There was a bit of angst on social when Canva announced some price increases last week (up by 300% in some cases).
Not to be outdone, I received the following ‘hold my beer’ notification from HotJar a few days later:
Admittedly this is less about a price increase right now, and more a removal of a legacy discount against price increases a while back – but to the end user (ie me) that doesn’t soothe the pain.
I’ve been using HotJar for around a decade now, but that’ll all come to an end in a week or two (I’m cancelling entirely).
In both Canva and HotJar messaging they point to the new features, and especially AI tools, that are now in the platforms – positioning them as valid reasons for the price increases (ie more value).
What they fail to understand though is that many users don’t use any of those new features (ie zero value).
I’d be happy if there was an option to restrict my access to just the tools I’ve been using for years, if it meant I could keep the price. But I realise that’s not how SaaS software works.
