Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. Today my beef is about nickel and diming. In this case, the culprit is WordPress.
Around two years ago I upgraded from the free WordPress plan to the Personal plan. I did it primarily to rid my post of the annoying ads. I also got more storage for photos, and I could also get my own domain name, so I shortened my blog’s address from “fivedotoh.wordpress.com” to just “fivedotoh.com.”
And all this was available for the low, low price of just $48 a year. No ads, additional photo storage, domain name, and domain mapping.
Then I got a notice from WordPress notifying me that it’s time to renew. But now, it’s no longer $48 for all that. It’s $66. Here’s the invoice.
Wait, what? $5 for domain registration and $13 for domain mapping? Seriously? Those were included in the $48/year I had previously paid. So then I read the proverbial fine print. First it pointed out that domain renewals are no longer included in the price of the plan. Okay. That’s only $5. Whatever.
But then the fine print specifically stated that “domain mappings are included in your plan price.”
I reached out to WordPress to ask why they were charging an extra $13 for something that they said was included in my plan. Here’s their response.
If you had the domain registered elsewhere and pointed to your WordPress.com site, then the domain mapping subscription would be free. In your case, where the domain is registered though us, the domain mapping is part of the domain subscription and it is not free.
But that’s not what it says, is it? So I pointed that out to them and they responded…
Yes, the renewal email is quite confusing, so I will report it to the responsible team. My apologies for this confusion.
So, yeah, I’m peeved at what amounts to a 33% price increase to renew the Personal plan.
Nickel and diming.
Grrr! I recently received a notice too and just reread it. Mine is still $48 (plus tax), but I pay GoDaddy for a domain name. Since I’d already paid GoDaddy, I never messed with my blog name on WP. I will have to upgrade here again eventually bc I will run out of photo space. But that’s a way off. Anyway, I love how they say confusing instead of LYING!
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Well I got a new blog recently for my poetry, and I got the whole lot for 48 dollars, but I bet next year they hike me up to 66 or whatever it was! rip off! especially with so many glitches and bugs in WP!
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Yeah, it costs more but delivers less.
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I would be annoyed at them charging for something unexpectedly and not communicating about it properly. It’s actually indefensible to not convey the information correctly.
In the category of peeved, here is something I’m not pleased about right now:
This (below) is one example. I heard Paula White and similar sorts have profited.
You Won’t Believe How Much COVID Stimulus Joel Osteen’s Megachurch Received
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😠
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Another cause for annoying the customers
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It’s a pity you don’t want to get into doing things separately. There is probably not much in it price wise but you save all the bs.
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You mean getting my own domain and migration to WordPress.org?
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I buy my domain and point it to WordPress.com. The WordPress,organic thing is different altogether.
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Yikes, WP not doing so well with customers lately!!
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Seems us hobby bloggers are not their bread and butter.
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Clearly the ads are less painless, Fandango. 😁
Everyone seems to find them annoying on their own site, but how annoying are they on other blogs? Poll your followers! If you carried ads, I would still read your posts. 🙂
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Hmm. I might just do that.
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Ha, predictive text!
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That is a HUGE jump in price. I would go back to the ads.
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I have just started thinking of purchasing to get rid of ads.
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I hate the ads. They’re intrusive.
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