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Do they have any explanation for the increase?
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I don't have an explanation that our members will like much. They are rather mundane, but here are a few of them, if anyone is interested.
We are in Canada. When P411 started in 2005 the Usd rate conversion to Cdn was about $1.20. So $100 was worth $120 Cdn. Today, the Usd rate conversion is around 0.95, so $100 Usd is now worth $95 Cdn. We lost nearly 25% revenue strictly because of the dollar exchange values. I never thought that the US dollar would be worth less than the Canadian dollar for any length of time, so I priced our service a little too low to start with.
We found ourselves in a situation were we could no longer process our credit cards in North America (because of our designation as an adult site) at 2.8%, and had to move credit card processing to the EU, at a rate of about 8%. We recently experiences another hike in this department, which has taken us now to 10%.
We have also had other unexpected, ongoing, expenses come up. The ddos attack in October cost enough to give me nightmares, and is a new ongoing expense to make sure the site isn't brought down like that again.
The bottom line is that to continue doing the best job we can, we need more revenue. There's no heart warming story to tell, other than it costs a heap of moolah to keep the business running and constantly improving/evolving. In doing one solid jump, I hope to not have to revisit another rate increase for many years.
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Everybody better renew their P411 membership before 3/31/2013. Rates go up to $129 per year.
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It's actually 3/1/13 that the rate increase will go into place for renewals.
Thanks to everyone who has been supportive of the increase, even if few like it! I feel that we offer fair value for the dollar, and we will continue to do the best job we can to help our members as they navigate through this industry.
Always,
Gina