A few members have written in wondering how much of the pricing increase was for merging the two websites and for continuing to cover Canadian equities and the market. The question was why members who trade only US securities should pay more for Canadian content they are not interested in. As well some members asked if I could explain how the new pricing structure was arrived at.
I thought these questions should be addressed. When I decided to combine the two websites I felt that it would be a legitimate concern that US members who had no interest in Canadian securities should not be paying for such a service. Prior to the decision to combine the two sites, I calculated out the cost for me to continue to manage two websites versus the cost to manage one site. It turned out that the time savings alone were more than enough to cover any increase in the membership fee to cover Canadian equities and US equities in one site. Therefore none of the increase in price was a result of continuing to cover Canadian equities and the Toronto Stock Exchange. I will be keeping Canadian equities, comments and strategy notes well marked so that members not interested in following them need not read them.
The increase in membership pricing was primarily to cover the new assistant, additional tech support fees, disk space, dedicated server costs and additional bandwidth so the server does not slow down and can accommodate unrestricted simultaneous access by members. Running a website as busy as FullyInformed.com has become needs faster processors, solid state hard drives, redundant servers so that if one server fails another server immediately picks up the site allowing for no interruption of service. Members who have been with my website for some time will probably remember periods in 2012, 2013 and early 2014 when at times the website would be slow or stop functioning properly. Today everyone has quick access to the site and since mid-2014 the use of dedicated servers has shown that FullyInformed.com has not been down a single day let alone a single hour. All of this however is not without a cost. My servers are monitored 24 hours a day which again is a cost.
Aside from these costs I plan to add additional strategies, portfolios and to begin investing courses for mentoring purposes which are included in the price increase.
The increase in pricing was roughly $81.00 for the year if paid annually which is $6.75 a month. For those paying monthly, the increase is $9.55 a month or $114.60 a year. We calculated out that most members start with one month but within a couple of months they move on to semi-annual or annual pay. That means they are not paying $114.60 more each year but around $81.00 a year. I think $6.75 a month increase is reasonable especially when one considers that a single trade in one month would more than cover the annual cost.
I make my living through investing. The website was built to share my strategies and my knowledge as a small retail investor and while I love my website it is still hours of work and effort writing numerous articles, answering emails, researching stocks and market direction as well as presenting trade ideas and my own trades. I feel everyone has worth and I think the pricing reflects the value of a product. After reviewing all the costs associated with a website such as FullyInformed.com I felt the increased in pricing for the content provided, information shared and work performed was proper.
For those who have written wondering what assurances there can be that they will not ever see another price increase or a less steep one in the future a guarantee cannot be given for obvious reasons but I will do my best to control future costs. The biggest expenses come from tech support hours used with the expansion of content and a growing base of strategies and shortly new portfolios and courses which will mean more investors on simultaneously. The need for an assistant was also definitely due. I appreciate the questions and concerns sent to me from some members and hope I have addressed them and explained why this price increase was needed.
My Very Best
Teddi Knight
Disclaimer: There are risks involved in all investment strategies and investors can and do lose capital. Trade at your own risk. Stocks, options and investing are risky and can result in considerable losses. None of the strategies, stocks or information discussed and presented are financial or trading advice or recommendations. Everything presented and discussed are the author’s own trade ideas and opinions which the author may or may not enter into. The author assumes no liability for topics, ideas, errors, omissions, content and external links and trades done or not done. The author may or may not enter the trades mentioned. Some positions in mentioned stocks may already be held or are being adjusted.
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