Meetup Fees

[knitnerd]

Many members have reccomended Meetup.com to help you find gaming groups or groups on any other topic. This week they announced that they were going to charge the volunteer organizers $19.95 a month to continue their groups. They say that we can pass this cost on to our members but most of us with the time to find locations and publicise the meetups are not able to afford to support the group if the members do not or if a meeting is missed. Some reward for two years of hard work building our groups. Most of us are planning to move our groups to other services,like Yahoo, Google,EVite and others. If you have any other suggestions,please post them here.

 

[Mark]

Interesting...

Dear Meetup Community,
We have some news to share that we don't think you're going to like. There's no point in dancing around it so here it is. Starting May 1st, every Meetup Group will have to pay a monthly fee. Read on for the details.

How much? If your group starts paying in April, the charge is $9/month for the rest of the year. (If you wait until May 1st it goes up to $19/month). The substantial discount (more than 50%) is a "thank you" for being one of the first Meetup Groups.

Who pays? The group's Organizer will pay the fee on behalf of the group. While the money initially comes out of the Organizer's pocket, we're confident that when asked, the group members will reimburse the Organizer each and every month.

If you're an Organizer, and you're hesitant to pay, why not talk it over with your group? You'll be surprised how quickly people will be willing to pay their fair share.

Nine dollars?! To some, $9 every month may sound like a lot for an Organizer to pay, but remember, it's a group fee, not per person. If the Organizer splits the cost among the members who show up each month, it's probably $1 - $2 per person. (If your group's very small, we know it might cost a little more per person while we help you grow.)

Why use Meetup.com? Now that we're charging, why bother with Meetup? There are certainly other sites you can cobble together to create and manage your group — some of them cost less — some are even free. But none do such a complete job of helping you grow your membership and hold great events. None are as easy to use or come with such immediate customer support. None are focused on face-to-face events. And finally, none of them care whether or not your Meetups go well. Meetup.com, on the other hand, is 100% dedicated to making your group better.

If you'd like to explore alternatives we encourage you to do so. Really. As big believers in the expression "you get what you pay for" we think you'll realize that Meetup's worth the cost.

Again, we know this may not be welcome news. Do know that we've spent countless hours exploring every possible option to avoid this. And we understand if you decide to leave. But when you consider sharing the cost among your members… when you compare us to other online offerings… when you think about how much you've enjoyed your Meetups so far… we think you'll realize that your Meetup Group is worth the price. If you agree, scroll down for the next step.

 

[reanjr]

Wow, that's an insane price. That should be annual. Unless I'm missing something. What exactly does their service entail? People form and join groups and discuss things? Is that about it?

 

[Mark]

They provide some support through their database facility and whatnot. Check it out here -

http://dnd.meetup.com/50/boards/

They've always had some voluntary fess for those who want their "premium" features but I always throught it would be only a matter of time before they would hit up all of the users for some cake. Basically, they gathered many. many people to their database, then they switched from having rotating hosts ot a single organizer. Now if they even get a mild double-digit backing on their fees I'd imagine it could mean thousands of dollars per month. We'll see how it flies, I guess.

 

[IronWolf]

I know the fees will be causing the Columbus, OH Meetup Group to fold. It was a pretty quiet group with activity here and there. There was limited talk of moving it to a Yahoo group since most just used it a place to check about local games. Doesn't even seem to be too much interest on that front except from a couple of us, so we'll see if that happens.

 

[JoeBlank]

What advantage does MeetUp offer over Yahoo Groups, or any other free service?

I use Yahoo for all sorts of things, including the 3 gaming groups with which I play. Not perfect, but very free.

 

[der_kluge]

Sounds like the death of meetup.org if you ask me.

My current GM used it to find gamers for our current game. D&D is fickle with regards to meetup groups. We use it, and then lose it. No point in maintaining a yearly fee if you're not looking for gamers anymore.

I can understand the desire to make money, but they're better off charging $5 for a yearly fee to everyone who wants to become a member. Or $5 for a lifetime membership to a single group, or something. They wouldn't alienate as many people, and they'd make much, much more money.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Sounds like the sound of alot of gamers and organizers leaving to find other places to organize groups.... and the resulting foldup of the "company"....

 

[IronWolf]

What advantage does MeetUp offer over Yahoo Groups, or any other free service?

The thing with MeetUp was it was geared more towards getting groups of people together in your local area with common interested (i.e. Dungeons and Dragons, RPG's, etc.) Since MeetUp.com had some "brand" recognition it made it easy to find a "quasi" official place to quickly find people in your area.

While Yahoo groups can do similar things there is a chance of there being more than one group which causes you to lose out on some of the centralness of MeetUp.com. I also believe that MeetUp.com provided some meetup materials - signs to help people find you at your meetup location, etc.

However with it going to a payment method I am sure Yahoo groups will be the most viable alternative. Still free, lots of features and still relatively easy to find groups in your area (even if there are multiple groups).