premium" subscription for a few dollars a month that will allow people to pay a little extra to cover features that cost us extra to support: greatly increased note storage limits, SSL security for all communications, etc. We're still working through the details and pricing, but the introduction of a "Premium" service level won't take anything away from free users. So I don't think we can give concrete answers for most of your questions yet, but we promise to get this information out in the next two months.

So if we want our notes to be secure we will have to pay a premium?

Even for free users, our goal is to exceed the level of security that you get from your email provider. In addition to managing your notes in a secure data center (http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5667&p=20633#p20633), we also offer options such as text encryption within notes and local notebooks to give many choices to both Free and Premium accounts. The use of SSL for all communications is a bit expensive for us, so we plan to make this part of our "Premium" package to help cover our costs.

If a user decides he/she can no longer afford the "premium" subscription will all notes be lost? Could they be exported?

We won't delete the active notes from users who cancel or default on their Premium subscriptions, although this might affect your ability to upload new notes if you've exceeded the free limits.

The desktop applications support the export of notes, and we plan to extend this capability by the end of beta to include a new XML-based Note export format which can be imported into either Windows or Mac. We have no intention to "lock in" our users by holding their notes -- it will always be easy for you to get any or all of your notes out of our client software.

Are there going to be different tiers or levels of "premium" subscriptions?

For now, we think we will just have two levels. "Evernote Free" will be similar to what you're getting in the beta, and "Evernote Premium" will offer vastly increased capacity and various services that aren't currently available in the Free accounts. We think that the single Premium level should offer enough capacity for virtually anyone, but we can revisit this if needed. (The names of these service levels are also not finalized ...)