Voices.com Raising its rates?!?!?

[Jon Morss]

Voices.com Raising its rates?!?!?

Did you all see that Voices.com is raising its rates as of March 31st, 2008?
Important Update: New Features, Benefits & Pricing at Voices.com

Unless you are a current member and set-up for Subscription with automatic payment and your credit card does not expire and you do not change your subscription status and … you should not be affected. Otherwise you will see the following rate increases:

Premium rates will be raised from $199 per year to $299 per year.
Preferred rates will be raised from $99 per year to $199 per year.

Premium Lite will be raised from $29.95 per month to $39.95 per month and Preferred Lite will be raised from $19.95 per month to $29.95 per month.

I guess this in one way to thin out the crowd on Voices.com. I’m seriously thinking of switching over to Voice123.com as a result

[JoeActor]

Well, sort of...

If you're a current subscriber, there's no change as long as you keep renewing.

Not the same as V123, where the rate was hiked by $100 for everyone.

Plus, the Voices.com Preferred rate is still $100 cheaper than V123.

I get work from both sites, but the customer service is much, Much, MUCH better on Voices.com.

At least they thought about their current subscriber base.

Plus, no SmartCast...

Just sayin',
Joe J Thomas
Joe J. Thomas Acting Portfolio

[Brad Venable]

The grandfathering is reason enough to stick with Voices.com.

I'm glad they had 8 months of seeing how not to do it from V123 in order figure how to increase capital without losing subscribers. No sneaky canceling of transactions the weekend of the price increase here.

I bet there are a ton of new subscribers sign on with automatic renewal before the increase. Great business decision if you ask me.

Plus, no Smart*Cast. :P

P.S. Who has a Premium Voices acct.?

[Jon Morss]

If you're a current subscriber, there's no change as long as you keep renewing.

And as long as you do not make any changes or your credit card does not expire. However, for me, I do not like having direct withdrawn from my account especially my PayPal account since it was hacked a few months back. So, although I am a current subscriber, I'll be facing the increase when my subscription ends.

I do agree that the customer support at Voices is great, which may be another deciding factor.

Brad -- I have a Premium Voices account which is why this concerns me.

[JoeActor]

Hey gang,

I was a bit confused by the renewal offer, so I had a quick chat with Lin at Voices.com.

FYI, here's the complete chat session:

info: You are now chatting with 'Lin'
Lin: Welcome to Voices.com's live chat service. My name is Lin. How may I help you?
Joe J Thomas: Hi Lin. I just had a couple questions about the new renewal rates.
Joe J Thomas: My subscription ends March 15. Will I get a notice for renewal that allows me to keep my current rate? Or is this something I have to keep track of to make sure I don't get a rate bump?
Lin: If you renew before March 31 you will be able to keep the current rates, and if you do an automatic subscription you will keep the current rates indefinetely until you decide to cancel your membership.
Joe J Thomas: Is there a way I can tell if my current subscription is automatic? I downloaded the order form, but I don't see a place to specify if it will automatically renew.
Lin: I just had a look for you actually and it was a one-time payment through PayPal. So after you've renewed make sure that you login to your Pay Pal account and put it on automatic renewal.
Joe J Thomas: I guess it's a bit confusing. I (and others) just would like to make sure we don't accidently lose our current rate by letting our subscriptions lapse. I'd like to post some information on Julie Williams' VO forum that describes exactly how this works. Is there any way you can e-mail me a more precise description? I'd hate for people to feel like they weren't given a fair chance to keep their rate...
Lin: As long as you renew before March 31 you will receive the locked in price.
Joe J Thomas: Ok. Just to be clear, I intend to renew prior to March 31. I also have to select automatic renewal. Is that during the renewal process? Also, you'd mentioned I can do that with PayPal, but could I also select auto renew with a credit card? If so, how?
Lin: In order to recieve the price of $199 indefinetely, until you cancel your membership, you would create an automatic renewal. The simplest way to do this is through Pay Pal, but if you prefer to call in and pay by Visa or Master Card you will have to fill out an authorization form and fax it to us you can find the authorization form here:
Lin: Joe J Thomas: Ah... I see. Great! Thanks much for the information. May I post this on the forum for other VO's reference?
Lin: Sure! I'm glad I could help.
Joe J Thomas: Thanks much Lin - have a great weekend.
Lin: You too :)
Lin: Thank you for visiting. Please feel free to use Voices.com's live chat service again.

