Events Manager Pro – PayPal and Offline Payments!
Posted on May 12, 2011
It’s been long overdue, but it’s finally here! Events Manager is now going pro.
Events Manager is free open source software and a labor of love since it was first made in mid-2008. Whilst some contributions have helped move development along somewhat, it doesn’t come close to reflecting the hundreds of hours spent on this plugin.
Over the years, Events Manager has grown to become the most complete event registration and management solution on WordPress, and it’s only just begun if I have anything to do with it! That said, with recent improvements over the past year or so, it’s becoming increasingly impossible to maintain this plugin and support its users without any funding.
Due to this, we’re now also making available a premium add-on, Events Manager Pro. This will allow us to maintain the free version and also add tons of new features and improvements for our pro users.
Pro will begin with our first most in-demand feature; payment integration with PayPal and offline payments. For more information on features please see the Events Manager Pro page. Support will also soon be limited to paying members.
We’ve got a ton of features in store, and hopefully this new add-on will allow me to achieve just that! So to those that use Events Manager and intend to for time to come, your early support will certainly be appreciated and will surely help speed up the development of this plugin for you and others. Sign Up Now!
Hello.
First of all i can fully understand why you make this step. But 75$ a year? Come on … maybe you should have a look around in the premium wordpress plugin scene. With 75$ a year your event manager is one of the expensive plugins around. Sorry to say that but that is too much.
Anyway keep up tha great work and all the best.
hope to think the price will be a bargain for the full suite of features now, plus loads new features. Considering EM v3/4 was done with almost no funding imagine what to expect with some financial help :)
bear in mind that you can always cancel after a year if you’re still not happy, you’ll just stop receiving new features.
I too am with Thomas on this one. I have been anxiously awaiting the latest version in order to upgrade for an existing client’s site. But, while I do truly enjoy this plugin much more than Event Espresso, the client ultimately would not sign on for the $75 a year so we went with the one-time-only fee plugin instead. I know it’s not easy maintaining these things, but I would highly encourage you to continue to make this accessible for people. From what I’ve seen, this is going to be too big of a jump for most small business owners.
I agree with Thomas, sorry. I am further surprised that this fee is PER SITE. Whilst this is a fantastic product and I do appreciate that you have put in a lot of work, the sites I would use it on are non-profit organisations and $75 dollars a year equates to 10 members’ subscriptions. They are hardly going to be able to afford $75 every year.
Also disappointed that this seems to have been implemented without any warning whatsoever (well at least I haven’t seen any). I only posted a question yesterday I wake up this morning and the forums are no longer available :(
well Jill, regarding warnings, EM free is free, time to answer free support questions is totally voluntary on my part. I’m intending to answer outstanding topics, but when I am able to of course. you can try wp.org
The subscription covers SUPPORT for one website, doesn’t mean you can’t use it on more than one site. We’ve just released this, so we’re working on a plan for developers.
I thought I might make a comment.
I’m the CEO of a nonprofit and with limited funding every dollar is important. Our entire website was put up by a group of us with a volunteer who has experience to help. We used a template which cost $30. Then there’s hosting of course which is about $50 a year.
I am now developing the site myself because we can’t afford to pay someone. As Marcus will agree with, my skills are very limited.
When I saw the cost of the plugin, in comparison to others it looked expensive however my inbox has 7 emails from EM team, and thats just today.
I didn’t hesitate to buy the pro version because as a nonprofit the most cost effective way to interact with supporters and those we support is via a fully functional website.
I have many friends in other nonprofits around the world and most if not all would jump at the benefits of this plugin.
Here is my basic rationale.
I can’t afford to pay for an IT guy to maintain the site yet the events side of things is critical for us.
If the experience so far is anything to go on, I believe the actual cost (about 2 cents a day) is well worth it.
I guess after the first 12 months if the support is as good we can move to another plugin.
I hope to find someone who may like to sponsor the cost of our website as a contribution to our work.
Take care.
PS. The first test of the value of support is actually underway right now with a single event problem.
so far the EM team have worked pretty hard to fix it.
Dave
Hi guys
Since your all running EM anyway, it would seem that this plugin is the ebst, hence the price tag for a super-charged version. As for multi site integration, Marcus and his crew have been up till now more than willing to help so there is undoubtedly a solution for that aswell. DONT HATE ON THEM! To support open source material a percentage of it has to be paid ofr, in same shape or means. Have you even though about how much time went into creating it! Nevermind, I am happy as a paid up subscriber, now I can get on with the hard part, making my events successfull. I mean Paypal integration etc. isnt the most important, what is is that the plugin is regularly updated and maintained. And whose gonna do that without funding? Sure, maybe it is expensive but considering how far its come its come as free open source, the price hike was inevitable. So now is the time to put your money where your mouth is…if not find a better plugin!
I’d sound whiny if I said this myself, but I don’t think I could put it much better :)
Here’s an example of awesomeness at a price (I am a customer for many years and love their continued efforts!): http://premium.wpmudev.org/join/
I’m all for paying a fee for a pro version. It’s a lot of work and why should anyone expect it for free. However I’m not convinced it’s ready to go pro, as yet. Whilst I appreciate the free version I also realise that free version users are your guinea pig users and help to iron out kinks. From a free user perspective, you’ve not ironed out the kinks enough to go pro. When you do, I will pay for it, but until then you should focus on sorting our the issues that MANY users are experiencing, because once you have a paying customer, it’s a different ball game.
Yeah,, I spoke to soon, the permalink issue is giving me trouble as well now. I am about ready to go to hang myself… well, not just yet.
Hi, I just wanted to get some clarification on a previous comment. Are you saying that if I purchase the Pro version for $75, I can cancel after the first year, and everything will still work? I will just not be able to update to the next version after the first year and I will only receive support for the first year?
If so, that seems like a perfectly workable solution. I don’t think a client would mind paying $75 for all the functionality as long as the recurring yearly payment is required to keep the site running at the current functionality.
Thanks in advance for the clarification.
@Kyle
yes it’ll work, probably for a long time (or longer!), but it’s not guaranteed since we can’t control what WordPress does in its future updates. Bear in mind also that the pro version is open source, like the free version, so if WordPress makes some strange update in the future, you could even fix it yourself if you preferred!
What we’re offering here is a plugin that will be regularly improved on and provides support for those regular improvements too. That’s not usually the case with most static priced plugins, or improvements are minor or sometimes literally the minimum to make it work in WordPress. Some plugins go further to sell features as they make them, I’d rather not do that and just give serious subscribers a serious product with no hidden extras.
That said, to people saying that it’s too high, you’ve given me food for thought. Whilst we’re happy with the way things are and wouldn’t introduce a fixed features/fixed price plugin immediately, we’d certainly love to make this accessible to as many people as possible over time.