"Evernote pushes users to upgrade with test of a free plan limited to only 50 notes"

[Bill Myers 458]

Now we know what we already knew:

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/evernote-pushes-users-to-upgrade-with-test-of-a-free-plan-limited-to-only-50-notes/

Anyway, I'm Team Evernote. I'm paying for Professional, and you can call me a happy subscriber. Some feel otherwise. Either way, I've thought for several months that the free tier as we've known it was on borrowed time.

[gazumped 11,772]

I've been a subscriber (currently at Professional) for 15 years - I'll freely acknowledge that I used the free service for a year,  but my not-very-deep thought process was that to pay for this meant Evernote...

• would be around longer
• could afford to develop new features
• had some contractual obligations if anything went wrong...

The entitlement of some of the comments now a free service may end is rather astonishing...

[Boot17 1,489]

I hope Bending Spoons strategies to get more free users to pay money pay off.

One of the interesting things about this current campaign is the somewhat cunning (strategic?) nature of it. Don't publicly announce, just quietly target certain free subscriptions that fit a certain profile... and see how that pans out. Tweak as necessary. It would probably be disastrous if they did something so drastic and widespread that there was this huge exodus of free users all at once. The plan being, of course, to try and convert as many of those free users to paying as possible.

I must admit that it made me a bit leery at first that they didn't pre-announce it, but it was a good reminder that I think we should all be prepared at any time for any free service to just disappear or become not free.

I recently started paying for YouTube Premium because: (a) I get great use out of it,  (b) I don't want to watch ads, (c) I was getting tired of the blocking/adblocking game and (d) this helps support the creators. No moaning -- the value is there for me.

Really, if people need another month or two (or a even a free week trial) to buy some time to find another product to migrate to because they are so entrenched in Evernote --- well I guess that's the least that can be paid for having had such a great free ride.

[eric99 1,022]

6 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

I hope Bending Spoons strategies to get more free users to pay money pay off.

One of the interesting things about this current campaign is the somewhat cunning (strategic?) nature of it. Don't publicly announce, just quietly target certain free subscriptions that fit a certain profile... and see how that pans out. Tweak as necessary. It would probably be disastrous if they did something so drastic and widespread that there was this huge exodus of free users all at once. The plan being, of course, to try and convert as many of those free users to paying as possible.

I must admit that it made me a bit leery at first that they didn't pre-announce it, but it was a good reminder that I think we should all be prepared at any time for any free service to just disappear or become not free.

I recently started paying for YouTube Premium because: (a) I get great use out of it,  (b) I don't want to watch ads, (c) I was getting tired of the blocking/adblocking game and (d) this helps support the creators.

Really, if people need another month or two (or a even a free week trial) to buy some time to find another product to migrate to because they are so entrenched in Evernote --- well I guess that's the least that can be paid for having had such a great free ride.

"...They also pointed out that the limit would not prevent free users from managing, editing, viewing, exporting or deleting their existing notes, even if they have more than the limit. It will only limit the user’s ability to create new notes, unless they become a paying customer...."

[Boot17 1,489]

I saw a report that a user couldn't export notes with the 1 notebook and 50 note limit, but it could have just been user error.

Edit: And I should have known that it was... they were probably trying to export from the web or something.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

We don't know because we haven't been there.

Just tried the export of a notebook with 65 notes on one of my Free test accounts. It exported just fine. However, this account still works like the Free accounts always did.

[janndk 573]

25 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

We don't know because we haven't been there.

Just tried the export of a notebook with 65 notes on one of my Free test accounts. It exported just fine. However, this account still works like the Free accounts always did.

Yes, and that's a problem. We never know what's going to be EverSpoons next move, and therefore need to be unnecessary alert and have a backup-plan ready all the time. Not good 😢

[Bill Myers 458]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

The entitlement of some of the comments now a free service may end is rather astonishing...

I wish I was astonished, but I've been sales awhile and science has confirmed what my experience has shown me: if you give something away, you don't create goodwill, you create a sense of entitlement. Try Googling the Red Cross, donuts and World War II to see what I mean. Evernote should never have had such a generous free plan, IMHO.

There are free and lower-cost alternatives to Evernote for those who balk at the price. There are less fully-featured services for those who feel Evernote is feature-bloated. No one is trapped by Evernote. I'm not sure what the problem is. 

[Wanderling Reborn 186]

There's a lot of unnecessary emotions around this move.

They are a private company, not a charity.

When a company has a generous free plan, it's not because they want to be your friend, but because their goal is to grow the total number of users, paid or not. They may choose this route because they hope for a high conversion rate, or because they are a startup and want to show explosive growth to VCs, or because they want users' data. 

It's been pretty clear for a while now that Evernote's growth had stalled some years ago, and their conversion rates didn't seem to be very good. I said a few years ago that their strategy seems to have switched from growth by attracting new users, to monetization by making the legacy users pay more (or simply pay up, in case of free accounts). This was already happening before BS takeover. Now, they are likely trying to get return on their investment, and they are clearly prioritizing revenue generation over growth, actually I'd argue that growth doesn't seem to be a priority at all, at least at the present time. There's probably enough deeply invested, paying users to guarantee steady revenue for up to a decade, as long as they don't mess up the service or get too greedy.  The free users are just a ballast at this point.  So, even if 90% of free users quit, and 10% upgrade to a paid plan, the company will still be ahead from the pure revenue / ROI perspective.

Again, nobody owes anyone a free plan. As long as they don't hold users' data hostage, or try to mine it (which I don't believe there was any indication of), it's their company, and their choice.

And it's equally silly to shame the users who "abused" the free accounts... as long as they used these accounts in accordance with Evernote's own rules, they were not abusing anything. Whatever EN expected them to do is absolutely irrelevant.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

If the relation of Free users vs. subscriptions is anything close to figures that were reported back in the past, a conversion rate of 10% of all Free users would double the number of subscribers. I think this could be called "being ahead on a revenue / ROI perspective" 😇

[Wanderling Reborn 186]

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

If the relation of Free users vs. subscriptions is anything close to figures that were reported back in the past, a conversion rate of 10% of all Free users would double the number of subscribers. I think this could be called "being ahead on a revenue / ROI perspective" 😇

I honestly don't know if this is a realistic number, it has been reported that Evernote had 225-250 million users, 10% of that would be 22-25 million paid users. I don't think there's 22-25 million paying users today.

