To Dave Olson...Hi Dave,

Simply the demeanor of your reply...informative reply has me almost signing up, quik story: I'm an overly ambitious man who left a 21 year stint with The White House Press Corps - to make guitars and found missions overseas to teach Conversational American and also basic business skills so rural folks could enter the business world instead of selling their family property to make Nikes...and the 2008 crash killed it all via the 2 homes which were lost. Upon my return, after getting 2 jobs, a horrific auto accident left me bedbound for 2 years...and I'm on the mend now - and in that time I have become a Social Media Relations & Marketing guy - does that job even exist? lmao. of course, everything exists in this webernet. So, I like the demeanor you shined out there, yet of course my $'s as rare as an honest politician...so I worry about any charges arriving on my android before I can upgrade to premium - losing the droid and it's essential integration with my social networks, Gmail/calender/+ account, would be a real act of Lucifer-ish-ness. Please, put me at ease bro, k? Also...while chardbreed@gmail's my edress above, please cc my old one so should you earn my trust and begin the Loyalty relationship...I can promote my 'happy' experience with over 400 journalist friends: whitehousetv@yahoo's that edress to cc.

Thanking you in advance, I am

Richard E. Breed IV

PS: on Facebook: Richard Edwards Breed IV another place to gauge my character MySpace (Which I joined 2 years b4 it went public...) ...hmm, I have no idea what I'm called there...Tom A.(actually Colin P.)has had me on some kinda auto 4ever signed in since 2003...try R. E. Breed, or Chard Breed. Off2a doctor 2have my exhaust probed...joy of joys...argh! lmao...and later: literally.

I really don't mind seeing an ad once in a while, but since of yesterday I see the same ad every 15/20min from the same advertiser and it's getting really annoying.

Can't there be a timelimit for say every 2 hours or so?

I agree with Gavin.. its the very reason I came here... to get clarification on the ads part.

Thanks

I think you need to make it much clearer in your publicity that the free version doesn't insert ads into your public Twitter stream. I think a lot of people think this is the case and are put off. I avoided using HootSuite ever since this came in because I thought this was what it did. Only after reading the whole of this thread did I realise I was wrong.

How many memebers can you have on an account?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Dave,

I am confused. I read here that if you have less than 5 social media channels Hootsuite will remain free with unlimited team members, but I have just been contacted by someone who says that because we have 18 team members we need to upgrade to enterprise. Is this right?

Also on your website it says Enterprise and Pro are for new users and exisiting users can continue for free, so why am I being told we suddenly have to pay.

We are a non-profit org with non-existent budget for this.

Anne

OMG =*(

I was about to cry when I saw the new price plan for Hootsuite. I'm in the same boat as everyone here.

I've been with Hootsuite since the start, and was a beta user too!! Being part of the earliest social media pioneers in Orange County, I evangelized to everyone about how great Hootsuite is! And being a websurfer and website beta tester, I saw potential in Hoosuite....I trusted Hootsuite and stay in tact with its every feature.

And again, all of this is from an interest perspective. I only make money off of one account, because it is my social media part-time job at that very very small company. I have a budget of $0, and don't get paid enough to afford to purchase this on my own.

I also handle a couple non-profit accounts for free, nonprofit = volunteer hours. I manage their social media in order to practice as well as grow in different skill level from these volunteer experience, since the current company I work for can't offer that mentor-ship and experience.

I know Mr. Dave, has been trying his best to educate us and others regarding the future pricing plan. Difficult work since there a lot of frustrated avid users/promoters of Hootsuite. And at some point, all organizations like this must eat and make some type of income --- Is there a way we as users can help in a different way?

I have multiple accounts

- The company I work part-time for can't afford it.

- And they don't pay me enough to afford it.

- All the non-profits I'm part of can't afford it either.

- I can delete the multiple random twitter accounts I created to learn twitter in the past, but what about the team members I will have for the non-profits? I just evangelized to them about this tool, so that I can get some help with social media.

Is there a faster solution for this? Do I really have to sign up Hootsuite for each non-profit and such, and then use that account? Its like signing into twitter for each account. At this point, I'm very tempted to ask fellow colleagues and your fans here what tool do they use instead - convert to Tweetdeck, my biggest disappointment. I trusted Hootsuite, can I continue to trust you at this point? =?

#sorry #sad #fan #disappointed #frustrated #heartbroken #broke #sminterest #open4help

[...] (17 de agosto): gracias al aviso de Raúl Cameo, he visto el post de Hootsuite despejando las dudas. Os recomiendo a todos que echéis un vistazo, porque aclara cosas bastante [...]

