IPS Prices to rise in January 2012

IPS are simply demonstrating that, just like vBulletin, they don't want "small hobby boards" any more, they only want "Enterprise" customers - big business basically.

With their prices already being higher than XenForo's, I have to admit such a healthy increase seems ill-advised. (Eyes out, as bfarber will doubtless be along to tell me how wrong I am. )

I always used to say I never minded a competitor selling their products for less, because it was a clear indication they knew what their stuff was worth. But after having experienced both IP.Board (for 2 years) and XenForo (for just 3+ weeks), raising their price seems like a move in the wrong direction. Knowing what I now know, I certainly would never purchase another IPB license. Paying more money for an inferior product isn't how I care to squander my money.

I noticed they are also dropping their paid conversion service.

If that were true there would be more than a $25 increase. Enterprise software costs in the thousands of dollars and most enterprise level forum software has a bare bones feature set.

Enterprise level software is also usually a hosted option. There are a couple that you download like Jive and Community Server, but, for the most part they are all SAS.

LOL at the Blog rise. A whole cent. HAHAHA.

I don't question the additional penny, that's just common sense. Everyone has become accustomed to the old penny game. Something selling for $49.99 is fifty dollars, by any other name.

Yeah..."cleaning up the prices". Maybe they need to look into psychology a lil more. The reason Walmart doesn't do whole dollars is because of psychology. $9.97 looks like a lesser amount than $10. Even when talking to your average person and you stand by a price that is $9.97 and you say "Hey look, that's going for 10 bucks", you usually get a response like "No...it's $9.97". I don't fully understand why people can't round it in their head, but they can't. So having it under $10 by a few cents makes people think it's cheaper for some reason.

Heck, even on my site I see people talking about it. I have my membership at $9.97 and people are like "Guys, it's only 9 bucks, get it". So while I see what they are doing, I just think they are going about it wrong when you think about it in terms of psychology.

But as far as the price hike goes. I see absolutely no reason for them to justify the hike. But hey, they've lost me as a customer so what do I care...

...remembers me of the old time when vBulletin announced their new licenses fees... it was a rucus for the old licensed devs like me...

anyway, i just renewed... a 10 years license of IPB, at least it would be fair to give me a free year! rofl

Another price hike in me life
I'm gonna have to cut back on the extra cheese on my poutine!



gogo

You don't think xF will raise their prices once they have something remotely close to what Invision offers? I don't like the higher price either but when you want the best one should expect to pay the price.

I still don't see what warrants it. The features they implemented in 3.2 and the ones that they are implementing in 3.3...most copy what xF has. With that being said, since we can't use 3.3 yet, 3.2 features that were copied were poorly implemented. On top of that, paying more for a slower software that performs poorly with SEO and user interaction....they should be taking $25 off of their current prices. Of course, this is only my opinion due to my experiences with their products.

Historically speaking, vBulletin didn't raise their prices for quite a long time and when they finally did it wasn't outrageous but fair (especially considering it was their first in 8 years). I didn't see many people upset over the increase and looking back at the time period, I have to wonder if the price would've increased at all if it wasn't for the company trying to fluff up its profits before being bought by IB; that's a discussion for another thread though. I don't see XenForo increasing prices unless absolutely necessary, and even then I don't think we'd be upset about it.

Time and time again IPS seems to raise their prices and alter license agreements incrementally (see: Boiling Frog). Now, I'm happy they honored some original agreements like those with the now-extinct Lifetime licenses, but still there are a lot of price increases ($69.95 to $175) and changes (yearly to 6-month renewals) from 2004 to now. I also understand IPS offers more than Jelsoft did or XenForo does at the time. Still, it would make sense to factor such things into a new product's price, renewal fee and license agreement, not necessarily increasing prices and altering licenses for everything what seems like every year or so.

Maybe I just don't like the approach they take with price increases/license changes.

The best is an opinion, and with the amount of people leaving IPB lately and the amount of problems they've had to admit too (After a long period of denying it from what I've seen) it is obvious that they're not the best.

XenForo will probably raise prices as their company expands, but you'll see a noticeable change in the products to warrant the price increase. IPB really hasn't warranted the increase, and should have timed it to coincide with a time they've fixed the issues that have driven away their customers.

Not to mention the design... I lost what little respect for IPB for what they did with their recent release (I think I told you why I have little for them in the first place ), and it is obvious that innovation isn't their first priority any longer.

They didn't honor all those agreements , there are quite a few former customers who still have complaints about that.

Glad I never sold my perpetual license...

... actually, your perpetual is not anymore... you have to upgrade it to the regular license - for free when contacting Sales, so you have 6 months of support for free... i had to do it myself last month... i had a perpetual dev key... rofl

I don't "have" to. This is from their license section:

Which is why I said some.

I don't mean to derail this thread but I have always wondered why enterprise customers with the in house 'geeks' to tweak, upgrade, and customize a cheaper package like vBulletin wind up with what seems to be the most expensive, ugliest, and featureless SAAS packages. It just flies in the face of common sense to me.

I'm sure there will come a time when XenForo licenses will increase in price. But when dealing with a customer base facing tough economic conditions, raising price to increase profitability can sometimes bite you on the backside. I'm certainly not privy to the bottom line details at IPS and the possibility exists they have already cut expenses to the quick and have no other option, other than increasing price.

As for paying a higher price for better quality, I've no problem with that. Not in the least. Which is why I used the comparison between Invision and XenForo as my example. I have found XenForo to be a far better solution than Invision. So why should I ever want to pay more money for what I have found to be an inferior product? Paying higher prices is never a guarantee of receiving higher quality.