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MNHQ

Mumsnet Premium membership - please support us if you can

74 replies

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 13:17

Hi folks,

First and most importantly, I hope you and yours are safe and well, and that you all stay that way.

After 20 years of unreasonableness, rofls, wtfs, advice and support, and the odd lawsuit, it's fair to say that we are as close as we’ve ever been to existential difficulty.

Like many ad-funded businesses, the COVID-19 crisis has seen us take a big hit to our revenues. The businesses who would normally pay to advertise with us are slashing their marketing budgets, but lots of our outgoings are fixed and we so need to find new ways to keep paying the bills.

We’re doing our darndest to find every single saving we can - lots of our staff have volunteered to reduce their hours, we’ve cancelled all non-essential services, I've taken a pay holiday and we will use every scheme and loan available to us from the government and the bank to help tide us over. But we still need to find alternative revenue streams to ensure we don’t run out of funds in a few months...

To put it frankly, it’s squeaky bum time.

I know this is a very tough time for many of you and some of you are only just keeping the lights on yourselves. We’re sending you our solidarity and we most certainly don’t want anyone to stump up anything they can’t afford, but if you can help, please do subscribe now to our Premium service.

We’ve banged this out as fast as possible in response to the current crisis and it’s definitely not the finished article, but it’s free of banner advertising, so if you’ve ever been vexed by those (or use an ad-blocker) this might be right up your alley. Banner ads also tend to make pages render more slowly and take up bandwidth, so if you’re surrounded by bored kids streaming with their mates, step this way.

We’ve opted for a price point that we hope is doable for most and which covers the potential lost ad revenue for the majority of users. We hope £4.99 per month or £49.99 for a year (less than a pound a week!) feels a reasonable exchange for the value Mumsnet brings you, but in any case you can unsubscribe any time.

Over the next little while we’ll look to add some extra features: things that people have requested regularly like editing, sorting posts by the OP, and reading offline.

Rest assured we remain committed to always providing a free version of the site, as we fundamentally believe that access to the advice and support Mumsnet offers should not depend on your ability to pay.

And if you can’t spare any cash right now… then of course we get it. It would still be very helpful if you removed any ad blockers or clicked on affiliate links around the site when you shop, joined our insight panel or even shared the best Mumsnet threads on your social channels whenever you can - it all helps.

If you have any questions at all feel free to post them here and I'll get back to you. We also have a page of FAQs that might answer your question.

Hold tight everyone.

Love

Justine and the team at MNHQ

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MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:40

@willowhazel

Justine: Indeed and when revenues are falling and you can't cover your fixed costs you make a loss.

So is the site now operating at a loss?

Somebody else:
Pre-tax profit

Yes, I appreciate that there is a difference but it's still profit, though less than enough at the moment. It's more disposable cash (unless the site is operating a loss) than many businesses have. I see the accounts for several schools and they are running on less of a budget and still managing to provide the services they are expected to - and without the cushion of a profit.

Yes we made a small loss in Q1 (jan-march) and obviously the outlook is very uncertain. Hence the need to look for alternative revenue sources to tide us over until things get back to a bit more like normal.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:44

@FortunesFave

Glow they won't go bust. And they need to be more clear about their philosophy. Either it's a business that makes money and that's what matters or it's a terribly nice, cosy and supportive place of education for parents that places a lot of emphasis on care and well-being.

Asking people to pay sort of flies in the face of what MN has always reckoned itself to be.

No I don't think so - we were always planning to introduce Premium this year but we've slightly rushed it out with fewer benefits than we wanted to launch with because needs must - hence the appeal for help. We are a business and we've never pretended not to be. But we are a business with a purpose - to make parents' lives easier. We want to make profits but not at the expense of our (and your) principles.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:46

@ChandlerIsTheBestFriend

Hence the need to look for alternative revenue sources to tide us over until things get back to a bit more like normal.

So premium will be a temporary feature?