The price of Evernote in the US starts at $130 per year. In India, it seems to be around $10 per year. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that with all the plans and regions and legacy plans, an average global paying user brings at least $30 per year.

So, if Evernote had even 20 million paying users - less than 10% of reported user numbers - it would be bringing in around $600 million - that's over half a billion dollars in yearly revenue already.

But they were reported to bring in about $100 million in revenue. So I would guess perhaps 3-4 million paying users, globally.  In other words, if my educated guess is correct, only 1.5-2 percent of reported total  user numbers are paying for the service.

So forcing even 1% of existing free users to convert would be a big deal. 

We'll see how it goes.

[gazumped 11,772]

20 minutes ago, Wanderling Reborn said:

So forcing even 1% of existing free users to convert would be a big deal.

I don't think it's a question of forcing people to contribute - imagine how much it costs to maintain that many individual accounts with anywhere between 10 and 1,000 notes plus connecting to users if/ when they access their data.  I don't think Evernote can avoid keeping existing user notes in free accounts for another 12 months or so,  but getting occasional users to move to another service if they're determined not to pay Evernote should massively reduce the number of daily connections to the system.

f some existing free users decide to subscribe that's extra icing on the cake;  but not carrying this unsustainable drain on resources should improve subscriber experiences across the board

[agsteele 2,976]

I have no inside information but I suspect that the majority of Free accounts are dormant having been created, used for a short while and then left unused. These folk will not be affected by these changes. I expect this to mean that the majority Free accounts will not be affected by any change. This seems to be aimed at persuading active Free users to subscribe or move on.

[laurence.glazier 110]

I wonder if the 50 note limit (which seems reasonable to me) means potentially committing to a life long subscription. Or perhaps an account which reverts to free will still have access to old notes for view or export, but just lose the option to add more.

 

[agsteele 2,976]

I think lose the option to add more notes.  We'll have to wait and see. Speculation isn't much use until the Evernote folk reveal all.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Just speculation as well: We know it is pretty easy to create a new account by accident. Or some people tinker a bit, but decide to move on. There must be a ton of „dead“ accounts.

I expect we will see a „Use it, or we archive the content and wait what will happen“ approach. Archive storage is way cheaper than space on an active server.

[Wanderling Reborn 186]

13 hours ago, gazumped said:

I don't think it's a question of forcing people to contribute - imagine how much it costs to maintain that many individual accounts with anywhere between 10 and 1,000 notes plus connecting to users if/ when they access their data.  I don't think Evernote can avoid keeping existing user notes in free accounts for another 12 months or so,  but getting occasional users to move to another service if they're determined not to pay Evernote should massively reduce the number of daily connections to the system.

f some existing free users decide to subscribe that's extra icing on the cake;  but not carrying this unsustainable drain on resources should improve subscriber experiences across the board

I honestly don’t think costs are the main issue behind that move. Most people with free accounts aren’t going to delete them even if they stop using the service or contributing new notes, so Evernote is still going to manage all these accounts. They aren’t likely to free up much server space either, it is very dependent on use case - a few notes with appliance user manuals attached are going to take up more space than several thousand plaintext notes, while still being under 50 note limit.

No, this is clearly done to force conversion to paid plans in order to improve revenue, even if this means giving up on growth for the time being.
 

 

[EricLorenz 97]

18 hours ago, Bill Myers said:

I wish I was astonished, but I've been sales awhile and science has confirmed what my experience has shown me: if you give something away, you don't create goodwill, you create a sense of entitlement. Try Googling the Red Cross, donuts and World War II to see what I mean. Evernote should never have had such a generous free plan, IMHO.

There are free and lower-cost alternatives to Evernote for those who balk at the price. There are less fully-featured services for those who feel Evernote is feature-bloated. No one is trapped by Evernote. I'm not sure what the problem is. 

Believe me, as a Red Cross volunteer for the last 13 years I hear this all the time. The key paragraph (that many will gloss over)...

"The organization started charging only because the U.S. Secretary of War asked it to. British soldiers had to pay for their snacks, and the free doughnuts for Americans were causing tensions. So the Red Cross complied, after protesting to no avail. It didn't last long — for most of the last 70 years, Red Cross doughnuts have remained free — but veterans haven't forgotten."

 

[Bill Myers 458]

2 hours ago, EricLorenz said:

Believe me, as a Red Cross volunteer for the last 13 years I hear this all the time. The key paragraph (that many will gloss over)...

"The organization started charging only because the U.S. Secretary of War asked it to. British soldiers had to pay for their snacks, and the free doughnuts for Americans were causing tensions. So the Red Cross complied, after protesting to no avail. It didn't last long — for most of the last 70 years, Red Cross doughnuts have remained free — but veterans haven't forgotten."

 

Yeah, I heard that story years ago on NPR. But I couldn't remember all the details and wasn't motivated to find a link for everyone when they could Google it for themselves. 

Now, in my opinion, if anyone has ever been entitled to a free doughnut, I think people fighting on the side of the Allies during WWII would certainly have qualified. But as the NPR piece made clear, there is plenty of evidence that if you give something away for free it creates a sense of entitlement on the part of the recipients, whether that's fair or not.

[Bill Myers 458]

2 hours ago, Wanderling Reborn said:

No, this is clearly done to force conversion to paid plans in order to improve revenue, even if this means giving up on growth for the time being.

It's nice to think we know what's going on, but none of us know what the movers and shakers at Bending Spoons are saying behind closed doors or thinking. All we can say for sure is that Bending Spoons is testing out ways to further limit free accounts with the stated intention of rolling something out across the board. And if that across-the-board roll-out happens, some people are going to have a choice: subscribe, find an alternative, or do without. They don't have to like it. They can complain bitterly about it. But they'll have to live with it all the same.

