UPDATE: The limited-time opportunity for existing Premium members to lock in their current rates for one more billing cycle, including extending an existing monthly to use the current full year rate by upgrading now to annual is now available on the premium page. Simply renew before June 24th to extend your current Membership at the same low rate. For example, monthly members will be billed at the lower rate for one more monthly billing cycle, while annual members may renew (or monthly users may upgrade to annual) early to add one more year to your existing Membership at the current lower rate. If you have any trouble accessing the website, please note that it may be due to an increase in traffic and that the option will be available until the end of the day on June 24th.

On May 29, we made an announcement about future changes to Premium and Basic account features including plans to increase Group Memberships and offline IM limits for Premium account holders while reducing them for Basic accounts.

We’ve since heard strong and convincing feedback from many in our community about the impact of changing Group Membership limits for Basic accounts. For example, many Residents have shared how they rely heavily on Groups to stay informed about new product releases as Merchants use this feature to regularly communicate news and updates to their customers, and how much Groups are used for keeping communities active.

We hear your concerns and, as a result, Group Membership limits for Basic Residents will NOT be reduced as part of our Premium Membership changes rolling out on June 24. While Basic Members will continue to have an unchanged limit of 42 groups, all Premium Members will still see their limits increased from 60 to 70.

Here’s the revised summary of Premium feature changes:

Our goal is to increase Group performance for everyone - whether you are Basic or Premium. As a result, we will be prioritizing some development resources to address Group performance.

We know change can sometimes be frustrating, so we appreciate your patience. Your feedback is helping to inform some of these revisions, so we’ll continue to listen closely.

Please see the original blog post for all pricing changes planned for June 24.  Land prices will decrease as announced on June 3, and existing Premium Members can lock in their current rates for one more billing cycle.* Simply pre-pay between June 3 and the end of the day on June 24 to extend your current Membership by one more cycle at the current low rate.

Thank you again for all of the feedback. We do not make these kinds of decisions lightly but are always open to the feedback, criticism, and ideas from our incredible community, and willing to listen and learn.

* We will update our blog when the availability to lock in your current rate goes live on Monday. If you have any trouble accessing the website on that day, please note that it may be due to an increase in traffic and that the option will be available until the end of the day on June 24th.