Announcing Pricing & Licensing Changes to Movable Type

06.15.2004

Over the past couple weeks, we've read and listened to user feedback and have carefully considered the criticisms and suggestions that were made. While we realized fairly quickly that adjustments needed to be made to our licensing, we decided to take our time to fully understand the problems, think about the options and analyze possible solutions. I hope at the end of this post you'll agree that the time was well spent.

We feel that what we've come up with is great for both Six Apart and our customers. We were able to create pricing that enables us to invest more in the development of Movable Type while also removing the limitations that many users felt were too restrictive. And, ultimately the new licensing is simpler to understand and more flexible in how you can use the tool.

Our goals in modifying our licenses are to:

• Create more flexibility for everyone, with options such as site licenses, and unlimited users and weblogs.
• Make our licensing easier to understand.

We made these revisions based on what people have told us they wanted to see:

• There are now no limits on the number of weblogs you can create with a paid license of Movable Type. The free license remains limited.
• All paid options include support directly from us, through our online ticket system.
• Our licenses are perpetual, meaning there are no annual subscription fees. Larger commercial licenses require a 20% maintenance fee after the first year if continued support is desired.
• Paid licenses will include free updates and bug fixes. For example: 3.x release are free to any 3.x licensee. Paid licenses are also eligible for discounts on major upgrades to the software, so 3.x paid licensees will receive a discount on 4.x versions of Movable Type.
• All of the pricing mentioned below is the standard price, so the numbers published on our site are no longer introductory pricing.
• In the next couple of months we are planning a general release of Movable Type 3.x with compelling new features, which will be a free update for Developer Edition users.

We've updated the site with the new pricing and licensing options. Here's a summary of the changes that will be made to the core pricing/licensing:

Movable Type Personal Edition Pricing:

Limited Free Edition (no cost)
Limited to 1 author and 3 weblogs for personal use
There is no customer support for our free product
This offer is unchanged.

As mentioned before, paid licenses include unlimited help ticket support.

Personal Edition ($69.95):
Up to 5 authors and an unlimited number of weblogs for personal use.
This license has been improved allowing the creation of unlimited weblogs.

Unlimited Personal Edition ($99.95):
Allows for an unlimited number of authors and weblogs for personal use
This license is new, allowing unlimited authors and weblogs for personal use.

Movable Type Commercial Edition Pricing:

We've removed the weblog limitations for all commercial licenses and now price the licenses solely based on number of users. We will now offer easy to purchase licenses for 5, 10, 20, 35 and 50 seats with prices starting at $199.99 for a one server license.

Movable Type Education Pricing:

Education pricing will be based on a site license. As with all paid licenses, education licenses include help ticket support.

We've formalized the discounts and will be publishing pricing for the most common licenses for both K-12 and higher education on the site.

These licenses can be bought for sites as small as a classroom ($39.95 for unlimited authors and weblogs within one classroom or for the classes of one teacher or professor) or as large as a complete school system or university.

All licenses are significantly discounted to reflect our desire to see Movable Type thrive in the educational space. One more example; a school of 300 can use Movable Type within the school with no limitation as to authors, weblogs or servers as long as the use is for educational or school purposes, this license is only $299 ($1 per student and prices per student go down from there for larger schools.).

Not-For-Profit Pricing:

Not-for-profit pricing will be based on the number of full time paid employees or equivalent working for the organization. We believe this is the fairest way to set pricing for unlimited use by an organization that takes in account their level of funding. Organizations with one or fewer paid full time employees or equivalent are permitted unlimited use of our free, unsupported license or can pay $39.95 to get the same use in a supported license. Groups with more than one paid full time employee or equivalent will also be eligible for very significant discounts.

Finally, we've tweaked the legalese of our licenses to be more consistent with our intention and have updated the site with better presented product information.

All in all we hope you agree that these changes are an improvement. We care deeply about our community and want our pricing to be fair to as many people as possible while allowing us to continue to increase our investment in Movable Type so we can continue to meet our customers expanding needs and contribute as much to the future of weblogs as we have to the past.

Please check out movabletype.org and see all the changes we've made.

Posted by Mena at 08:17 PM | Permalink

Copyright 2004