[laurence.glazier 110]

I came across this post today.

Quote

... In keeping with Evernote’s 3 Laws of Data Protection, and to ensure that you retain full ownership of your data, any Free user who currently has more than fifty notes and one notebook will still be able to view, edit, export, share, and delete existing notes and notebooks. 

So if you revert to Free, your data will still be there. This is very responsible.

[technonath 8]

I would happily pay £20 a year for evernote, but when all these subscriptions for things start at £8pm and increase every year, I cannot afford to pay it because all these subscriptions add up.

e.g.

your own domain or permanent email address with mail.com £20 a year

100gb of google storage £20 a year

so why so much money for evernote ?

Is it not better to have 200 million people paying £1.50 a month, than the alternative of losing them?

 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Evernote sets its price point, and you decide if you accept it or not. If it creates the value, you will, if you don’t, you won’t subscribe. The price point is clearly not targeted at a consumer market.

On the other hand EN has a pretty unique feature set and is able to replace several other apps.

I doubt we will see any „cheap“ plan with reduced features at all in the next months and years.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

Here's a fairly random thought: If free users, or new users who use the free account as a trial (its intended purpose), decide to subscribe in sufficient numbers, the increased income may enable BenSpoo to hold prices at (close to) this level for a few years. IOW, a big price increase (for free and grandfathered cheap users) can lead to a leveling off of prices.

[Wanderling Reborn 186]

2 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Here's a fairly random thought: If free users, or new users who use the free account as a trial (its intended purpose), decide to subscribe in sufficient numbers, the increased income may enable BenSpoo to hold prices at (close to) this level for a few years. IOW, a big price increase (for free and grandfathered cheap users) can lead to a leveling off of prices.

This really depends on what their long term goal is - growing the service, maintaining it at roughly current levels, or earning max ROI.

I think it’s fairly obvious that growing the service is not currently their goal. Stress on “currently”.

I also think that, barring some spectacular developments, in the long term there will be net reduction of paid user base due to the natural attrition . The service is just not currently attractive to a generic new user who is not already deeply invested in it, and the established legacy users aren’t going to stick with EN forever - people find shiny new tools, retire, or … well.

So, either they develop some major new functionality that makes Evernote significantly more attractive and brings in more paying users, or they will be forced to raise prices again as the number of users continues to decline.

And, introducing a lower cost tier at this point would be a very risky move, as it’s likely that it would attract significantly more current paying customers than new ones, thus decreasing the net revenue.

I don’t think that the prices will be lower unless they decide that they want to grow the service at the cost of profits. 

[Bill Myers 458]

On 11/30/2023 at 8:56 AM, technonath said:

Is it not better to have 200 million people paying £1.50 a month, than the alternative of losing them?

I think this makes a few unsafe assumptions. First, we don't know that the majority of free users are willing to pay any price, no matter how low. 

Second, this assumes that offering a subscription of £1.50 a month would be profitable for Bending Spoons. We don't know that either. In fact, I tend to doubt it would be.

I am sure there are free users who would feel angry to read this, but they are not customers. They represent a cost with no benefit. A mass exodus of free users might represent a significant cost savings for Bending Spoons. A subscription plan at a price point low enough to entice some of them might not be profitable.

I think people tend to forget that companies thrive on profit, not simply revenue.

As a subscriber, I'd be happy to see Bending Spoons free up resources so that they can better focus on paying customers. I think the idea that a sizable number of free users would ever convert has proven false.

[Bill Myers 458]

As an aside, the expectation that Bending Spoons can or should offer a generous free plan or super-low-cost subscriptions reminds me of an old joke. "We lose money on every transaction, but we make up for it with volume."

[Paul A. 650]

8 hours ago, Bill Myers said:

I think this makes a few unsafe assumptions. First, we don't know that the majority of free users are willing to pay any price, no matter how low. 

Agreed, with the number of free alternatives out there many current free users are unlikely to convert at any price.

8 hours ago, Bill Myers said:

Second, this assumes that offering a subscription of £1.50 a month would be profitable for Bending Spoons. We don't know that either. In fact, I tend to doubt it would be.

Actually, I'm very confident that BS would be massively profitable with 200 million subscribers paying about $23/year (rough equivalent at current exchange rates.) The big cost is salaries, not cloud, which is pennies per Gig per month, and salaries don't scale (much) with the number of paying subscribers.

It's just wildly unrealistic to assume that Evernote could get anywhere close to that number of subscribers, as you point out. They certainly have fewer than 5 million paying subscribers right now, and likely fewer than 2 million. 200 million is not even a pipe dream!

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Actually the number of WORKING free alternatives is not that numerous. With a lower price setting than EN yes, but the freebies are often limited in their functions or content (one offered 5 free notes as Free plan …).

[gazumped 11,772]

...and as I've mentioned:  "free" plans usually make their money from ads and/ or selling user data.  The only truly free option out there involves paper and pen.  The battery life is brilliant but the search options... aren't.

[shales001 2]

Can anyone help me figure out how to change my billing for the Personal Plan from yearly to monthly on Google Play? I do not see any options to do this. When I go into my account on Windows, it says I have to address billing in Google Play. Do I have to cancel and sign up again? That is the only option I can see. I am considering some other apps than Evernote since the price is almost doubled. Thank you. 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Why are you posting twice ? See forum rules of conduct - one time is enough.

[Andrew Burnes 1]

And with that, I'm out and will use one of the countless other free note taking options available. Astonishingly stupid move.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Nobody is holding you back.

Economically it is one user less who would never contribute, and just use resources and cost money.

That’s exactly the sort of user every business will happily recommend to its competitors.

Why did you say that this would be „stupid“ ?

[Bankir 1]

The great thing is we can vote with our money. If Evernote loses enough people they will correct  this shocking increase.

[gazumped 11,772]

17 hours ago, Bankir said:

If Evernote loses enough people

? You're posting in a thread about a free product ?

