So here's a little dilemma. We're a small to medium sized company, hosting about 2500-3000 domains. We've recently decided to lower alot of prices in an effort to remain more competitive in this crazy market. Here's the problem we're facing. Let's say we had a Standard and a Pro plan. Standard offered 50 mbs, 5GB transfer for $24.95 and Pro offered 200 mbs and 10GB of transfer for $49.95. Now with our new pricing, let's say we're offering 200 mbs and 10GB of transfer with our Standard plan and 500mbs and 20GB of transfer with our Pro plan (these are all made up numbers just to use as an example). So now the problem is how to prevent all of our Pro customers from downgrading to a Standard account. Is there any smart way to handle this situation?

My suggestion would be just to lower the prices of your current packages...

If you insist on offering two new packages to your line, try adding additional features to the more expensive accounts, or taking some services away from the cheaper accounts.

Hope this helps.
Mike.

Your prices do seem a little high. You might consider just lowering the prices and accepting that customers are going to downgrade.

You might also charge a setup fee for downgrading plans.

Or, as a lot of hosts do, start a new web site, with a new name, and it will be the cheapy branch of your web hosting. Then your old customers won't really even know that you're offering cheaper accounts on the other side.

You could also make the changes gradually, and people won't notice.

Just some ideas.

But if you're doing good at your current high prices and still gaining customers, and the extra money helps to provide exceptional service, then don't make any changes at all. You don't need to compete with the cheaper hosts. You have your own market.

Good luck.

Change your new standard plan to 175 MB and 9Gb, then tell your existing customers you're upgrading their plans, free of charge, from 200 MB and 10GB to 500MB and 20GB of transfer

Originally posted by adland
Change your new standard plan to 175 MB and 9Gb, then tell your existing customers you're upgrading their plans, free of charge, from 200 MB and 10GB to 500MB and 20GB of transfer
Agreed.
Though you have to be careful in this situation, because you will likely have to start moving customers around because there won't be enough available recourses on your machines that are fairly filled up.

-Dan

This is what I would do....

Give additional resources to your current clients or lower their prices (you certainly don't want to lose them). Don't advertise those changes right away, let them know that this is currently for existing customers only as a thank you.

During this time start promoting a promotion package of the lesser price with more resources for new customers (don't have a direct link from your main site...domain.com/promo and use that in your advertising).

Then a few months down the road when your older clients are used to their new packages, put those changes on your site. By then they won't be checking your site....

OR hope that most of them won't even request to downgrade...