Mumsnet Premium membership - please support us if you can

[JustineMumsnet]

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

@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?

It's a contradiction, from an advertiser's perspective, for there to be a Premium Membership which blocks ads, when what they are paying for is to maximise advertisements across as many MNer accounts as possible.

I'd like to know how they feel about paying for advertising on a site that is promoting blocking the very adverts that give them revenue!

Thread prediction: MN needs to do this because we are paying for premuim you know? MN needs to do better! (i.e. feature request/frustration/entitlement currently seen on a free site on steroids)

Thread predication: OP, then someone alludes to premium feature, Then 10 posts asking how do you do that, please?, answered, then 100 more posts asking exactly the same thing, general rant about how premium members think they are better than free members, = thread derail.

Section prediction: Premium members section, often alluded to on regular sections = mouldies on steroids

Being dim here, as have a crashing headache, will premium be another site, or the same as the free site, but with fewer ads, and the ability perhaps to edit posts (which happens without any issue on the DT and Blogspot for example)?

And @Justine I also think that the NCT should be free. And perhaps MN should be considering registering as a charity. Things are different now...so perhaps it's time to change your business model.

Thinking about it, £49.99 is more than my annual subs for a glossy magazine!

Have I got this right?
I could subscribe and pay for a year.
As a feminist I say something that misogynists on twitter don’t like.
Theyre not members or subscribers but their reports are listened to.
I’m banned a week later and not given my money back for the rest of the year?
That’s doesn’t sound fair really so this isn’t for me. And I already don’t see ads with an ad blocker.

I’m still uncomfortable with my data being secure. Even though the payments are processed by stripe you will need to be holding information which links the subscriber as somebody who has paid and I suspect you will need more personal info than is currently required because otherwise it won’t be possible to properly track who has paid.

I’d happily pay, if you revoke your ludicrous moderation policy on FWR and stop misogynists from complaining about women speaking the truth. Until then, I’m afraid I’m out.

’I think it's morally wrong to be frank.’

Much better that no one has any info, which is what will happen if MN goes bust.

I wouldn't mind chucking some money in a "donate" type way, but not keen on subscribing as such.

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.

*Putting it up now WILL mean that certain people will be denied what you've always said was important for parents....access to information and education on parenting.

I think it's morally wrong to be frank.*

@FortunesFave what's the alternative? If they go bankrupt no one will get access to any of the content.

I’m banned a week later and not given my money back for the rest of the year?

Yep. Great isn’t it.

It's a contradiction, from an advertiser's perspective, for there to be a Premium Membership which blocks ads, when what they are paying for is to maximise advertisements across as many MNer accounts as possible.

Good point, you can advertise to our members who don’t have £4.99 spare each month...
(Yes, yes, I know some have the money and just don’t value the service to the figure/have a moral opposition to paying it etc etc)

I'm in

Every little helps

@EnPassant

Have I got this right? I could subscribe and pay for a year. As a feminist I say something that misogynists on twitter don’t like. Theyre not members or subscribers but their reports are listened to. I’m banned a week later and not given my money back for the rest of the year? That’s doesn’t sound fair really so this isn’t for me. And I already don’t see ads with an ad blocker.

Well, yes, but put another way... by using an ad blocker you're basically not really paying your way for a website that quite unusually has not shut down gender critical comment, despite considerable cost in terms of lost advertisers over the last 18 months. (And at most you'd lose £4.99 of value if you subscribed monthly).

I might have missed some posts but somewhere there must be a link between user name and actual name plus bank details. Is that right? Where will that be held?

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.

Done.

Lovely to see a screen without ads! Can't believe your wage bill - although totally get that half a million can seem a lot, but really won't necessarily stretch far.

Thanks for the last 15 years - well worth £50 per year.

If someone's being an arse then they'll get a warning and if they continue doing so, eventually they'll be banned. Premium or no premium membership.

I love the way you've phrased this

Can you be 100% sure that our data won't be thrown al over social media?!?

That’s what I was trying to say pleasantville but you put it in a much clearer and concise way than I managed.

@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.