[wrbird 3]

It's great to hear that Evernote has its loyal followers, as I WAS also for over 10 years. Was I a free-loader, absolutely, because they offered it. Now they are taking it away, totally fine, they have that prerogative. I would've been more than happy to pay a reasonable price, but $130/yr is NOT. That's twice what I'm paying for Microsoft 365 that includes OneNote and 1TB of storage. Is OneNote as good as Evernote, no, but I'll figure out how to make it work.

If I didn't have 365, Upnote would be the app I'd migrate to. The $30 lifetime license is what's reasonable. I'd highly recommend Upnote for a serious Evernote alternative. I actually wished I knew of Upnote before.

So long Evernote, and good luck to all of you who don't mind forking out their annual subscription. 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

The issue with these lifetime payments is they are meaning their (company) lifetime - not yours.

The math on it is pretty easy. It’s more or less a Ponzi scheme - when not enough new „lifetime“ subscribers show up, the bubble bursts.

It can work for a while when there are no running cost involved except software development.

[Mia 39]

5 hours ago, wrbird said:

It's great to hear that Evernote has its loyal followers, as I WAS also for over 10 years. Was I a free-loader, absolutely, because they offered it. Now they are taking it away, totally fine, they have that prerogative. I would've been more than happy to pay a reasonable price, but $130/yr is NOT. That's twice what I'm paying for Microsoft 365 that includes OneNote and 1TB of storage. Is OneNote as good as Evernote, no, but I'll figure out how to make it work.

If I didn't have 365, Upnote would be the app I'd migrate to. The $30 lifetime license is what's reasonable. I'd highly recommend Upnote for a serious Evernote alternative. I actually wished I knew of Upnote before.

So long Evernote, and good luck to all of you who don't mind forking out their annual subscription. 

I pay for One Note, 365 & whatever other nonsense MS offers & want to Dump it. When I do not have a headache & can figure out transition for my images, Poof, it's g.o.n.e.      Going from 69.99 to 130$ for my EN was not easy, but let's look at all we are getting (as updates get better on Android especially😳).  Being invested IN them since 2010 makes them part of my life, yeas.    Funny, I just downloaded "Upnote" ~ nice free app, but I Never expect ANYTHING to Rock my world for "Free".  Not a Thing. Money makes the planet go 'round.  You will not get anything of major Value for Free. (Yeas I've been in sales a long time as well.)   

i wish I could use a Free account. Tried a test in setting one up while working with support around Sept. I believe there were issues signing in. 

[wrbird 3]

Nice, you guys are happy with Evernote and want to pay the annual subscription, that's what counts. I just researched Upnote further and am moving forward with their ability to import my Evernote data, awesome🙂 So look at that, we're all happy😀

I'm with you there on MS products, what a headache, but their formats are so widely used, it makes it worthwhile for me (barely😂)

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

1 hour ago, wrbird said:

I just researched Upnote further and am moving forward with their ability to import my Evernote data, awesome🙂 So look at that, we're all happy😀

Well and good. Enjoy Upnote while it lasts. 🙂 All I'd ask is that when it either drastically raises its price in order to survive (which it will have to) or crashes and burns, please let us know. I promise not to say "I told you so." 😁

[wrbird 3]

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Well and good. Enjoy Upnote while it lasts. 🙂 All I'd ask is that when it either drastically raises its price in order to survive (which it will have to) or crashes and burns, please let us know. I promise not to say "I told you so." 😁

Thanks for the warning👍 I can't count the number of apps that I've paid once for over the last 15 years that I'm still using and they're still being developed. Have some gone under or just stopped being developed, sure, but my experience has been very good. Will UpNote go under, maybe. Will Evernote go under, maybe. Either way, make sure your data is backed up 😊

[Blizzard Joe 14]

Although I don't currently use Upnote I did look into it at one point and found that they address the concern of how the app will be supported given the lifetime purchase option.  You can check out their thoughts at https://getupnote.com/support.html.  I can appreciate that they are upfront about it and are committed to honoring their lifetime purchasers.  I will say that with some other software that I purchased through a one time payment that switched to a subscription model they did freeze the features, which is a more gentle nudge for existing users to convert to a subscription.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

That many apps switch to subscriptions after an initial phase is an indication: If somebody wants continuous development, he needs a continuous income.

The freeze is OK for me - I have some apps that are in this state. But more simply have vanished. I think no problem with a camera, a game or a calculator.

But with an app giving structure to my data, I prefer a long term perspective. 

[wrbird 3]

@Blizzard JoeThanks for that link, good to read. 

[Slide 2]

Gross. The company trying to strong arm people into paying more by unexpectedly blocking your ability to create a new note, after over a decade of using it? That doesn't show any respect for their users or create any trust. If you have a policy, then give notice about it, and enforce it equally among everybody. This is a slimy, shifty underhanded move on their part. Why would I pay to upgrade and give money to a company that has zero respect for their consumers and users? (sure it's their prerogative. doesn't make it any less slimy. it's desperate and sad.)

[PinkElephant 8,282]

@Slide I won‘t talk about respect of users for a company, or of a company for users.

During your decade of use, other users paid for your free ride - not „the company“ that only served as a recycling tool for this expenditure.

I call it a deep disrespect by yourself forgetting about this. You seem to expect that your free ride on the ticket of fellow users has to go on forever. You are exactly the sort of user I am sort of happy about being booted out of your easy-go-lucky habit once and for all.

Tell me: Why should I wish to have part of MY subscription money spend for the exploitation habits of people like YOU ?

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

55 minutes ago, Slide said:

Gross. The company trying to strong arm people into paying more by unexpectedly blocking your ability to create a new note, after over a decade of using it? That doesn't show any respect for their users or create any trust. If you have a policy, then give notice about it, and enforce it equally among everybody. This is a slimy, shifty underhanded move on their part. Why would I pay to upgrade and give money to a company that has zero respect for their consumers and users? (sure it's their prerogative. doesn't make it any less slimy. it's desperate and sad.)

The notification was definitely far too abrupt, IMHO, but it is absolutely equally enforced among everybody who has been using Evernote for free. There have also been price increases for people who were already paying for it.

