I recently decided to purchase the PRO tier of the Instagram Feed, which clearly stated that the widget can be used on Unlimited Websites and the only limitation was on total views per month.
I’m a web developer and have dozens of sites that might need the Instagram widget. Each site has it’s own feed because I can’t re-use the same widget on multiple sites (since the IG @names are different).
When I tried creating more than 5 widgets, your system told me to fill out some form to request more widgets (due to security reasons).
I received a response stating that I have to pay $0.50/widget/month for EACH additional widget over 5.
Why am I being charged extra if I’m already paying for unlimited websites?
Your FAQ clearly states no restriction except FREE tier. How many sites can I add my widget on?
The Free plan allows you to embed the plugin on only one website and build only one tool. Any of paid plans don’t have such a restriction, that is, the plugin can be inserted on any number of sites.
I have many sites but they don’t get much traffic/views, so total views will not be a lot.
Nowhere on your site does it specifically state that I’m limited to 5 widgets.
It doesn’t cost you any more whether I have 5 or 50 widgets as long as the views are low (and if they were high, I’m already paying for them). It’s one thing if I had 1000 widgets on one account, but under a 100 should not be so troublesome.
If you’re going to charge per widget, then MAKE IT OBVIOUS before I waste time with your plugin.
Why does it matter if I create 15 widgets instead of 5 if the amount of views will not be affected that much?
I’m so very sorry to see that you’ve had such an unfavourable experience with our Instagram Feed app!
I totally understand your feelings, and I’ll try my hardest to explain things for you here.
It’s true that any paid plan lets you install your widgets on as many websites as you need, however, recently we’ve had to restrict the limit of widgets for Instagram Feed. For us, each Instagram Feed widget maintenance expense depends on entirely each new source added to the widget. Due to a very complex data collection process, each new username or hashtag increases the expenses for us.
We assumed that $0.50/month for each new widget was an affordable price for our users, especially if they work with dozens of clients. Moreover, we’ll might have to consider this price increase for our new customers in the future.
Anyway, I cannot but agree that we didn’t make it clear, and we deeply apologize for such a terrible nuisance. We’ll alter our Pricing with the info regarding the widget limit anytime soon, so this misunderstanding never ever arises from now on.
I do believe it explained things, and you’ll keep using all the widgets you need seamlessly.
Thank you for understanding where my frustration came from. Your team reached out and I’ll be continuing to use your product because of great customer service. I’m glad you’ll be updating the pricing section to reflect widget usage restrictions so other people don’t run into the same issue.
I have 80,000 monthly views allowed. I use about 5000 on average. But it would be devastating if you started charging “per widget” on top of the views. Will you be doing this with other widgets? This is a major change to the contract in my opinion.
This is surely a very important matter, and I need to say that we’re considering widget limit policy change for other apps as well.
The thing is that 90% of our users have no more than 2 widgets of one app, and for other users who have dozens or even hundreds of websites or clients we’d love to provide new features, such as widgets and views splitting by clients, for instance. At the same time, the subscription cost will be a bit increased, since it seems logical to us that 100 widgets cannot have the same price as 5 ones. Besides, such customers have different use-cases which we would love to try to support better.
That being said, we always strive to bring about changes in our service gently, and we make sure to test things out and collect the feedback first. In fact, this forum was created specifically to this purpose: so everyone has an option to speak up and voice their opinion regarding the improvements and other ideas coming from us, and have discussions with our whole team. We will listen to every point of view and provide reasons to support our position, and we’ll definitely reach a compromise.
This way, nothing will happen all of a sudden, because our aim is to build strong relationships with all the customers of ours.
If you have any further questions, please go ahead and ask
I use the Elfsight apps on most of my websites, I’m currently paying $360 a year for the ALL APPS - PRO PACK can you please confirm whether the above limit on widgets will also apply to the ALL APPS packs? The initial attraction of Elfsight was the single payment - unlimited widgets format and the above change will be a major change in the contract agreed.
We as well love our simple pricing model, and I assure you that we ourselves are interested in keeping this simplicity as it is. As for the limit by widgets for all paid plans, these are mid-range plans thus far.
For starters, we’d love to release the brand-new and totally updated dashboard, and this is the top task for us now. Only once it’s done, we’ll get back to considering our pricing.
Besides, our customers who don’t use their plans to the full are always welcome to downgrade the plan and apply the saved funds to something they really need.
In the meantime, please don’t worry about anything and feel free to make the most of your plan. I’m convinced we’ll resolve this matter and find the best solution in future together.
Thanks for the reply Helga, when you do get round to thinking about prices please consider a developer pricing plan based on views instead of the number of widgets used… I personally don’t mind paying a little extra for this and it would put me off if I had to pay for every extra widget after the limit had been reached.
It would be good to throw some ideas to this forum before implementing them
Absolutely, this is exactly what we’re planning to do — this forum is a great tool to use for discussions and voicing opinions, and this topic will be definitely raised here so that we can come to the best solution together
I am satisfied with Elfsight and the current pricing policy. What I like the most and what I wish it kept is having all the features for widgets with the free plan. It’s really rare to see that.
I really hope it will be kept.
Regarding improvements here is what I suggest:
Being able to create more than one widget from the same app with the free plan.
Optionally, increase views of free plan widgets. Go from 200 views/month to 500 views/month.
I’m all for free stuff, but I honestly don’t think that increasing widgets/views in the free tier would be a good idea. Because free is meant to give everyone a chance to see how the app works. Also if everyone is using the free model, then guess what Elfsight will do next? They’ll increase pricing on the paid tiers, which is not something I’d want (as a paying customer).
