Schedules Direct Announces Initial Pricing

[Mr. Camaro]

August 9, 2007
Schedules Direct Announces Initial Pricing

The answer to everyone's top question is.... $15 / 3 months non-recurring.

That's too much money!
Sorry... until we have some idea as to the subscriber count we need to make sure we can pay the bills. We expect pricing to drop by the end of the initial term. Our goal is $20/year.

Why don't you offer recurring pricing?
We expect to lower the price and offer other terms after the first quarter, so you'd need to switch to a different subscription plan at that time anyway.

Why don't you offer lifetime subscriptions?
Kinda early to say we won't, but probably not. We're looking for a long-term solution and it's not fiscally prudent when we don't know what our long-term costs will be. Remember we're just offering a data service, not hardware that has a 2-6 year lifetime. Our goal is to provide quality data at the lowest possible price. If you want to donate $10k or so, we'll consider a lifetime subscription.

I refuse to get a Paypal account!
The initially rollout will not require a Paypal account (but will offer Paypal CC processing). We're looking into alternatives. Paypal was quick, and we had developers experienced using it. ( Quick is important... we don't have much time).

[Ted the Penguin]

that seems reasonable actually

and if they do get to $20 a year... all the better.

looks like I have found my EPG source

[JWJr]

Very cool. Still waiting, though, to see if they're going to be feeding all of the data that Z2L did, and in exactly the same format (as in, do I have to rewrite my code again). -JW

[pcostanza]

I can certainly live with $20-$30 a year. $60 would just be too much for me and I'm not a cheapy.
I may just wait until after the first 3 months and see what happens though that may not be fair. But since the new fall season starts in September in the states, I may not want to take a chance.
I am glad it's moving fast and seems very near ready.

[sub]

$60 would just be too much for me and I'm not a cheapy. I may just wait until after the first 3 months and see what happens ...

And if everybody does that, then the price isnt going to drop. The more people that support them, the quicker the price will drop.

[reboot]

Seems like they've not done much market research.
If they had a handle on the number of potential customers, I'd bet the price would be much less...unless they're out to make a killing in the first quarter, then fade into the ether with all that cash.

[dinki]

I can certainly live with $20-$30 a year. $60 would just be too much for me and I'm not a cheapy.

I totally agree. $60 is too much for me too.

[pcostanza]

And if everybody does that, then the price isnt going to drop. The more people that support them, the quicker the price will drop.

Hey, I did say that I felt doing so would be unfair and I meant it. :p I would not seriously take that route.
In fact, I already subscribed to the mailing list as I've made my mind up quickly that I'm going to sign up the minute it becomes available. I really do believe they want a fair price and I think $20 is certainly fair. I just hope they can keep the quality as good as zap2it has.

[groover km]

And if everybody does that, then the price isnt going to drop. The more people that support them, the quicker the price will drop.

To be fair, it's not $60 a month; at least not in a one-time payment kind of way. Pointing out the obvious, but it's $15 for three months and at the end of that

a) It might come down
b1) it might stay the same and pay it anyway
b2) it might stay the same and you do something else.

fifteen dollars for an initial three months doesn't seem too bad; I don't have the time to futz with different sites, scrapers, etc...

[sub]

Seems like they've not done much market research.

If they had a handle on the number of potential customers, I'd bet the price would be much less...unless they're out to make a killing in the first quarter, then fade into the ether with all that cash.

They have done a lot of research. Including finding out from zap2it a break down of the active numbers of users from each project. (BTW, GB-PVR is the second biggest community of zap2it users behind myth)

Remember these guys dont want to be in the EPG supplying business. This is a non-profit organisation made up of representitives from some of the key projects using zap2it data, trying to help out users left stranded by zap2it.

These guys have to cover huge data licensing fee each month, and initial startup costs - lawyers, accountants, servers etc. Its unfair to expect these guys will start with a super low price and cover it out of their own pocket while waiting for the service to break even.

I encourage all you cheap bastards to pony up the $15 and help get the costs down for everyone $15 isnt a huge commitment. You can always change to some other service in the future if you're unhappy.