But just to have the situation clear: you have been using/consuming Evernote for over a decade, creating some number of notes for personal or professional use, without every paying a dime for this valuable resource. And you think Evernote is "slimy, shifty underhanded" for suddenly saying the free ride is over?

"Why would I pay to upgrade and give money to a company that has zero respect for their consumers and users?" Because you are getting highly beneficial value for the service? (You must be if you've kept using it for 10 years.) Because you're not a bum and a freeloader, consuming what other people pay for? Because you have respect for the hard work that has gone into creating, upgrading, and maintaining the Evernote service, and for your long-paying fellow users?

I have sympathy for people who need to use Evernote for free because they truly cannot afford to pay anything significant. None for people who leech for a decade and then whine when they are finally required to shell out for what they're using. "Desperate and sad" indeed.

[s2sailor 2,342]

4 hours ago, Slide said:

The company trying to strong arm people into paying more by unexpectedly blocking your ability to create a new note

This is incorrect.  Paying more (my emphasis above) implies that you have paid something, which is not the case.  I don't fault you for having and enjoying a free ride.  That is on Evernote for enabling that in the first place, but when you whine about the free ride ending, that crosses the line IMO.  Be thankful for the free service that you received and either pay your share now or move on.

[Annie C 0]

HIGHLY frustrated with this change. The communication around this was poor; on my end it was an alert that the pricing tiers have drastically changed and already in affect. I am a 5+ year user, and have over 2,000 notes for professional and personal life. I use Evernote daily and switching to a new platform is not an easy change. If Evernote was planning on this change, I would have appreciated the company using the past months to clearly communicate the new free plan so there was adequate time to find a new platform.

Additionally while some users may be okay to pay, $130/year feels incredibly high for the service Evernote provides. For example, I pay less for Dropbox, which holds all my photos, videos, and documents (personally this feels like a much larger service than storing notes). It also feels incredibly aloof to change pricing so drastically. A consumer base given free access to so many notes and notebooks are not prepped for that kind of price jump. 

To be clear, I am not saying Evernote should have stayed at the previous pricing structure forever. But the poor communication and drastic pricing expectation is shocking and forced me to find another platform. Unsurprisingly, I cannot even contact support chat or email without a paid tier so this is my only option for expressing consumer feedback. Feedback that will be approved by a moderator and assuming will not be posted since it is not in support of the change. But hoping this at least goes to someone internally. I am a very disappointed end user that could've accepted a lower price option with good support and communication, but with this direction I am out.

 

 

[jm@jespermadsen.dk 1]

I will get the hell out of there - going for Joplin.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

In hindsight one has to ask yourself why the former management avoided to make those who use the service pay for it.

What crosses my mind is that „Everybody’s darling is everybody’s fool“.

[Kelly B KY 0]

My problem is that I have deleted notes and now have 48 and I still can't make a new one. Can anyone help?

[Slide 2]

Had been considering signing up for a plan before Evernote did this. I can totally concede that I should be paying, I do think people should be compensated for their time and work, of course, although I don't agree with the way Evernote went about this, or about their shoddy management and service. While it has been incredibly useful to me, I cannot actually afford the price they are asking, personally. If I could have paid, I would have before this.

 

So for those jumping on my back for expressing my anger and surprise, sure. What I will say tho is, at the risk of starting a flame war, is that these Evernote apologists and shills like PinkElephant who spend all their time on this site are INCREDIBLY annoying, not just here, but in the way they "answer" the many questions average users have posted in the past. Don't y'all have a life?

 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

You seem to have a certain lack of efficiency if you think „we“ would be here all day.

Care about your own life !

[Zaryl Masters 0]

Sorry to butt in but

Me and my wife are using EN quite extensively for work & family stuff since 2018.

But with the recent Free tier limitations, we decided to purchase a plan where we can share the plan but using separate accounts.

So which plans is suitable for us?

Thanks!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

On 12/13/2023 at 7:16 PM, Slide said:

While it has been incredibly useful to me, I cannot actually afford the price they are asking, personally. If I could have paid, I would have before this.

Might have been helpful to lead with this, or at least include it, in your first post, instead of "Gross ... strong arm ... doesn't show any respect for their users or create any trust ... slimy, shifty underhanded .... zero respect for their consumers and user ... desperate and sad." As I said above, I respect and sympathize with those who simply can't afford any of the paid levels. I believe Evernote should offer a lower-priced tier with more limited features for such people, constructed in such a way as to earn a modest profit but be more widely affordable. The limitations would need to be more severe than earlier lower-priced plans such as Plus, to keep people from trying to use it as a full-fledged personal or professional plan, but there does seem to be a reasonable number of people who'd be interested in it.

[gazumped 11,772]

5 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

there does seem to be a reasonable number of people who'd be interested in it.

...But we do have the history of Evernote being available at much lower prices than now,  and no-one bought in. 

As a commercial enterprise Evernote has to wonder whether it's worthwhile spending time and development cost finding ways to limit access for a group that says they're willing to pay,  but never made the effort before...  And what if it's still too limiting for some people,  or doesn't include something (like email-in notes) that some want?  I'd say they're doing the sensible thing for now and - as with Linux - back-burnering side projects until they get the infrastructure completely right.

[gazumped 11,772]

On 12/14/2023 at 12:30 PM, Zaryl Masters said:

Sorry to butt in but

Me and my wife are using EN quite extensively for work & family stuff since 2018.

But with the recent Free tier limitations, we decided to purchase a plan where we can share the plan but using separate accounts.

So which plans is suitable for us?

Thanks!

Hi.  I'd say the safest way is to start out with one Personal account and one free.  Share notebooks between you - the 'owner' of the personal account will share their account limits with the free user,  so you both get the benefit.  (You'll have to argue amongst yourselves who gets which account... )

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

Just now, gazumped said:

...But we do have the history of Evernote being available at much lower prices than now,  and no-one bought in. 

Too few people bought in and moved from Free, but that's because Free was much too generous and long-lasting. Not now. People did buy in to Plus (they're here now yelling that it's gone away and they have to pay more). A moderate level combined with a vanishingly-low-featured Free might work.

