We will be rolling out new pricing on September 1, 2020 for all new and renewed races. Races created or renewed before then will have our current pricing until their event is complete. Our pricing has been the same for the past 10 years – RunSignup.com/Pricing and GiveSignup.org/Pricing, and the time has finally come for changes to build on what we have learned and feedback we have gotten.
There are several guidelines that we will continue, and are central to our Guiding Principles:
- Single, simple, all-inclusive pricing. We want every event to have the full power of the largest event – no complicated price tiers or paying more for just one feature.
- No subscription fees or hidden costs. All pricing is based on transactions – so we and our customers win together.
- Per transaction pricing, not per participant. We always thought it was crazy to discourage multiple people signing up at once – who would put hurdles in front of families joining an event?
- Lots of free tools (even though they cost us money). Free Email, Free TXT, Free filing of sales tax, Free refunds, Free Facebook Fundraising, Free Websites, Free SSL for your domains, etc.
We are changing pricing some for the following reasons:
- Provide a lower price to low-cost events
- Need to price the BYO Merchant Account model
- Achieve similar, compatible pricing between BYO and our primary Payment Facilitator models
- Eliminate the “sudden steps” in pricing we have below $50.
- Minimize the overall net effect of any pricing changes
- Stay below the price of all major competitors in the endurance and nonprofit markets
The first point is one of the major reasons for this change. We feel that in this new world of Coronavirus (now and post), we are going to see more low priced events. Our current $2.00 minimum is really tough for a $5 or $10 event.
Additionally, we see an increased use of our GiveSignup ticket platform by nonprofits in the future as an alternative to Eventbrite. Many nonprofits use Eventbrite for their ticket events, and we have a much better solution with a purpose built platform for nonprofit tickets with features like donation discounts (Eventbrite does not have clean donations or recurring donations as an example). We expect this to be a business that will grow to the size of RunSignup over the next 7 years. We need to have pricing that aligns better with Eventbrite to make it simple for nonprofits to switch.
Anyway, here is our new pricing proposal:
- Free events are still free
- $1.00 per transaction Plus 5.8% processing fee up to $250
- $1.00 per transaction Plus 4.8% processing fee $250 – $1,000
- $1.00 per transaction Plus 3.9% processing fee $1,000 +
- Donations – stay at a flat 4%
- BYO Pricing is $1 per transaction + 2.9% on all transactions
- BYO Donation Pricing is 2.5%
- Partner Revenue Share stays the same
- Permanently eliminate refund processing fee
- Permanently remove Virtual TXT extra processing fee
Here is how that stacks up against our competitors:
We feel we have technological superiority over all of our competitors, and we feel our technology roadmap will keep that lead for the foreseeable future. This pricing also gives us pricing advantages over all of our competitors. As one of the members of our customer advisory board said:
“I like that the pricing is more dialed into the exact pricing of the ticket instead of being in tiers. I think this will make RSU more compelling in the market place since your base fees are lower than most of your competitors and it will be easier to compare apples to apples.”
Customer Advisory Board member
Bob was also a guest on TalkSignup with Andrew Sigwart to discuss the pricing changes in more depth:
We are hopeful the new pricing will set us up for the next 10 years – giving us something that provides flexibility, fairness, and a competitive differentiation.