For the free version. I will just see ads when I do searches in HootSuite? No tweets will be sent out from the twitter account I manage with an ad in it? i.e. you won't send out tweets from my twitter handle with an ad?

I think it's just a viewing thing and not a sending thing.

Please clarify.

I just signed up for the free version of HootSuite, and seems great.

However, I just got an email telling me this is a 30-day free trial.

Is this just a generic email, or will I be charged after 30 days?

[...] le prix lui-même. D’ailleurs, une semaine après avoir lancé l’offre premium, Hootsuite a repoussé la date de lancement de ses forfaits premium en expliquant qu’elle avait entendu le cri muet d’une blogosphère choquée par de tels [...]

My small local government may be able to afford some level of paid service (Gold or Platinum) but the number of staff we have tweeting from different departments would quickly push us to an Enterprise level, and we couldn't justify that to the taxpayers.

I'd really love to see an a-la-carte system where we could pay for users ($10/user/month?).

Overall, it's difficult to sell the value of Hootsuite internally at the price points you've proposed. CoTweet is free for higher usage levels, integrates bit.ly pro, and has better team collaboration capabilities. The only real point on Hootsuite's side (and it's a big one) is ease of use.

Okay so I read the posts and am curious to why hootsuite didn't speak to their people(users) 1st. I am a hootsuite university grad and have always been thrilled to use a promote hootsuite to others. Now I have multiple accounts that I manage on my own and haven't had an issue except for getting access to my Analytics. I can post and update just fine but finding out my stats is impossible. I manage about 2 clients each with FB, FB Pages, and LinkedIn Accounts. And my own personal accounts. What is my best option. My clients are small time and so am I right now but again I agree with other people that you should tier the program. What did you do for Icanhavechzburgs? Thanks for listening to my rambling

I really love your product and am willing to pay for it even though I only have two very part time clients, both of whom are non-profits.

I would truly appreciate an affiliate program of some sort so I can earn back what I'm spending to support my clients through the use of Hootsuite (I charge them VERY little for a US based person--$25 per hour compared to US based developers/designers/VA's normally in the $60-$100 range) and I generally don't charge them anything for the work I do for them using hootsuite as it is somewhat built in to the overall business development work that I am best at.

However, with the new plans I may need to suggest they get their own accounts, so an affiliate/reseller program would be helpful to me.

Thanks again for what you do. Your tool is awesome!

Dave, thanks for the explanation. Would I like to be able to add 1 team member to the free account? Of course. But am I willing to pay for all those great features? Of course.

I just wanted to point out that some of your help page content needs to be updated, check http://help.hootsuite.com/entries/144079-team-collaboration.

Thanks for a great (and mostly free) product!

Hi there!

First, I'd like to say that I'm a big fan of Hootsuite. I'd also like to say that I appreciate Dave Olson responding to almost every single comment on this post. It goes to show that Hootsuite is really taking into account their customers' feedback. So, thank you for that Hootsuite.

I'd like to give my 2 cents here so that perhaps another user's needs can be taken into account during your review of the plans.

I would like to echo the sentiments to be able to add certain features a la cart. Personally, the Bronze package would work for myself and for the NPO I manage (with no budget for SM) but I would really like to be able to add team members (afterall that is one of the features that sets hootsuite apart from competitors like Buzzom, who frankly, aside from the team members (which they are working on according to their website) have more features for cheaper pricing.

Now, I like hootsuite. Actually, I LOVE hootsuite and I'm ok with paying a reasonable sum for advanced features. But I would like to be able to purchase PRO analytics to go with my Bronze package without having to pay an additional 45 dollars for a package that has so many things I don't need. The same goes for social networks.

Once again, thank you for a great app and a great iphone app. I will be quite interested to see what you all come up with.

In the case that your solution is not what I or other current hootsuite users want/need, how long will we have before our accounts are switched to the freemium plans' features (which for many of us will mean team members will disappear and social networks will disappear from our dashboards)?

Thanks

I will admit to some confusion. Essentially, you guys (Hootsuite) are stepping back and reviewing, so we should not expect account changes due to paid plans being instituted in the immediate future?

[...] se encuentra en pleno proceso de cambio de su modelo de negocio. Realmente el cambio es lógico: usuarios que queráis usar todos los servicios, toca pasar por [...]

Thanks for listening to the feedback. The number of team members is the issue for me as well. I'm trying to work with a group of people to get them up to speed on social media and had planned to put them all on a team with me to manage our account. I'm willing to pay, but the amount I would have to pay to get the whole team on-board will be hard to manage (and justify) especially given no one here is sure about the returns that social media will really bring. I'm also a nonprofit (education) trying to get through a very bad (and getting worse) budget situation.

