December 2, 2012 update – NewsLeecher has decided to honor the old pricing for those with a license prior to November 14, 2012. That’s the day the new pricing was released. I’m sure their decision to grandfather in existing members is appreciated by many long time NL fans. I know I’ll be extending my subscription. According to their forum post existing members can contact them through the support form on their site to continue the old $19.99 a year (client only) or $29.99 a year (client + SuperSearch) pricing plans. New members still face higher prices. It will be interesting to see if NewsLeecher rolls out a yearly option for the new plans.
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Earlier this month we shared some exciting news from the NewsLeecher team. As they had just launched their NewsLeecher Usenet service along with some new pricing plans. What we didn’t realize at the time was that NewsLeecher also increased the price current members pay for the client + SuperSearch feature by 60%. Instead of paying $30 a year members now have to pay $3.99 a month. Which works out to around $48 a year.
Did the NewsLeecher team think raising prices on new and existing customers would persuade them to try the new Usenet service? If so the decision could go well or it could drive customers elsewhere. There are several other quality newsreaders on the market including Newshosting (free for members), Newsbin Pro ($20 for a lifetime client license or $30 a year with search), SABnzbd (free but doesn’t include search) and more.
Let’s take a look at the old pricing plans along with the new accounts:
Old pricing:
- Client license – $19.99 a year
- Client + SuperSearch – $29.99 a year
- Client + SuperSearch – $2.99 a month
New pricing:
- Client license – $2.99 a month
- Client + SuperSearch – $3.99 a month
- Usenet only (no NL) – $9.49 a month
- Usenet + client + SS – $12.49 a month
So to sign up or renew, subscribers will pay $3.99 a month for their NewsLeecher with SuperSearch functionality. Existing members could previously pay $29.99 a year but now they’ll end up paying $47.88 over the next 12 months. We really hope the NewsLeecher team will reconsider pricing. Perhaps grandfather in those who signed up before the price increase. Along with allowing discounts for annual payments.
As a NewsLeecher annual subscriber I’ve been happy to pay $30 a year to use NL + SS and support the project. If I was considering NewsLeecher and SuperSearch for the first time I can’t say whether or not I’d be willing to pay $3.99 a month. The Usenet client and search feature are very good but there are also some quality alternatives. It will be interesting to see what happens to NewsLeecher’s pricing moving forward.
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