[Creatorperson411 0]

Hi! I’m currently a paid subscriber who just upgraded per recent change. However, I did this through a promotion email from Evernote and not through the app. As a result, there seems to be a disconnect because my current app is still showing that I have upgraded, and is still showing me the same banners over and over again. Who should I contact about this?

I actually even tried to upgrade on my own app when it first rolled out the pop up, but the green continue button does not work - nothing happens when I click on it. 
 

any insights?

[wrbird 3]

On 12/12/2023 at 6:55 PM, Annie C said:

switching to a new platform is not an easy change.

@Annie C I switched to UpNote and transferred my 2000+ notes very easily. I was very willing to pay the $30 one time fee. Definitely worth looking into UpNote, so far I'm very happy with it. It's not identical to EN, but for my usage it works perfectly. 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

You say it correctly: For your use case - since you don’t describe it, we can assume it was a light use anyhow. Couldn’t have been much more if it worked on a Free account.

[cchambliss 0]

On 11/28/2023 at 5:04 PM, PinkElephant said:

If the relation of Free users vs. subscriptions is anything close to figures that were reported back in the past, a conversion rate of 10% of all Free users would double the number of subscribers. I think this could be called "being ahead on a revenue / ROI perspective" 😇

You have to account for the number of subscribers they're losing because of the huge price jump. I think that's a far bigger pain point than limitations on free accounts. I was happily paying for what I used, but I couldn't budget that much of a change.

[gazumped 11,772]

16 hours ago, cchambliss said:

You have to account for the number of subscribers they're losing because of the huge price jump. 

...given the 'double the price' comments it looks like they could lose 50% of subscribers and a big chunk of Free users without reducing income...  and walk away with a hugely reduced network load.  I'm looking forward to my future speed increases...

[Boot17 1,489]

Yeah - none of us know but I would guess that they are retaining the majority of their paid subscribers, so it will be overall a net monetary gain with a lesser load on computing resources and support staff. Couple that with migrating at least a small percentage of free users to paying... I think they are going to offset any losses easily. 

[mutblue 0]

For the record - in the help articles it is not clear that the Export function only works on the desktop app, not the desktop browser.  I thought it wasn't working and was freaking out!  I need to get off the platform.  I have 1.2k notes and I only had these options on the desktop browser, for each notebook.  I would pay a one off fee to get my data out of Evernote and into a new place like Google Keep if that is what it takes.   I have now exported everything, but it is in a very clunky format and I will be doing many hours of cut & paste to rearrange everything. 

 

[s2sailor 2,342]

8 hours ago, mutblue said:

For the record - in the help articles it is not clear that the Export function only works on the desktop app, not the desktop browser.  I thought it wasn't working and was freaking out!  I need to get off the platform.  I have 1.2k notes and I only had these options on the desktop browser, for each notebook.  I would pay a one off fee to get my data out of Evernote and into a new place like Google Keep if that is what it takes. 

Ok, you figured it out.  I responded to your other post where you couldn't find the export option.  It would be helpful to keep your posts on the same topic in one location.  

8 hours ago, mutblue said:

I have now exported everything, but it is in a very clunky format and I will be doing many hours of cut & paste to rearrange everything. 

The enex file format is pretty universal.  I don't know about Google Keep but many other apps will import these fine without cut and paste and any rearranging needed.  If Keep doesn't import, one option is to just leave your notes in Evernote as an archive, they won't be deleted, and slowly move over the ones you want as you need them.

[wrbird 3]

I exported over 2000 notes and easily imported them to UpNote. I highly recommend UpNote. I also imported them to OneNote wirh a third party conversation program. Not as easily, but still very doable. 

[BASboy 43]

On 11/28/2023 at 4:04 PM, Bill Myers said:

I wish I was astonished, but I've been sales awhile and science has confirmed what my experience has shown me: if you give something away, you don't create goodwill, you create a sense of entitlement. Try Googling the Red Cross, donuts and World War II to see what I mean. Evernote should never have had such a generous free plan, IMHO.

There are free and lower-cost alternatives to Evernote for those who balk at the price. There are less fully-featured services for those who feel Evernote is feature-bloated. No one is trapped by Evernote. I'm not sure what the problem is. 

Evernote was originally created as a FreeMium Plan thinking people would migrate to the paid version, per Phil Libin (one of the co-founders) People did move to paid, myself as an example, but they didn’t move enough and Evernote progress was slowed down by not being an integrated software platform. The founders left, Things changed. Now someone else is trying their hand at it. Deleting the “Dead Wood” of users that take up the HD Space. Plus Bending Spoons wants $$$, despite laying off all 227 Evernote Employees world wide  (Bending spoons has 371 employees) So they saved money there. Moving files to their own servers in Europe, saving money there. Yet despite all the saving of money they are increasing subscription costs, being secretive about their plans for future features (supposedly AI Cleanup of notes, and AI Search, though I can’t say it has helped me find things when I search with stuff… and will most likely charge even more for the AI Feature, as they currently say its “Free for all plans, at the moment, so try it out”. So I suspect the AI Search and future AI Stuff will be more additional costs. Once you have tried it and supposedly will desire the new stuff. Went to the lowest plan that wasn’t free. Will play around with transferring things to Notion and most likely will leave Evernote as it doesn’t suit my needs any more. Plus Notions AI Features seem to be much more robust. Since bending spoons won’t share their plans for future features, I can only go on their past slow and not so greatly implement advances and assume they will not be helpful. 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

As a subscriber, you can decide every year if value and price is still in balance. Changes can happen on both sides of the equation. I have a project this year where sharing and a solid web app were highly valuable, so my value perception was raised. Others may think the price is going beyond their value perception. It’s not static, and you balance your demand and the price asked when you decide about prolonging.

While the year is running, it makes no sense to bother: Features are fixed, Payment is done, so live your life.

[s2sailor 2,342]

6 minutes ago, BASboy said:

per Phil Schiller (one of the co-founders)

He appears to be an Apple guy.  I think you mean Phil Libin.

[BASboy 43]

Thanks… corrected. 

