Guys, I love Mockingbird, but I think your upcoming model just isn't nice, you're exaggerating, Mockingbird's getting pricey.

I think the same.

@anejmehadzic @rodl Thanks for your feedback. We do think the pricing is in line with similar services, and we wanted to make sure that Mockingbird is affordable for personal users at $9/month. We'le definitely interested in hearing from you all about how you're using Mockingbird so we can tailor plans to different kinds of users in the future.

I'm with @rodi and @anejmehadzic. This is just too expensive to be worth it. It's super useful, but with big projects, once the planning stage is over, we don't need Mockingbird anymore except for reference which a PDF works just fine for. I would be a lot more open to a pay-per-project rather than per-month.

I love MockingBird, but this is no fun.

Hi @donut2d - if you don't need Mockingbird in a certain month and have no active projects, you won't be charged.

The pricing sounds fair, especially with no charge for inactive months.

@Sheena that sounds more reasonable. How would a project getting activated at the end of a month but archived at the beginning of the next month affect things? Would I be charged for 2 months or would a new months start when I activate the project?

I don't think $9/mo is too much to ask. I've gone to using mockingbird exclusively for my wireframes and I'll be happy to pay if it means continued development and support for Mockingbird. Great work, congratulations!

Congratulations guys! Mockingbird is a great tool, and I'm glad to see it graduate to a viable product.

I second @donut2d. $9/month will give enough reason to reconsider switching back to software like "MS Project".

let me give you some kind of analysis on your pricing and maybe you will reconsider.

first, think of your competition. you are charging monthly recurring, while most of those will be one time flat fee, sometimes even comparable to your monthly. i can get a decent wireframing software for below than $50. but nevermind that, let's see your pricing.

1 free with 3 pages - i'm sorry, but limiting pages will do no good for you. this package is absolutely unusable - no1 has a site or an app with 3 interfaces. in this case you look like greedy bastards - cmon, is 1 project, 1 user - give it unlimited pages so people who do not earn their living prototyping can be happy to use. this is the scenario when i make my own app or a website and 1 is ok for me. this user IS NOT going to pay you anyway, in case of 3 pages limit you will just lose him.

next, 2 projects, 5 users, $9 month. do you really know a team of 5 people who work on 2 projects only? say is a small dev team. they will have a project for a site and 2 projects for active products. again, in this case your limitation just looks greedy. i don't say it IS greedy, but according to the usage scenario it, again, just does not justify. you really should change your thinking - think how many projects people will really have and give above that. no1 will use more anyway so you are safe. so for this, $9/month option i would do like 10 projects, 2 users, $9/month. this gives a small group enough space to grow and they will purchase more when the time comes.

next, team, 10-10-$20. again, team of 10. what is that? if this is 10 active users is a huge group. even if we add those 5 we removed from the previous option. so in reality you are charging for the users here, not the projects. my advice is 50 projects, 15 users, $20. 50 projects is something you feel "safe" to purchase for a team like that. and team of "up to ten" will be ok to pay $20.

and than i don't get your other 2 options. really, 3 is enough here. so my next option would be unlimited projects, unlimited users, $49. i don't see more than 1% of users who actually pay $80+ recurring for something like this. but i do see more than 5% of users who just pay 49 to get all unlimited.

also, i would consider adding another option. 1 user, unlimited projects, $5/month, remove free option at all. or offer single users upsell to this "special offer" right from inside when they start working on a new project.

yeah, and give all of those packages 1 month free. most of your future customers will be those who never used mockingbird and they want to use it under their real conditions, not just see how it looks.

on a sidenote, about archving posts. really? i mean, really? you are mac users, you use same workflow i do and you want people to think about archiving projects to save a penny? THAT is the greediest part. you have a good community now, but with that approach they will hate you for making them archive projects just so they don't count towards active. this is the biggest bullshit you have.

open for a conversation. i co-own and run 3 projects, which have both flat fee and recurring products and overall revenue is more than $2M. feel free to ask questions if you want to discuss.

Are archived projects still viewable online (in read-only mode) ? Is this true also for beta-users archived projects ?

hi! Mockingbird is a very very good tool but unfortunately i'm gonna stop using the service because it's just toooooo expensive! $9/month is too much... many said that we will pay for unused months and it's true... anyway good luck with your price grid and thank for the free service i've been using in beta.

Is it possible to use get a "free account" with unlimited pages for just one project or 1 user?

Cos I really like @gomockinbird I will take time to comment. I believe a better pricing model can be found. I am up for paying a one time fee say 50 bucks. I also think it is important to get a desktop version (I am sure you guys are working on that). In that case, charge for things like storage so you can get a small re occurring fee. You should realise the nice folks balsamiq are $79 away coupled with the peace of mind of a one time fee.

I would advise you really look at basecamp for some pricing help and call them if need be. I am sure they will help.

Some pointers: You want people to try your software *satisfactorily* before they have to pay. 3 pages in free will NEVER satisfy someone needing a mockup in the first place.

So let me give you a specific pricing suggestion.

$50 to download desktop/ipad license

+Free online= Two projects, Two people unlimited pages
(two people can collaborate)/ 1GB storage etc.

+ $10/month 10 projects/5users/ Unlimited pages/5GB storage

and so forth.
*Users= collaborators.

I hope I am making sense. You lure in people then up sell them.

like @einst-ein above said, try and match the size of team with the size of projects hence size of pocket.

Why I am begging you guys to reconsider is once people pay for balsamiq, you would have lost them forever. As mentally, they have made a permanent investment. In your case someone that pays for 5 months can always leave. (Switching barrier)

If you guys end up not changing the pricing, I will sadly have to move. But I have to thank you for the free yougave out. best of luck!!!!

MockingBird is my fav mocking app but i can't pay 9$ per month for only 2 active projects. Let us pay once a year (not more than 80 bucks). We love you product because it's simple and usable, don't make us run away !

You're main competition for the $9/mo plan is probably Balsamiq standalone, and Balsamiq probably wins. You're probably cheaper than Justinmind prototyper but the crucial difference is that both Balsamiq and Justinmind have WAY more features. Mockingbird is barebones.

On the high end you're priced well against Balsamiq for Jira, however, again the problem is features: Balsamiq does far more and has no project # limits.

I don't think the pricing is the end of the world that some people here seem to think it is, but I do think it's going to be a problem for most people, and I'm one of them.

Our small firm uses one of the higher end Basecamp accounts, because we typically have over 250 active projects (about 1/4 are websites).

We've been using Mockingbird for some in-depth (60 or more pages each) wireframes, and ideally we'd use about 10-20 active wireframes at a time, and need 3-4 users with editing capabilities (and the ability to allow our clients viewing access only via a link).

We're also using Jumpcharts for collaborative content mapping, and that service is reasonable at $25/month for 10 active projects because it has Wordpress export - that is a killer feature.

Exporting from Mockingbird isn't working for us right now, which is disappointing to say the least, and worrisome because we have a large project in it right now that we'd like to get out of it.

We love mockingbird, but based on the above, we're looking at other wireframing solutions.

Now if you could offer a few more features for the price, such as the ability to add custom widget sets (time saver), create custom "master" or "starting" templates (another time saver) and add the ability for users and our clients to add annotations (allow for better communication/collaboration), and if the export to PDF function worked properly, we could justify the $40/month.

@cas_johnson Can you E-mail us with details of your project? You can send it to contact@gomockingbird.com. I want to make sure you can get your project exported.

Thanks for your other input - we definitely are taking all this into considerati

@cas_johnson Also, I wanted to add that a lot of the features you mentioned are features we still plan to add. Hopefully you'll feel the price is more justified as we continue to improve.

$9 a month for two projects is far too expensive. I can't imagine wanting to use this collaboratively - even now, I'm using more than 2 projects. The fact the free version is limited to three pages is a deal-breaker.

I've loved the simplicity of mockingbird and found it really worked - but I don't love it enough to spend $240 a year on it. It's a real shame.

Charge less - gain more customers. Segment your users based on their circumstances - don't create artificial constraints that aren't tied to real use cases. Storage is cheap - no matter how many projects I have available on your system, if I'm the only person using my account at any one time, your costs aren't likely to rise drastically. It feels like your pricing model is arbitrarily linked to your product - and negates real world circumstances in the same way that music DRM ignores the fact that it doesn't cost anything to copy an MP3.

As a freelance lone-developer, I don't really require much more that your system currently provides. A large web-shop might require a lot more functionality, in terms of managing projects and linking with applications like base-camp - and if you provided all the required functionality, I'd imagine many would probably pay a handsome amount for a yearly license.