Hope this helps clarify how it all fits together.

I renewed via PayPal. The renewal process creates a yearly PayPal subscription that will automatically charge your account. You can easily edit the subscription in PayPal should you wish to cancel.

So, renew by March 31 and you can keep your current rate indefinitely.

Sounds good to me,
Joe J Thomas
Joe J. Thomas Acting Portfolio

[Jon Morss]

Joe,

Thanks for posting this. I'm glad this worked for you. This is great info.
For me at least, the info that Voices posted was clear. I just don't like granting direct access to my credit card or PayPal account. My PayPal account was hacked a few months back and I one thing I did was cancel the automatic renewal from Voices. Like I mentioned, I don't like that kind of thing. And since my subscription with Voices does not come due until November, there really is no reason to send them another $199 to hold until then. I'll just have to decide at that time if they are really worth the extra $100.

I guess I would have preferred if they would just look at who is currently subscribed and had said that the rates would not change at this time or something to that effect without putting a restriction to grant them access to automatically access my credit card or PayPal account.

[Joe Rodriguez]

Is a premium account ($199) that much better than a preferred account ($99)?

[mariposa]

I have the same questions as Joe. Right now I have a preferred membership with voices.com and wondering (aside from gaining more storage for adding more demos). Is there a reason to consider upgrading to "Premium" level? I would like to act on it before the price level increases if that's the case...I think even at the preferred level we still have access to the same leads the Premium levels get.
Thanks for any insight on this...

[Jodi Krangle]

Hi guys. I'm at the Preferred level ($99) myself and I find that it works just fine for me. What the Premium level gets you though, is two other spots (five instead of just three) to display your demos (ie: more areas in their directory). So if you found that three sections (say, Radio Commercials, Narrations and Documentaries and Cartoon Voice Actors) wasn't enough for you - if you did more and had a demo you wanted to feature in that section, the Premium level would be good for you since you'd get two more spots.

I'm on the fence myself. Though I have to say that I've gotten two jobs just by being listed in those directories (people searching have found my demos) and NONE so far from auditioning. From what I've heard, that's not unusual and I've only been with Voices.com about three months now.

I'm not sure if I'm missing something else that's available in the Premium level though ... besides more space to host your demos. If you don't have a website of your own, this can be very handy, but for various reasons, I actually have a dedicated server - so TONS of space. I don't need that from Voices.com.

I do far prefer it over there to Voice123 though. In fact, I've actually been the subject of one of Stephanie's blogs (which was very cool). She found my LiveJournal account where I talked about LibriVox... It's a small world...

It's here if you'd like to read it. If any of you can shed more light on the subject of the different memberships though, I'd love to hear more.

All the best,

--Jodi

[Julie Williams]

I've had premium level from the beginning and wouldn 't change. I get lots of work from voices.com... and just recently used their new payment system for the first time. With it... you can get paid very quickly.

Jon, You could go to voice123, but they raised their rates last summer (so you wont' save money) and DECREASED SERVICE at the same time. If you have to choose, voices.com lets YOU DECIDED whether you submit a custom audition or generic demo (at voice123 if you submit generic, they kick it back and don't let it go thru...so if you're out of studio you're out of luck... because at voice123 it's not the best talent that get to audition...it's the ones who have nothing better to do than look at their email all day to see if a lead came in) They also let you audition for EVERY LEAD that comes in... Don't let the name "smartcast" fool you... I get auditions all the time for "african american only" or "Asian" or some weird accent. It's more lottery that decides who gets to audition, or at least it feels like that.

I seriously doubt you'll like SmartCast. Didn't I give you a free one month membership at voice123 after you took my workshop? If not, email me and I'll give you one. I give it to all my students.