WiZiQ about to Raise Premium Membership Price to $120?

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A couple of days ago I got mail from WiZiQ reminding me that my Premium account for the E-Teachers Academy (which has been set up for me to host the ETCons last year) is about to expire.

Normally those emails are not that exciting but in this case there was something very interesting about it:

The prices are being revised soon [new prices start at $120 per annum].

Ok, let me start by saying that I don’t think that $10 per month or more are too expensive for a service like WiZiQ as they are offering some proper value when you are planning to build your teaching business online, no doubt about it. Nevertheless, an increase by a staggering $70 or about 120%  needs at least some kind of justification especially if there is no mentioning that the price of $49.95 we have today was only a limited introduction offer.

Of course, this could be merely marketing but then I am still asking myself if this wasn’t actually counter productive as there are at least three competitors (Sclipo, Udemy and Nixty) that could benefit from this decision as they are less expensive or even free.

But let us first go over the possible reasons for this change in the premium membership pricing.

Price increase as conversion method

First of all, why do they send an email to premium users who should already be convinced of the system with a note that they better refresh their premium account quickly as the prices will change soon. Normally you use this kind of marketing tool after a free trial of a product not after the expiration of a regular subscription.

Also, an increase by about 120% is quite heavy and hence to ”justify” this margin you actually have to bring something to the table meaning that WiZiQ had to work on a new product that is actually worth $10 per month. To be specific, you need a product that is 120% better.

Attacking from a weak position

Right now, I can not think of such a product or feature and I also think that at the moment WiZiQ has actually to catch up to its competitors. For example every other platform in this space offers me the tools to easily build a course with multiple features like videos, quizzes, exercises, live lessons etc. WiZiQ missed this trend as I think they were too focused on their virtual classroom product. There is a possibility for premium members to create a course on WiZiQ but the process is clunky.

Now, if we assume that WiZiQ launched a course builder that is as easy to use as the ones Sclipo, Udemy or Nixty offer they would just close the gap but not take the lead and hence give me a valuable reason to pay the new price.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

Coming to the virtual classroom itself. What I don’t understand here is the fact that WiZiQ launched a pretty buggy version without any pressure forcing them to do so.

Most platforms in the online learning space are using third party tools like the Adobe Live Connect or Dimdim classrooms. The old WiZiQ classroom worked well, in fact to me it was the best solution on the web. The new version started with some severe teething problems and immediately killed my personal positive picture of the platform. If I pay for the service I expect new features to work when they launch, the new version also had not that many new features or improvements that would make me overlook those problems especially when they affect the recording of classes.

Now, WiZiQ needs to put in all the work to re-convince me of the fact that I could actually count on the stability and usability of their product.

Pricing as a filter

Another assumption could be that WiZiQ wants to increase the pricing to filter out “non performing” educators. WiZiQ currently has a four parted revenue strategy. There is the fixed monthly / yearly rate for premium accounts and the commission based revenue, the leads for the LearnerConnect feature and the commission on courses. I think, with a change in the premium subscription pricing, a change in the commission structure will come along, maybe it will be discontinued completely similar to Sclipo. To be effective as a strategy, it would also need a revision of what features are available in the free version and what in the premium version as today there is no big need to switch from free to premium. Hence the free model needed to be cut back drastically in the features it offers.

Rebooting the community

Right now, the vast majority of classes and content on WiZiQ are available for free and the platform is basically known for that. Same was (is) of course true for eduFire. I don’t want to get into arguments about the need of free education and the discussions about “one day I will start to charge for my classes” but I believe that free and paid simply cannot coexist on the same platform. The “old” pricing structure of WiZiQ benefits educators who would like to offer their lessons for free to a broad audience. $50 per year are not such a big sum although on the other hand the Ning premium change nearly brought some educators to the edge of bankruptcy as I have learned. $120 per year though is a totally different number and I think there are enough books out about the psychology of pricing.