[jamalily 0]

I got very confused with the insistence on upgrading and saying that I could no longer access Evernote so I think I upgraded or signed up for a free trial.  I can't even find that out on the website.  I don't want to pay for someplace to put notes.  The limits on new system are ok with me.  How the heck do I get out of this charge.  

If I need to post this elsewhere, please tell me.

Moderator:  please help me out as I cannot get any messages thru customer service.  

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

On 12/23/2023 at 10:46 AM, BASboy said:

Since bending spoons won’t share their plans for future features

Just on this point, some smaller software companies share plans with an involved community of users, esp. if they don't have a lot of competition. As your post shows, Evernote's got lots of competition and I don't blame them for keeping their plans close to the vest rather than offering a roadmap for their competitors to try to beat them to the goal.

[gazumped 11,772]

On 12/26/2023 at 1:00 AM, jamalily said:

I got very confused with the insistence on upgrading and saying that I could no longer access Evernote so I think I upgraded or signed up for a free trial.  I can't even find that out on the website.  I don't want to pay for someplace to put notes.  The limits on new system are ok with me.  How the heck do I get out of this charge.  

If I need to post this elsewhere, please tell me.

Moderator:  please help me out as I cannot get any messages thru customer service.  

Hi.  Did you give your bank or payment details somewhere?  If so.  you're probably committed to a payment.  

Go to https://www.evernote.com/BillyBillingProfile.action (it's the 'Billing' page of your online account) and check out the very bottom of the page, just above "Terms of Service". 

The link to downgrade to Basic (free) is there.

If you do get (or have been) charged,  apply for a refund here -  https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?guest=true - use the issue type "Account"

[agsteele 2,976]

32 minutes ago, gazumped said:

The link to downgrade to Basic (free) is there.

For clarity, the downgrade link is, slightly confusingly in my view, labelled 'Cancel your Evernote subscription'. Choosing cancel will downgrade to Free.

[phillynomics 0]

Free user here who will be switching to another service.  No sour grapes on my end, as yes, Evernote is a private enterprise and can do what it wants in the market.

I don't have the data, but I find it hard to imagine that Evernote wouldn't put itself in a better revenue situation by offering a lower-priced entry-level plan, more in the range of $4 to $5 / month, vs. ponying up over $10 / month.  You could still restrict notes to a level lower than is used by most businesses for this personal plan, but not as low as 50.

Again, maybe they have the market data to show a low-priced entry level plan is a losing strategy, but with everyone economizing under the force of horrible inflation and cost increases, my hunch is that if they are monetizing, that would be a better strategy.

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Actually there was a similar plan called Plus. Sales were stopped in 2018, which tells a lot about the earnings situation even 5 years ago. Since last year EN is not renewing these subscriptions any more.

When I read the signs, there is no chance we will see a cheap entry level subscription.

[phillynomics 0]

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Actually there was a similar plan called Plus. Sales were stopped in 2018, which tells a lot about the earnings situation even 5 years ago. Since last year EN is not renewing these subscriptions any more.

When I read the signs, there is no chance we will see a cheap entry level subscription.

Thanks for the info - wasn't aware.

It looks like their competitors, like Notion, have increased entry-level plans as well.  Their still undercutting Evernote, probably to increase the increase revenue for those they anticipate jumping ship from EN.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

5 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Actually there was a similar plan called Plus. Sales were stopped in 2018, which tells a lot about the earnings situation even 5 years ago. Since last year EN is not renewing these subscriptions any more.

When I read the signs, there is no chance we will see a cheap entry level subscription.

Of course, that was when the Free plan could be used long-term, as many people did. Maybe now that Free is strictly a short-term trial, a lower cost option might have some appeal. Maybe.

[janndk 573]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Actually there was a similar plan called Plus. Sales were stopped in 2018, which tells a lot about the earnings situation even 5 years ago. Since last year EN is not renewing these subscriptions any more.

When I read the signs, there is no chance we will see a cheap entry level subscription.

As I recall, Evernote Plus was a "premium" and not a "light" version (to start with)? 🤔

[PinkElephant 8,282]

Actually Plus may have been regarded as a premium plan at the time when it was introduced. But the plan called "Premium" was introduced later than Plus. Plus was grandfathered after the launch of Premium.

Premium was later grandfathered itself, when Personal was launched. Both plans could be rolled over by those already subscribed.

Currently all plans before "Personal" are removed, the subscribers asked to move to Personal, or drop to Free. This shows for me that there is no interest in marketing any "light" subscriptions that would cover note taking, without the bells & whistles.

[Wanderling Reborn 186]

On 3/7/2024 at 2:15 PM, phillynomics said:

Free user here who will be switching to another service.  No sour grapes on my end, as yes, Evernote is a private enterprise and can do what it wants in the market.

I don't have the data, but I find it hard to imagine that Evernote wouldn't put itself in a better revenue situation by offering a lower-priced entry-level plan, more in the range of $4 to $5 / month, vs. ponying up over $10 / month.  You could still restrict notes to a level lower than is used by most businesses for this personal plan, but not as low as 50.

Again, maybe they have the market data to show a low-priced entry level plan is a losing strategy, but with everyone economizing under the force of horrible inflation and cost increases, my hunch is that if they are monetizing, that would be a better strategy.

This only works in a growth market, which it isn't anymore. Evernote is making the bulk of its money from their long time users who are deeply invested into its services, not from new converts. They, basically, switched to the rent-seeking model.

Let's take 10 existing users paying over $10 a month. Let's assume that if EN offers a $5 plan, 3 of them switch to the lower tier. Evernote would need to bring 3 additional users just to maintain the existing revenue stream, 4 to make more money - so they would need to grow the number of paid users by 40% to bring in 5% more revenue, if you do the math.

I think increasing their paid user numbers by 40% by going with a $60 per year plan is simply not realistic - it hasn't happened historically when they charged that much, and now there's a whole lot more competition. I also think that the number of existing paid users switching to a cheaper plan, if it becomes available, is going to be a whole lot more than 30%. And the higher percentage of existing paid users switch to a cheaper plan, the more new paid users they need to bring in just to keep the same revenue. Not very likely to happen. 

