Roger Fingas
Changes to Evernote's note-taking service raised a storm of controversy on Twitter on Wednesday, as the company is trying to shift users away from the free Basic tier while generating more revenue from paid subscribers.
In "coming weeks," Evernote will start limiting Basic accounts to two devices, the company said in an email notification to customers. People already over this limit will have a 30-day window to adjust, but will otherwise have to upgrade to a Plus or Premium account to continue with unlimited device support.
The price of a Plus subscription is being hiked from $2.99 per month to $3.99 per month, although annually the cost is cheaper at $34.99. Premium is seeing a stepper increase, from $4.99 to $7.99 per month — a 12-month version of the plan is $69.99.
In a blog post, Evernote CEO Chris O'Neil linked the changes to a "significant investment of energy, time, and money" needed to continue developing and expanding Evernote's features.
Public response has so far been highly negative, with some people threatening to switch to other apps, like Apple's Notes built into iOS and macOS. Evernote works on Windows and Android devices as well however, and exporting large collections of notes can be cumbersome.
AppleInsider Staff
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
31 Comments
I think it's important to remember that Evernote does not run ads or sell data. So they only make money from paying users. It makes sense to limit the free tier to a "try before you buy" offering. 50MB a month and usable on two devices is sufficient to tell you if you like the product enough to buy into it. If they can't convert you, it's a better business decision to let you. Holding on to a "customer" who isn't paying, but is costing the company money, isn't really great business.
What do they have to lose, except potential referrals? And what are the odds that a free user is referring lots of PAID new customers?
The 40% increase to the Premium plan is a bigger potential mistake. There are, at least from the Evernote forums, lots of Pro users like myself who are seriously considering that a 40% increase is waaaay too much, given how slow the service has been to evolve and fix things that matter to us.
Ultimately, the potential loss of a bunch of Pro level subscribers is far more a danger to their business than the loss of a horde of free users that were only costing them money anyway.
My Pro ends in December. If there isn't some sign by then of a renewed vigor from Evernote to fix the things we've been complaining about for years, in exchange for the price hike...I'm out.
$70 a year is a lot for a one trick pony considering that Office 365 can be had for just a bit more. I was an EN premium sub for 4 or 5 years but honestly I never really embraced it like I should have and quite honestly they strayed from their core business of making note-taking powerful and in sync.
With the current price of premium I would expect a lot from EN 7 before returning. The fact that EN doesn't handle Markdown is a travesty ( I know Alternote handles it because I own it). It was only recently that you could add code samples without the formatting screwing it up.
Their no longer the big boys on the block. Writing apps like Ulysses, Byword, AI Writer and more all have sync features via iCloud or something else and all are capable of managing notes effectively.
I await the next major version of EN with baited breath. I think they have to knock it out of the park or as current member subs expire they'll move off the platform
My wife and I will be switching to using collaborative Notes in iOS 10 as long as it works well. Bye bye Evernote...
Users are greedy.
I think it is important to remember that Apple is trying to facilitate the subscription model for its apps. Even though Apple will be reducing its "take" Evernote has increased prices. Since they are trying to free up space on their servers, I have assisted them by deactivating my account. As notes/reminders/calendar/dropbox or iCloud Drive get better, the need for this service is greatly diminished. If you want to buy something that is not in the subscription model, I would highly recommend looking into OmniFocus. You buy it, you use it (dear Omni, please don't muck it up with a subscription model!!!!)