Monthly subscription fees

Imran, thank you for bringing this to our attention. That kind of inflation is brutal.

I'd love to hear what our other Member's feel is the right decision here?

Although I live in United Kingdom, I do have friends who live such areas and inflation has become an issue. Perhaps setting up a different payment strategy to those countries may bring treehouse to a wider audience whilst still making it profitable platform for the foreseeable future.

When I referred to Web development as massive market in that specific region. you could easily see that on Freelancer.com both India and Pakistan are dominating in terms of offering services. I see that number growing, because currently a lot of people at least here in Pakistan are turning to web development. Even myself, who is by profession an international Logistics Broker.

I guess little bit of subsiding would certainly help, as I often see, a lot of my friends wanting to learn it on treehouse, and I always recommend it to them on facebook. But they are mostly young bloke just out of their college unlike me who has a full-time job.

As someone from Canada, I wouldn't mind it if Treehouse adjusted their fees depending on the member's country. In an effort to make it more accessible to everyone, I think this would be a fair practice.

You can use the World Bank's Index of countries by gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita to create a sliding scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

By that index the purchasing power of someone from Pakistan is 6% of someone from the US.

My fear is that Members who had to pay more would be upset. However, if the majority was OK with this policy, that'd be an awesome way for us to reach and help more people.

^ Oh! yes that's why I had posted it here instead of emailing you Ryan! - I am a small business owner too, and I do see that it's imperative to see the users reaction before making any decision. I guess $25 is pretty fair price, considering the amount of time and quality of videos and tutorials you are producing. :)

I was only making my case because of the soaring dollar price in the 3rd World.

Since I am more into marketing. this could be a good marketing show off too backed by little PR to mainstream tech blogs. Heading " Treehouse Now helps developing countries students learn Web development " this is just a hint! :)

But before taking any step, as I am sure, you will evaluate all the effects both positive and negative. Only negative point i see is that which you have mentioned, first world users might ask for a discount too. which now are mostly using treehouse.

I just logged into freelancer.com and from PHP category picked the current most bidding project. https://www.freelancer.com/projects/PHP-Website-Design/Build-brochure-website.html

You can see top bidder is from Pakistan.

Interesting concept. This is a great time for companies to re asses how they handle business and making sure their is profit and accessibility. Though I would have to say this is a very small fraction compared to school no matter where you live. The internet is full of free resources as well and learning web today is easier than ever. If you can afford TH for a month or two and use it like a mad man to learn WHAT you need to learn at the time, then go without and practice then come back when you need to learn more that may be a way for you to minimize your cost. As I am just starting the business section of treehouse I would say I am not against TH looking at their numbers and pricing things differently according to country or region. But I would say if you are here, using it its because you want it. You want to succeed. As a stay at home dad living off of one income and wanting to better my families future I too sacrifice many things to be able to even afford such an affordable rate to learn. Not saying your not sacrificing, just saying it feels good when you do. I would love to see where this goes. Like I said, I am not against it.

Maybe you should just reset the price int these country's to the current exchange rate every month (and it applies even to renewals). But I believe the current pricing is fair.

Your current business modal is fairly simple and pricing is adequate too. But I may be crazy or I might have little aggressive business approach when it comes to grabbing the market share.

1. Your current business modal offers pricing which is suitable to anyone who want to learn and then pause the subscription when they are done. Hence $25 is justifiable, it does not bind the user to keep his subscription active.

2. However, I'd have focused on building this learning platform into a private paid social network of young web developers around the world. Point is I'd keep the price to the point, where users won't feel the need to pause it.

3. Your Forum addition is a step forward towards it, however I'd have pondered over the ideas to make it more 'social' I don't have an idea how but It can be done.

4. So the goal is, keep the users more and more engaged by building a private social network for them on top of this learning platform. And keep the pricing at a level that does not bother the user to pause their subscription.