[PinkElephant 8,282]

The calculation is even worse: Let us assume the cost of carrying any account has a base price. Let us assume it is 1€/month. This means that for each low cost plan the profit would be for example 3€, for each fully paid 9€. For each paying user moving to the budget alternative, they would need to win 3 new budget plan users, just to make up. Further the main conversion would be from Free to budget - which means they would need triple the conversion of without, just to break even.

No, a budget plan simply doesn't compute.

[s2sailor 2,342]

On 3/8/2024 at 9:13 AM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Of course, that was when the Free plan could be used long-term, as many people did. Maybe now that Free is strictly a short-term trial, a lower cost option might have some appeal. Maybe.

I agree. Back then there was little difference between free, plus and premium.  Now with free (essentially) gone and new elements such as home, backlinks, tasks and ai, a low cost plan that strips away all this and has upload limits may be worth a try again.  The folks that won’t pay the high price and don’t want the new features are likely already gone, so there may be little migration from the high price plan to the entry plan.

[gazumped 11,772]

The New Guys at Evernote have only just started to work their way through a long list of upgrades and new features.  I'd think they'll be busy with that for a couple of years at least. 

It makes no corporate sense to spend money on developing a cut-down version of something that is not yet in a final form.  Better to concentrate on developing the best package and working out all the bugs and then - maybe - find ways to lock down different areas to lower prices.

There are so many other note-taking apps around that it's not worth competing for the low-end market anyway.  Why spend megabucks inventing something to compete with OneNote or Keep?  The money is in the areas they don't cover...

[s2sailor 2,342]

Time will tell whether they can grow the business with their current pricing model, or if other options should be considered.

[wrbird 3]

It's a note-taking app, how fancy does it need to be🤔 Thankfully the transition from EverNote to UpNote has gone extremely well. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

12 hours ago, wrbird said:

It's a note-taking app, how fancy does it need to be🤔 Thankfully the transition from EverNote to UpNote has gone extremely well. 

My viewpoint: For people who only need "a note-taking app," Evernote is probably over-featured and over-priced. For people who want to gather information from Websites and print media (including OCR of PDFs and images for indexing), capture their own thoughts in real time, begin crafting that into new writing, and then search it all and be able to organize it with tags, notebooks, links, and backlinks (plus maybe connect to calendars and attach tasks to notes), and do all that on multiple platforms with a reasonably uniform set of features and interface, Evernote is well worth the money. If you're not one of those people and don't need all that, then a hobbyist tool like UpNote should be fine. Professional work needs professional tools, even if that means professional prices. Horses for courses, as they say in the UK.

[wrbird 3]

Absolutely agreed. When I started out with EverNote many years ago it wasn't marketed as a Professional tool at a Professional cost, it was a note-taking app. However, I totally understand they've evolved into the Professional realm at a Professional cost. Thankfully I'm just a hobbyist😊 and UpNote does everything I need😀

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,985]

23 minutes ago, wrbird said:

Absolutely agreed. When I started out with EverNote many years ago it wasn't marketed as a Professional tool at a Professional cost, it was a note-taking app. However, I totally understand they've evolved into the Professional realm at a Professional cost. Thankfully I'm just a hobbyist😊 and UpNote does everything I need😀

Well said. The complaint "it's just a note-taking app, it doesn't need all that stuff" comes up all the time, usually either from people like you who really don't need all the bells and whistles, or from people who do want a bell or two and several whistles, but don't way to pay accordingly. I first started using Evernote to take notes on my own thoughts and ideas, but quickly discovered it could do much more. I still use it for some household to-do lists (what I really need is an app that then goes ahead and does the stuff on the list, why doesn't somebody make that?), but I'm happy willing to pay for the higher-end features.

[Suzanne 2]

Maybe someone can help me understand how the "free version" has changed.  I have been using the free version for years, mainly simple notes and some web clipping. I received the notice that I would be limited to 50 notes but could still view and change what I currently have.  I also had an outdated Android and Windows desktop version that I am now being forced to update.  I updated the Android app first - when it opened, it is said I can have a free trial version for 7 days with a limit of 50 notes.  I was allowed to hit "Remind me later" but I don't know if that will be available every time.  Does the "free version" now mean it's also only available for 7 days?  That was not in the notice I received and I can't seem to find a straight answer.  It knows I am not a new user. 

[Boot17 1,489]

@SuzanneThe free version is now basically a free trial version (instead of a free version). You are limited to a maximum of one notebook and a maximum of 50 notes. You can use it indefinitely, but you cannot add more notes or notebooks than that limit.

The 7 day thing that you are talking about is most likely a 7 day trial of the "Personal" paid subscription plan.

[Mary Stephens 6]

On 11/29/2023 at 2:42 AM, agsteele said:

I have no inside information but I suspect that the majority of Free accounts are dormant having been created, used for a short while and then left unused. These folk will not be affected by these changes. I expect this to mean that the majority Free accounts will not be affected by any change. This seems to be aimed at persuading active Free users to subscribe or move on.

Evernote was recommended to me several years ago as a way to organize recipe files in one location with search features and tags, etc.  I uploaded over 500 recipes and have been using/ adding to ever since.  The move to subscription is an issue because I'm not sure I want to commit to another paid service in perpetuity.  On the other hand, I don't want to lose all my hard-earned and notated recipes. What options do I have?  How/ where could I download this information?

[PinkElephant 8,282]

You can export your notes. To HTML, to watch in browser. To PDF (not sure about free) to store as files. To ENEX if you want to switch to another service.

On Free you can't add new notes. Probably this excludes the option to stick with EN just for the described purpose.

[Suzanne 2]

@Mary StephensI used Evernote for recipes, in addition to other things.  All of my recipes are in a single notebook.  I exported that notebook using the multiple HTML files option.  The result was an Evernote_index.html that I could open in a browser and it shows every recipe with a hyperlink to each one.  Hope that helps.

[wrbird 3]

@Mary Stephens  I used the ENEX option that PinkElephant mentioned above and was able to seamlessly import over a couple thousand notes into UpNote.