No not temporary but hope to improve the offer - more features, more benefits - so it's less of an appeal and more of a value exchange that makes sense for users.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:51

[quote category12]@JustineMumsnet, sorry if it's been asked already, but did you consider a Pledge drive as an alternative to this, (like Wikipedia do)?[/quote]

Yes we did and we came close to including that feature too at launch. I know from previous experience (we did this kind of thing way back in the early days of 2002/2003) that some individuals would probably have donated quite a lot. And that didn't feel quite right. For one, we're not a charity - we're a business so we wanted people to feel they were getting something for their subscription (and as said we'll be improving the offer) and secondly and we didn't want to feel compromised in the way we moderate the site i.e if a generous donor was behaving badly it could plausibly cause a conflict of interest (something that's been raised on this thread by a few people).

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:54

@FortunesFave

This is very sad in a way. The timing is spectacularly off too. Very insensitive. People are without work, relationships are breaking up, it's all over the boards....and yet MNHQ think now's a good time to introduce this.

Because they've 'made a small loss' Righto.

Sorry you feel that way Fortunes - as I've said a number of times - it's not compulsory and we really wouldn't want anyone to pay more than they could afford. We've rushed this through because we can see that we are going to struggle to generate enough cash over the next few months to meet our commitments. But clearly there are people and businesses worse off than we are and I wouldn't want to pretend otherwise at all.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:58

@Yallreadyforthis

Last year we had revenue of £7m and pre-tax profit of £570k. We have a a couple of loans too which were due to be paid back this autumn - we've deferred payment on those for a year. We really wouldn't be asking for help if we didn't need it

Hmmm

So, many, many companies are offering freebies at this time. Banks are offering mortgage and loan breaks, which, perhaps you've benefitted from. Mumsnet response is to start CHARGING?
Poor show, I'm really disappointed.

I know what you're saying I really do but I don't think we've started "charging" - we've offered an alternative paid version of Mumsnet while not in anyway removing or diminishing the current, free to use version.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 15:59

@JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown

Done. And thank you for everything you've done over the years. This is one of the few truly female-centric online spaces and I'm more than happy to support. I'd like to second the suggestion to be able to pay via PayPal though. That makes it much easier to set up than faffing about finding a card.

Thanks so much JustTurtles, we did look into Paypal but it doesn't work with Stripe which seemed like the best option for our payments provider. I'll go back to our tech bods and see if there's a workaround.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:05

@category12

But the problem is, as pps have said, your subscription service isn't really ready to launch - it's not a great offer at the moment, so a pledge drive would have been at least - "we're a bit stuck for cash-flow, can you help us out" which to me is better than offering something a bit half-arsed.

Well we've just tried to be as honest and transparent as possible about our situation. Some people really don't like the ads and feel bad about using blockers (thank you those people!). But we don't expect it to be that appealing to that many as an offer but we are working on improving it. We wanted to launch Premium asap though as time is of the essence.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:08

@Cosyblanky

Nearly choked on my coffee at your sense of self importance. Claim what you're entitled to like every other business.

We have furloughed some members of the team, delayed VAT and bank loan payments. We aren't eligible for a rent rebate but again have delayed payment. Our people have taken pay cuts and pay holidays. We've also cut a lot of non essential costs but we still have to pay for servers, hosting bills, software licences etc to keep the site running. If we run out of cash we can't do that.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:12

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

The product isn’t ready for launch. That reminds me of when they relaunched the MN Local sites and look how that turned out - loads of issues with functionality that lasted months on end and basically dragged Local to its knees and ultimate termination!

The product is ready for launch as it stands. It's just not the finished product! Not seen any issues with functionality on Premium as yet (god willing) although I do concede that MN local was a bit of a mess.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:13

@willowhazel

know what you're saying I really do but I don't think we've started "charging"

That's semantics. You are asking people to pay for a product which they are creating themselves - what is of value is what we say.

It's a slippery slope to a full charging policy which presumably will come next if you find yourself in a difficult financial situation a few months down the line.

Of which there is a completely free version though!