As for free platforms like codeacademy, I don't think it's any where at par with treehouse. :) Point of your success is, that you spoonfeed the users while they don't. and that's the reason why I signed up for it despite there are zillions of resources online where I could have learned the same thing for free.

I completely agree with Imran. I recommended this site to one of my friend in Bangladesh. He did not sign up because of the price.

The public Universities in the subcontinent probably costs less than treehouse.

Here in Australia a pizza will cost more than 25 bucks. I dont mind paying 25 bucks a month. I am on the $45 plan, but i will be changing to the $25 plan.

I love treehouse :) especially the iOS courses.

Imran, I've been thinking what you have been describing for a while now, but as Ryan points out, maybe some will be upset when they realize they live in a country that is required to pay more? Also how do you make sure that people are being honest about where they live?

@Christopher

Also how do you make sure that people are being honest about where they live?

I'd suggest you autopopulate the their country on signup. You can geolocate their public IP address using MaxMind via JavaScript

The two methods i can think of to verify user origin is.

1. Using technologies to verify IP. I don't think there are many 3rd world proxy, most proxy offer US ip address than Pakistan ip address. but i guess system should be efficient enough to detect a proxy, if proxy than normal $25 - Also most 3rd world users name speak for it ;) --- like mine. Imran Jafri. ;) - You can of course update your terms to reflect that cheating with billing system could lead to account termination or better upgrade to normal $25.

2. The credit card. (credit card number has country info too).

3. Yes! Users who would be paying $25 could be little upset. but this depends on how you market it. As I had suggested, you would have to give an impression, that Treehouse is doing a favor to third world users by lowering its rate. So far the comments suggest here, that users are quite comfortable with that. Again I am sure you can come up with better Marketing idea which would give the impression to first world users, that 3rd world users also deserve to learn but they sadly don't have enough buying power.

This is not in regard to this thread, but just worth noting.

These days web developers are signed up to zillions monthly subscription. Github, hosting, etc. I am also subscribed to t+.

So at the end of the month it piles up a reasonable total.

Imran, thanks for that valuable feedback (you, too James!). This is a really important idea and Imran, you can rest assured that I'll continue exploring it and I'll be sure to share what I learn about the issue with our other Leadership Team members here at Treehouse! If you have more ideas about the issue, please feel free to continue to deposit them here, I'll stay subscribed to the thread so I can keep an eye on it for reference.

Perhaps an idea would be for Treehouse to offer a 'needs-based' scholarship. That way, individuals who feel they are in a situation where the subscription may be too high for them can submit an application to be reviewed on an individual basis.

That way, there isn't a blanket solution, or multi-tiers based on each individual countries and fluctuating exchange rates - which could turn into a logistical nightmare.

I am currently residing in such a country, and to be frank paying for a subscription on treehouse can be very expensive for an average Nigerian, I had to ask my sister in the UK to help subscribe as they charge u an arm and a leg to pay via a debit card here. Anything that can be done to make it easier and cheaper to subscribe from this region would be welcomed and would also create a larger customer base for treehouse.

I too have a sibling from Nigeria. I live in the States and I go to school here. I am currently on the student discounted rate, and I was hoping to help him get access too, but $25 is so expensive back home. I wish I could get him the student rate but he is no longer a student. I hope TreeHouse can consider a discounted rate based on each countries' purchasing power. The typical monthly income in Nigeria ranges from N30,000 ($200) to N100000 ($500), to give an illustration. So $25 is a big chunk, and not considering the high rate of unemployment. Creating a different rate for qualified low-income countries will be great (upon proof of residence) and will possibly increase the customer and profit base for TreeHouse.

Was there an evaluation on this idea? Because I'm from the same south Asian market and have subscribed to two months of the service with a 2 month gap in between. By saving money for the second one. I really lvor the way treehouse populates it's videos and data. But quite frankly much much the currency has inflated to around 142 pkr for 1 usd. 25 usd is just too much to take out of my pocket as a student. Is there any policy that was created for third world markets?