Saving Money with Gogo

Flickr sent me an email recently, reminding me that my Flickr Pro subscription is up for renewal. I’ve subscribed to Flickr Pro for many years, dating back to 2007. The price was reasonable at first, at around $25 a year, then crept up to $50, now it’s $71.99! I’ve been paying for the subscription 2 years at a time, to get a slight discount. I did not know that Flickr raised the price so much, and wanted $139.99 from me for 2 years (this already includes savings). Before they could auto-renew my subscription, I went to cancel it to see if they would offer me any discounts to stay, and they did!

Flickr immediately offered me a 50% savings for 2 years, dropping the price down to $66.49. This is more in line with what I was paying years ago. While I love the service, they’ve tripled the cost without offering me any extra incentives.

They’ll bill me $35.99 per year, which is great! My friend who is subscribed to an annual membership tried to cancel, and they offered her a discount too, but not as great as 50%. They offered her a slight discount of $46.99/annually.

If you subscribe to anything online, always select the annual plan, it usually offers greater savings. And before renewal is up, always be willing to cancel and go to the last screen, they’ll most likely offer you a discount to show how much they really, really appreciate your business.

For example, Second Life Premium membership is $99/annually. If you pay monthly it’s $11.99/month, which is $143.88 per year – that’s nearly 50% more. With the new sales tax on U.S. purchases, you’ll want to convert any monthly or quarterly membership to annually to save money.

I’ve canceled many premium memberships in the past 2 years, and not once has Linden Lab ever offered me a discount to stay. They actually don’t show much love to customers, because we have had a steady increase in prices on Premium Membership and no sales at all.