A fully featured web-app like flickr costs less than this. I love the product, but it feels you're asking for far too much $.

"No matter how far you have travelled down the wrong road, turn around."

E.g. flickr costs $24.95 a year - I'd happily pay that for what you currently provide.

Thanks, Saikat Chakrabarti - my associate, Becky, will be contacting you shortly.

The only problem I have with the "coming soon" model for features is that, in the mean time, if we switch to another wireframing solution, I'm 110% positive you won't be able to tempt us back anytime soon. I personally like and welcome frequently changing/re-learning software, but many of my other associates like to stick with what they know (even if it's past the freshness date, so to speak), so if they get going on another solution, it will be impossible to get them to switch yet again within a few months...

Well the beta was nice anyway.

Hey guys, we just updated our beta transition plan and the page limit for the free plan - thanks for all your comments and input as we gear up for our launch!

@tjeong We are letting every beta user have FULL access to their projects for 2 months after the 15th. So your projects will not be disabled on the 15th. There are more details in EDIT 2 above.

Wow, this was a surprise. I was expecting the collaboration to cost, not the amount of projects.

How do you archive a project?

Can you unarchive a project?
It would be stink to not be able to reuse a project 12 months later when a tweak needs to be made. Especially if that project contains a lot of effort / pages. I won't be able to predict this ahead of time.

@lowerdepths: Archiving a project just means you're not actively working on it at the time. You can keep as many as you want around at a given time and you can certainly re-activate it in the future if you need it again.

OK, nice. I couldn't see an "archive" button so was a bit confused.

What does "actively working on it" mean?

Sorry, I should have been more specific. A project can be active or archived. Active projects are fully editable and count toward the project limit. Archived projects are read-only and don't count toward your project limit. So in the example you gave, you might have a few projects that you finished a few months ago but you don't need for a while. Just archive them and and you won't be charged at all for the months that they're not active. Then in the future if you need the projects you can just re-activate them and begin editing again. (You'll won't see the option to archive until after the beta period is officially over.)

Does that clarify things?

The following answer cleared up the lack of archive button:
"You'll won't see the option to archive until after the beta period is officially over."

Can archived projects still be shared? (ie viewed by others using their unique URL).

Yeah, $9/month is pretty rough. I wouldn't be able to keep using the service at that level. Maybe something like $3/month for each (active) project in excess of 1?

A tools like this needs critical mass to succeed. People have got to know about it, and trust it, and feel that others are using it so as to take the risk out of betting on a particular tool or service.

I think you've spent a long time now building up a critical mass, only to destroy it in a stroke. At $108/yr, you've effectively priced the tool out of reach for your strongest advocates: casual users with simple needs who are put off by overly complex, expensive desktop tools.

Unfortunately, Mockingbird isn't powerful enough to complete with things like iRise or Axure, so users with real money to spent, won't be interested. Trying to compete in that market is just silly.

Something like a per-project fee of $10-20 may work. The problem is that unlike a service like Flickr, Mockingbird will probably only be useful to people during certain parts of their projects. Unless you're a professional designer/information architect doing multiple overlapping projects, you'll use Mockingbird for 1-3 months, then not at all for 3-9 months, and then maybe again later, if you have another project.

Users won't think of the value they get from Mockingbird as measurable "per month". They'll think of the cost relative to a particular project. You need to charge accordingly.

You also need to have plans that don't look so stingy. The restrictions placed on the cheaper accounts mean that many people who'd consider themselves in the "cheap" price, bracket would still end up needing a more expensive account. To have to pay $20/mo if I ever need three concurrent projects is just insanity.

Martin

Hi Mockingbird Team,

I really love and enjoy using Mockingbird... for almost everything from mocking to idea's 'pad'. But after reading the email & the latest updated post, I'm not really sure whether I'm going to continue using it.

Like others have said, the pricing is pretty 'expensive' for at least the Personal plan. I use Mockingbird to collaborate to only one or two people, so having unlimited Users for collaboration just didn't sell it, at least for me. Instead, limit the Users and make Projects unlimited.

Another thing is regarding the free account. make it more attractive if you want more people to try out Mackingbird. 1 Project w/ 3 Pages just doesn't make sense. People will just sign up draw a box and leave.

