Pricing model changes

When ElfHosted was "born", the idea was to provide "pay-as-you-go" type hosting using a microservices model on "cheap" hardware, leveraging Kubernetes to make the platform resilient. We used ElfBuckz and daily subscriptions to "shoehorn" this model onto the store, and while it worked, it was confusing and hard to manage.

One year later, we're geared heavily towards debrid-focused media apps (we only added real-debrid support in Feb 2024!), and a "core feature" is our friendly Discord community, and our bundles which "just work".

$10 free ElfBuckz, daily subscriptions, and pricing based purely on measured / forecast resource usage no longer "fits", and so the following changes are rolling out..

No more $10 free ElfBuckz

The intention of the free ElfBuckz on signup was to provide users with an opportunity to "kick the tyres" before committing. We now have trial periods on all apps/bundles, which serve the same purpose in a much more integrated fashion.

ElfBuckz will remain in the store as a payment gateway (you can still spend your remaining balance) to facilitate refunds, but we're no longer giving away $10 credit to every new account.

Monthly billing

All new subscriptions are billed monthly, with increasing pre-payed discounts available for 3/6/12 months periods. Daily renewals were buggy and noisy.

Switching to monthly "subscriptions" in Woocommerce affords us the following benefits:

• Users can migrate between apps / bundles within a subscription, and the store will pro-rate any differences. So it's super-easy to switch from Aars to Riven and back again, for example.
• We can alter bundles during a subscription - i.e., add an extra app to Hobbit/Ranger bundles, without having to delete and recreate the subscription (the older bundle plugin didn't support this)
• We can offer trial periods on bundles

Pricing tiers

There are only 5 price tiers. Every app fits into one of these tiers:

1. $9/month: Standard apps
2. $19/month: Complex apps (apps with unusually high resource / support requirements)
3. $29/month: Starter kits (a bundle with the minimal components for an Infinite Streaming setup)
4. $39/month: Hobbit bundles (a complete Infinite Streaming setup, with hardware transcoding support and ⅛ resources of a node)
5. $59/month: Ranger bundles (a complete Infinite Streaming setup, with hardware transcoding support with ¼ resources of a node)

These changes are already in place, and affect new subscriptions only.

No more grandfathered pricing

On 1 Aug 2024, existing subscriptions will cancel and age out over the remaining subscription period.

This means, if you had a monthly bundle (really 30 daily orders) which renewed on the 27^th July, it'll last until 27^th Aug, but thereafter it won't renew again.

However, if you had a daily, ElfBuckz-based subscription, it'd stop after 1 final day.

How to prepare

Questions / issues

Got questions? We've setup a dedicated thread in Discord to capture all questions / ideas / issues. Drop in, and let's talk!. This post will be updated to based on conversations in the thread.

Here are a few to get us started:

Will my subscription transition automatically?

No, either you need to cancel it, or we do. If you don't care about the balance of the subscription (i.e., it's a daily subscription), then just cancel and resubscribe. If you'd like the balance washed up into ElfBuckz, create a #elf-support ticket.

What about Stremio addons?

Stremio addons are generally "Standard apps". Comet (and possibly MediaFusion, in future) is an exception, since it uses significant network bandwidth for "Proxy Stream" mode.

What about revenue sharing for OSS devs?

As previously announced, we share 30% of app subscription revenue with "Elf-iliated" devs. This includes Riven and Comet, and the change to monthly subscriptions will make accounting for this simpler.

Today's scoreboard

Summary

Thanks for geeking out with us, and please share these posts with related geeks! Type /review into any Discord channel to share your experience - this helps us to attract mooar elves!