I own a fledgling social media marketing business in which I provide SM VA and coaching services, and I am willing to pay $20 a month for my partner and I to manage our business's accounts. And I am willing to suggest that my clients pay for a $5 or a $20/month account, too. (They certainly won't pay much more than that when I'm working to convince them that SM is profitable in the first place.) If my other team member is my business partner, and each of my clients use one other person in their offices as their other team member, then I won't be able to collaborate with them on their social media efforts.

This is the workaround I'll probably have to propose to my clients: That they don't add me as a team member; instead that they give me their login credentials to their social media accounts, and I add their accounts as if I'm an owner, too, which will almost entirely negate any collaboration that is supposed to be happening. But this is what my team members and I did before you incorporated team member functionality; it worked then, so I guess I'll have to make it work again.

Thanks for listening, and for looking into better options for NPOs and others who might have several team members sharing the load. The current 20% discount doesn't get me in the ballpark of what I'd be willing to pay (I'll have around 16 profiles and 20 team members, which puts me at an enterprise plan--still over $14,000/year), but I hear you: you're "looking at other ways to add more team members to the lower tiers." Looking forward to that.

In the meantime, are you postponing the date by which we have to commit to a paid plan? I think that originally this was going to happen by 8/18, right?

FYI: I follow on Facebook; the link to this post was marked as abusive.

I am definitely going to need more than 7 days worth of data for an ow.ly link on a free account. is there a reason why you don't use bit.ly links?

Thank you Hootsuite, I am genuinely grateful that you are at least looking for ways to add more Team Members to the lower tiers of the plans.

You have to continue getting new customers onto the ladder (pretty obvious I guess), and a large chunk those new customers will be us smaller consultants offering Hootsuite as part of the service. It's not something any of us make money out of, but it is something that can significantly help our customers understand the importance of SM.

One they understand SM, then they should be wanting to expand their reach and Team.

This is greatly encouraging, I look forward to seeing the results. I too have multiple accounts I share with multiple single team members. Maybe you can limit the number of team members by twitter stream to 1 or something.

I don't think anyone expects stuff to be free forever, but it does seem there are some use cases where the current pricing makes the risk of switching far higher.

Hi there.

Whilst I welcome the expansion of Hootsuite, I can't help wishing that these plans were more flexilble. I am happy to pay for Hootsuite - but not for features I don't use. I would love it if you implemented a sort of 'bolt on' pay package, whereas you select the features you want (for example unlimited rss feeds, or no ads etc) and depending on the features you choose, you would be given a price per month.

For example, I personally make quite heavy use of the RSS feature. So to use that I need to buy the Silver package for $19 a month. The thing is, I don't particularly mind about the ads, or unlimited social networks, but I'm paying for them anyway.

I wish there was some way that I could buy 'unlimited rss feeds' for maybe $4 a month with no extra features...because at the moment I'm going to have to make do with Twitterfeed.

Sorry for this rather garbled post - but I feel quite strongly and would like it if you would at least consider some of the points I make.

Thanks for reading and providing such a fantastic service.

Thank you for the clarification. I have 3 Twitter accounts (personal, linux consulting and urban farm) and 2 Facebook accounts. I'm hoping the new pricing plan will work for me because there simply are no browser based apps like HootSuite. None! :-)

Thanks!

yes I am in the exact same boat as Louisa. I wonder if allowing 1 team member on the free account would help us out? I would think even medium organizations need more than just 1 team member so really this would just target the ultra-small operations like us.

Can't the other Twitter management programs allow multiple people to log into the same Twitter account, where-as Hootsuite only allows one? I hate to say I'd leave, but it's looking more and more like I may have to go back to using Bit.ly for my link tracking and Tweetdeck for my post scheduling. I cannot afford $20 a month and I also need more than 7 days of link tracking to deliver a status report to some clients.

I don't mind Ad supported programs at all so if that's what it takes to get a slightly more robust "free" Hootsuite version, I'm all for that.

I know the diagram is supposed to be helpful, but it doesn't make much sense to me. It still looks like I'm limited to 1 team member if I'm going to have a "free" account... and the lower cost accounts have very low team member numbers.

Can you make it clear who can and can't have a "team member" and exactly what your definition of that is?? If I'm a small business and have a virtual assistant that I want to help me manage tweets, it sounds like life is going to be pretty expensive. I mean, think about it... $20 a month just to let my VA help manage tweets is steep. And $50 a month if I have a couple of VA's managing?! I have more than one profile and there's a good chance a different VA will manage each one.

Including at least one team member in the $10 plan would really be nice. Not all of us businesses are Dell yet. But some of us like our team members to do some of the work. The HootSuite interface is lovely, but I don't want to spend all day staring at it :) I need somebody else on there too.