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:33

@FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack

What would happen when boarding schools, parenting gurus, self identified lawyers or questionable religious charities ask for a posters information to sue them?

At the minute posters are given the option for posts to be withdrawn and details deleted aren't they? If you have billing information too, how would it work? It's harder to erase a financial trail.

We don't have access to any payment information - it's all handled by Stripe.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:37

@Puzzledandpissedoff

willowhazel that's why I hoped for some clarification on what "fewer adverts" would look like in practice. One less? Half of them less? All removed if we pay?

If the product is "ready for launch", surely there should be some information available on this?

Yes - we'll get some e.g.s of this on a page. We're just producing an FAQs so will add it to that. Thanks for the suggestion.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:45

@NobdieTheNob

Oh Justine.

What a retrograde step this is. And especially to ask this now, when so many of your audience are in absolutely dire financial straits, and are using MN as a ranting board/entertainment/whatever.

I have been here since it was all fields, and it has been sometimes very good, sometimes absolutely awful and sometimes just meh. I had a break at one point because I was fed up with the quiches (might even have had a mini flounce).

I sympathise with your plight, but I am also mindful of the fact that I have absolutely no income for any kind of foreseeable future. To be essentially told that I'm a second class citizen by you, too, is a Bit Much.

Really not saying anyone's a second class citizen Nobdie and I'm really sorry if I've made you feel that way. I can only reiterate that we will always have a Mumsnet free and we won't allow it to deteriorate at the expense of Premium.

Of course I absolutely understand that this is a very tricky time for many and the last thing I want is for anyone to overextend themselves. But we needed to do something because we can't continue without revenue and I do think Mumsnet is a valuable resource in this difficult time that people need to have access to.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:46

@Buscake

For many women in difficult circumstances mumsnet is a lifeline. If you live with domestic abuse/financial abuse, having “mumsnet” appear on your bank statement would surely put you in a more vulnerable situation? This proposal marginalises those who need support, and risks making the vulnerable more vulnerable.

We don't have anything to do with payments - it's all handled by a third party (Stripe) so I really doubt MN will appear on any bank statements but I'll definitely check and come back to you.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:51

@ChandlerIsTheBestFriend

5th time

@JustineMumsnet

Fewer ads”

So not ad free then?

Will there be any changes to the free version? Like a increase in intrusive ads? To encourage folk to pay for “fewer ads”

Or any changes at all really?

Also- why are you only answering some questions?

Sorry chandler - both those first two questions I've previously answered elsewhere but to be clear
It's the display (image based ads) that are going. They tend to be the banner across the top and a rectangle at the side of the page or at the bottom on mobile. They are generally the ones that take bandwidth to download. The text based native ads - usually promoting offers or Mumsnet's own content are still visible on Premium.

No, no changes to advertising plans on Free version - at the moment btw there is already a 2-tiered approach - you'll see more ads if you're logged out than logged in.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 16:52

@CobyKnobe

I think they mean fewer ads as they can't block the native ads like cadburys / craft who they have a deal with mn to pay them 6 figures a year for users data and to advertise. Correct me if I'm wrong, this was from reddit!

You're right we're keeping native ads - but we are not paid 6 figures for data by anyone and certainly not by Cadburys and Craft so that's just baloney.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:05

@ChandlerIsTheBestFriend

It's the display (image based ads) that are going. They tend to be the banner across the top and a rectangle at the side of the page or at the bottom on mobile. They are generally the ones that take bandwidth to download. The text based native ads - usually promoting offers or Mumsnet's own content are still visible on Premium.

Thank you very much- very clear response.

No, no changes to advertising plans on Free version - at the moment btw there is already a 2-tiered approach - you'll see more ads if you're logged out than logged in.

Any changes at all to the free version? Aside from ads.

Yes lots - we've got tonnes of improvements we want to make but we need to re-platform first so it will take a few months (things like bookmarking). Also advanced search needs to be fixed pronto...