I don’t know if we had to expect a similar outcry of educators on WiZiQ if the platform would really plan to raise the price and hence change the status quo as most of them seem to be pretty happy with the service. But then, on the other hand, why should a premium teacher pay $70 more if there was no compelling reason for it?

Personally, I have not yet decided in one or the other direction although I have to say that I’m now much more open to give other services a try to convince me and set my conferences up over there. This is less a price issue than a question of having lost confidence in the system a bit due to the unsatisfying launch of the new classroom.

But let me know what your take on this is. Would you pay $120 per year for a WiZiQ premium account or would you try alternatives like Sclipo, Udemy or Nixty? 

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  • Pingback: Kirsten Winkler

  • chinamike

    A 120% price increase is, well, dramatic to say the least. For them not to also offer some drama in return (in the form of product improvements) makes it seem like they are price gouging. And as you know, perception is reality when it comes to pricing. They haven't managed the perception of this price increase very well from the sound of it.

    • http://kirstenwinkler.com KirstenWinkler

      If Vikrama is right it's just a flashbang to watch the reactions :) .

      • http://www.vikramadhiman.com/ Vikrama Dhiman

        Well, that is just my opinion. It can be right. It is most likely wrong :)

  • http://www.vikramadhiman.com/ Vikrama Dhiman

    Interesting article. But, I don't think this is as dramatic as it appears. If I am correct, then this message has been appearing for a while now. So, its not new. If anything I will actually give them brownie points for being honest and upfront about it, rather than hiding it. Knowing WiZiQ team [I worked there :) ], they factor in user feedback always. Hence, it could also be to gather feedback on the new pricing structure :-) I am also sure that any team will do due diligence before raising the prices. I won't read much into it, till there is an official announcement on this “actually happening”.

    Just thinking out aloud, if I could get only half the people who are currently premium to stay with 120% [actually it is 140%] increase in price – the service provided to them could be brilliant. And you don't know is $120 will be an ala-carte price or allow different premium services to be purchased independently. IMO, just increasing the number of Learning Requests limit is enough to justify this increase in price.

    Also, despite everything else, the number of people using WiZiQ as a service has been increasing steadily. I was talking to a teacher the other day who is thrilled to get followers everyday. Hence, WiZiQ does have a significant lead on Traffic. Won't comment on other platforms, as I haven't really tried them much. Udemy for instance, definitely looks interesting but it has a fair distance to go, to be compared to WiZiQ.

    There is also a free version of WiZiQ anyways. So, why change the platform at all :-)

    • http://kirstenwinkler.com KirstenWinkler

      If the message is not new then we have a case of carpet dealer marketing :) . Here in Europe carpet dealers are famous for their commercials that this is the last chance to get something before they either close their shop or they raise the price. Sure, every premium subscriber gets this message max twice a year or so but still, if they aren't really planning to raise the price anyway, what's the point?

      If you want feedback you just send out a message to all premium members asking them about new prices. The rage (or not) will be the same :) .

      You are bringing up a very interesting point here: less teachers = better SERVICE. If I get you right the idea is to offer each teacher something like a personal assistant at WiZiQ? Because if this would be the case then we are playing a whole different game here.

      I get followers everyday, too. What thrills me more is getting paying customers :) . Follower numbers on any social network or WiZiQ mean basically nothing if they don't convert into something, be it reach or money. Traffic costs money if there is no one on WiZiQ who gives paid lessons THROUGH the system. Free classes lead nowhere business wise.

      • http://www.vikramadhiman.com/ Vikrama Dhiman

        Not sure of the latest stats, but when I was there [almost a year back], number of paid classes were on an upswing and most saw decent registrations too. Number of private classes were seeing exponential growth too. Why I talked about followers is because I don't seem to get similar requests on other platforms [even Livemocha]. Even after being inactive for a while on WiZiQ does not stop followers popping up.

        Also, any pricing strategy should be simple. You charge as much as you think you should – not more, not less. And better service does not necessarily translate to more features [but better quality it does for sure].