Again, I hope you can consider re-re-revise the all the current free & paid plans by not limiting the core features so much, i.e. projects & pages. There are other not very critical features you can limit like the export feature.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Matthew, thanks for the input. In our updated post we mention that new free plans will now include 10 pages. For current beta users (like you) who don't upgrade to a paid account, you'll be allowed to keep a special free plan with unlimited pages.

well guys, congratulations for blowing this up twice. i have more than 10 active projects but i am not paying for this. that was a perfect blow up - having the ability to analyze how people use mockingbird and just skip that part)

Hey Sheena,

That make more sense now. But I do hope you can do something about the paid plans coz I do really want to upgrade to Personal if the price is lower than $9, maybe $5. And for a Personal plan I don't think we really need unlimited users for that. Maybe instead of unlimited users, make the active projects more, say 5.

@optilude We understand that many of our users won't be using Mockingbird constantly, and that's why we will definitely not be charging you for months that you do not have active projects. With every plan, you have the option to archive finished projects (which will still be accessible via the share link). During months of inactivity, we will not charge you if you are not working on a project actively. So if you only use Mockingbird for 1-3 months, you will only be paying $9 - $27 a year.

The project limits on each tier is something we are definitely interested in taking feedback about, but we do feel it is fair compared to other web app offerings.

@update 2: very fair to the beta-testers. And also not expensive for personal use. 9$ certainly isn't much for such an easy working tool!

For my usage, $9 is too much per month. Do you have plans for a standalone application like Balsamiq... I WOULD pay for that as my usage is fairly light, maybe 10 or so projects a year.

What does count as a projekt? Because for easier wireframing in the beta I was saving the main pages of 1 projekt in new documents. Is that count as multiple projekts?

20-30 pages is not easy to manage per projekt in 1 interface based on the current layout.

Anyways I would make the price per usage. Like a pay as you go plan. This way the cost of the wireframing can be exactly calculated as cost per project. Just my 2 cents.

@remixcreative With the current plans, you would only be paying for months that you are working on active projects. So we think that your annual cost would actually be fairly low if you are a light user. Thanks for the input though about having a standalone app - we don't have one currently, but would definitely consider it.

@dubsolbrother Projects are the same concept as they are currently - a set of pages. Sorry if you don't like the interface currently for multiple pages - we would definitely be willing to improve that! But given that people often want to link pages together in a Mockingbird mockup, and that a project conceptually captures the whole thing you are building, we feel having all your pages in one project is the right way to do things.

So potentially a group of 30 people could club together and get the unlimited / unlimited account - and each pay ~$3 a month for what we have now?

This pricing model is completely out of line. I'll go back to wireframing with Adobe Fireworks until a simple per-project price is introduced.

I'm still unsure of this:

Can archived projects be shared? (ie viewed by others using their unique URL). Is that what you mean by read only?!

If so, the pricing doesn't seem too bad, although a yearly option would be great.

+1 vote on the pages being a bit clunky, especially if the project you're mocking up has a lot of pages.

@lowerdepths That's correct - the unique URL will still be active for archived projects, so people can still see your project, but you will not be able to make changes to it. This is also what we mean when we say that beta projects will be read-only forever after October 15. We understand that a lot of people link to their mockups from internal wikis and project pages, and it's annoying to have those links break. I think a lot of this will be made a lot clearer once we actually release it.

We're thinking about yearly options as well.

And thanks for the feedback about the interface for pages. You can resize the pages panel downward, which helps in some cases when you have really large projects.

Prefect, all clear now. Thanks again for the explanations.

I've been using mockingbird for a few hours today, tweaking and refining some stuff. I really love how fast it is.

Prefect?!

Where is my brain.

Perfect, all clear now.

I subscribed the $9 plan and I am very frustrated about the service. Don't get me wrong, the application is great, but the limitation for only 2 active projects is a pain in the ***, the "archived" concept is an absurd, its really annoying.
I use this application mostly for personal proposes and I think its ok to pay for a such good tool, even for personal use. But that way, limiting for 2 only projects makes the "personal plan" almost unusable, its not a free account we're paying for that!

Common guys, you have an awesome application and an enormous potential to make money, don't be that greedy. In my opinion this would a much better pricing policy:

Personal $10, 10 projects, single user
Team $20, 30 projects, 10 users
Pro $50, unlimited projects, 20 users
Unlimited $80, unlimited projects, unlimited users

I'm truly about to cancel my paid account because of its annoying project limit. Hope you think about it!
Thanks