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:10

@JustineMumsnet

[quote Buscake] For many women in difficult circumstances mumsnet is a lifeline. If you live with domestic abuse/financial abuse, having “mumsnet” appear on your bank statement would surely put you in a more vulnerable situation? This proposal marginalises those who need support, and risks making the vulnerable more vulnerable.

We don't have anything to do with payments - it's all handled by a third party (Stripe) so I really doubt MN will appear on any bank statements but I'll definitely check and come back to you.[/quote]

Ok so I've checked and whilst Stripe handles the payment, Mumsnet will appear on the bank statement - or there are issues with chargebacks as people don't remember what they've paid for. Thank you for raising this as it's clearly important and we'll include it in our FAQs. Please be assured there will always be a free version of Mumsnet available for you to access support.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:16

@ChandlerIsTheBestFriend

So, what would I prefer? Pay £5 a month or lose MN?

Is that really the choice though?

@JustineMumsnet is this this case? Do you need a certain number of posters to pay (you mentioned 10% earlier?) or you’ll have to shut down?

I can't give you a figure because there are some variables that are hard to predict - how long marketing budgets are slashed for, whether the government extends the Furlough scheme, ability to raise funds/finance. We do need to try to stay cash positive for as long as we possibly can though, so we can ride this out.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:27

@vanillandhoney

Yes lots - we've got tonnes of improvements we want to make but we need to re-platform first so it will take a few months (things like bookmarking). Also advanced search needs to be fixed pronto.

Are you bringing Premium in now so you can afford to do all this?

No - we've been working on re-platforming for some time but it's a big task because MN is a very old, very big site with shedloads of code and a monolithic service. We're bringing in Premium now because we need a new source of revenue now ads have dried up. If CV hadn't happened we had planned to bring it in post tech transformation towards the end of the year.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:33

@DGRossetti

You need to be investigating other funding options. Many people on this thread alone have said they won’t subscribe but will donate. Worth revisiting that idea.

The old adage about hammers and nails ?

How much work has gone into trying to reduce running costs, and maybe leveraging a better hosting deal ? It's hard not to see a site like MN with it's traffic having some appeal for AWS/Azure/Google, for a start.

Yes we're moving to AWS as part of our tech transformation - still a few months away though - it won't actually save us that much (a little) but it's a much more robust service. Meantime we've negotiated a reduction of fees from our current server hosts. We've put an awful lot of effort into cutting costs in the last few weeks as I said in my OP - and have pared back a lot of non-essential software.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:35

[quote SlipSlidin]@BIWI no it’s not. We’ve been in lockdown for 16 days and the traffic on here has gone through the roof yet they’re pleading poverty already. That’s piss poor fiscal management by any standards.[/quote]

Actually our traffic is up modestly not gone through the roof. The actual story is quite nuanced. We have fewer visitors than normal but they are staying longer.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:40

@agonyauntie2020

Done and happy to do it. Mumsnet has seen/is seeing me and many of us through difficult periods of life, and provided unfathomable amounts of amusement in every period (cakebitch, penis beaker, cutted up pears, naice ham, Pom bears and my all time favorite Center parts b*m sex?) and for the same cost as one stupid-expensive monthly coffee, I raise you the epic parking threads (with diagrams)...

MNHQ, obviously not everyone can afford it. Have you considered inviting those who can afford it to also pay for an extra subscription for one person who can't afford it (randomly selected at your end) to get into the premium bit?

Thanks so much Agony I'm so happy MN's been enjoyable and yes, I love all those threads too! We have considered gifting and it's a feature we want to add soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 08/04/2020 17:51

@Lefkosia

Perhaps MN ought to look at their ridiculously high staff costs.

I used to be here a long time ago when there were hardly any ads. They became more and more intrusive until I finally got an ad blocker.

I'm not getting rid of my ad blocker now. I can see where they would appear on my page and the amount of them is ridiculous - given that premium members will still see some ads, there is no benefit to subscribing.

Why do you say our staff costs are high? We have around 100 employees earning approx 35k a year. Many of them are highly skilled in sought after roles.

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