  • Harman

    Kirsten,

    Thanks for your feedback and just so you know, we will work extra hard to bring you back to our platform :)

    I would like to start by this: The prices will affect only the new members, not the old premium members or the members who will renew it by a certain date (yet to be announced). Further, these premium members will be able to continue with $49.95/yr even beyond 1 year – as a token of appreciation from WiZiQ.

    Its only the extra virtual classroom features (basic being free) that will are tied to the premium service such as recordings, etc. although premium members get a few learner connections too.

    Not to forget that most of the online teaching that one needs to do, can be done by using the free tools on WiZiQ – something that otherwise costs hundreds of dollars per year from our competitors. For instance, a teacher can teach as many students as s/he wants even in the free version. Only features such as recordings, having students log into the class without siging up on WiZiQ etc. are the ones that need a premium account.

    On Courses
    First, are you really using those features in other platforms and getting value/sales from them? I believe the courses feature is much more complex than any of our competitors have created. We will bring our new online course feature only when we are convinced that it will actually add value to the teachers by helping them sell such courses or generating leads for them. BTW you can already 'list' a course on our site and in fact if you have face to face courses, you can list them on WiZiQ and we are gearing up to generate you customer leads for that.

    On The New Virtual Classroom
    It was neither about adding new features in the new VC nor to bring a new platform that would not just give what 'others' have. We wanted to lay the foundation of a tool that a teacher should want to use for online teaching. And along those lines, the new virtual classroom is only a start. It was a massive effort of our development team over the last 12 months and honestly, we did miss the mark at the time of release. There were certain things on which we had made a call and thought the teachers wouldn't mind while we work more on the platform, but apparently it didn't pull off. We reacted swiftly and solved most those problems and are working on solving the remaining few.

    You can check the status of the issues on our blog.

    We have learned our lessons of asking the user to change his behavior of using a tool, which we believed was in their best interest.

    Having come out of most of those issues, we see our users appreciating us. Here's a recent example from one of our teachers: “This is my first live session since the new WiZiQ platform and it was FANTASTIC!!! I am in love with WiZiQ and what it has to offer. It just does not get any better than this!!! All the best to awesome WiZiQ!!!”

    I am confident now that from here on, teachers will see that no other live teaching platform compares with WiZiQ and how our team is passionate about their success.

    • http://kirstenwinkler.com KirstenWinkler

      Harman,

      thank you for your clarifications and for your notice that the comment system was not working correctly, great tech support :) .

      Now on to your list:

      Giving your premium members the opportunity to stay with the same pricing model is a great move as it will bind them even stronger to your service. Kudos for that!

      You point out that the difference between the free and the paid model are rather marginal compared to the models of your competitors. So I still ask myself if there is a big need to switch from free to premium. On the other hand, maybe this is not your main focus, right?

      Courses are tricky. You ask a great question: are you using them? My answer to this is “No, but I will in the coming weeks.” but I see where your argument is going. To me courses / asynchronous content will be the next big thing in online education, bigger than live teaching. The question is of course: are there educators who can actually build those courses? And there I am with you, no, not at the moment.

      The virtual classroom is a tricky thing as it is the feature that for most of the users is the centerpiece. I was very happy with the version before as it was rock solid and had all the features I need. So when the new version did not deliver on the two features that I absolutely want to work, talking and recording, I reacted like the normal customer :) . I know that you cannot test everything before as you need real users trying to kill the system and yes, your team worked hard on fixing those issues. Nevertheless, for something who is not seeing the bigger picture, hence everyone outside the core team, the launch was a bit rough.

      I admit that I am especially demanding about virtual classrooms. That's one of the reasons why I am a Skype fangirl, it basically never lets me down.

      WiZiQ has a strong bond with its teachers, no doubt about it plus you have a great, dedicated support team. We will see about the courses but I think that is a must have feature – given that there are educators who build them.

      Thanks again for your time and for helping us finding the comment bug :)