👋 ROSTR members,
I want to let you know about some changes we’re making to ROSTR’s free tier... and why we're making them.
Summary
We're introducing limits to how much ROSTR can be used for free:
Free members will be limited to viewing 10 different profiles every 30 days
Some new features are coming to free
We're introducing a range of discounts, special pricing deals and new team pricing. For the next 7 days you can also get our best ever deal.
This is all happening now. As in today.
ROSTR Pro users are unaffected by the new limits
What is changing for Free members?
Before today, free members had unlimited access to profiles on ROSTR. Profiles are the pages that show you information about an artist, person or company including rosters and team relationships.
Going forward, Free members will be limited to viewing 10 different profiles on ROSTR every 30 days. Each time you visit a new profile, that will use up one of your 10 profile views.
When you’re out of views, you won’t be able to view other profiles until your views refresh at the end of the current 30 day period (or unless you subscribe to Pro).
Each time you view a profile, we’ll let you know how many profile views you have left. Any profiles you’ve already viewed in the 30 day period will remain unlocked for that period.
Key Points:
Free members will be limited to viewing 10 different profiles every 30 days.
The limits only apply to Profile views. All other parts of ROSTR remain unlimited.
Pro members are unaffected by the new limits
New members will be unlimited for their first 30 days on ROSTR.
We're making 5 previously Pro-only features available on Free. Read more here.
We're introducing simpler pricing and special discounts + new, simpler team pricing
We've added an extra free trial to all free members accounts. So even if you've trialed Pro before you can try it again now.
For the next 7 days we're running our best ever offer. Save $160 on your first year.
These changes will be rolling out to all members over the next couple of days
Why are we doing this?
I know it sucks when things that were free are all of a sudden... less free.
So I want to be very candid about why we're doing this.
Earlier this year Adam and I (ROSTR’s founders) re-acquired ROSTR. We have big ambitions to become an even more crucial part of the ecosystem.
But to do that we need to be able to invest in the product more. In order to invest in the product more, we need to generate more revenue.
While ROSTR Pro has thousands of customers, including some of the biggest companies in music, it has become clear that our free tier is slowing our growth.
Over half of our Free members are heavy to very-heavy users visiting anywhere from a couple of times a week to multiple times per day. These folks are getting a lot of value out of ROSTR and saving a lot of time (= money). But, when we ask them why they don't subscribe to Pro they tell us that the free tier is "good enough". We've also heard the same thing from folks who cancel their Pro memberships and go back to using Free.
Put simply - we're fighting ourselves.
We need to find a better balance between our free and paid offerings. By limiting, rather than removing the free tier, we can keep ROSTR available for free for everyone.
Just need info now and then? ROSTR Free should work for you.
ROSTR saving you time most weeks and helping you to do your job? Probably time to subscribe.
Ultimately, we hope that these changes will attract and retain more paying customers. If we can do that then we can invest more in the team that builds ROSTR. This will allow us to build more of the cool stuff that our members have been asking for including tracking more relationships (publicists, attorneys, A&Rs etc) as well as starting to list venues and promoters.
The more we can invest, the more useful ROSTR will become.
To be honest, that makes making this hard decision easier.
Flexible and Affordable Pricing
In preparation for these changes we've worked hard on updating our pricing and introducing a range of new options.
We've simplified our Individual pricing and introduced new Student, Under 26, Partner, Non-profit and Annual discounts. Read more.
We've simplified and updated our Teams pricing (so it's now easier to convince your boss to get a team subscription). Read more.
For the next 7-days we're running our best ever deal on ROSTR Pro 👉 Get $160 off your first year.
🚨 We've also reset all past free trials. So even if you've already had a trial you'll be able to take another one.
Also, all of this is on top of the fact that ROSTR is already the most affordable service in the space already. Our standard monthly pricing is 2-3x cheaper than our closest competitors.
New Free Features
It's not all take - we're making 5 previously Pro-only features available to Free members:
Discover (f.k.a Advanced Search): a powerful tool to help discover artists and companies across the music industry.
Signings Tracker: access to a feed with every signing we track
Artist Insights: the insights tab on artist profiles is now unlocked for everyone.
Live: the live tab is now unlocked for everyone.
ROSTR Charts: access to top 50 trending and most viewed charts on ROSTR
We're also removing a few features that sucked.
👉 Read more about these changes to the product
How does this affect Pro members?
Most importantly - Pro members are unaffected by the new limits to free members. You can view as many profiles as you like (provided you're not using bots to scrape us).
But we are making some changes to the Pro product to enable us to focus on the parts of Pro you've told us are most valuable.
👉 Read more about these changes to the Pro product
Outro
From today, if you're a free member on ROSTR your experience is going to be limited.
We're doing this because we believe it's the best thing for the business long term and the best way for us to make the most positive impact on the music industry.
If ROSTR helps you do your job then we hope you'll consider subscribing to Pro. If not, the limited Free tier is there for when you need info every now and then.
If you have any questions or thoughts on these changes, please get in touch here.
Thanks for reading this and thank you for being a ROSTR member.
Mark Williamson
CEO/Co-Founder @ ROSTR
P.S.
We also announced a few other things today:
