SPROUT BUILDER NOT FREE ANY MORE - CALL THE DOCTOR! IT'S DYING!

I am sorry to say that I introduced you to Sprout Builder, not because it's a bad program but because the marketing team has gone completely mad. They will start to charge for this service in February which I understood and was expecting- no problem right? Well hold on to your wallets folks! While it is a neat little program with limited use (no coding, framing or customizations that are not built into the sprout model just to name a few); it is no way, good enough to hit the rate they are asking.

Plans start at $599.50 a year for 4-7 builds. For folks already on sprout they have granted us 1 year for $139.50 for up to 3 - Thanks. LINK

I like many was completely shocked for their pricing schedule. While it is a neat tool for quick ups and outs there are still more free based products out there to compete. It was nice while it lasted, but even a large company would have to look at this and Say: "What the @$@@!"

For the small business, a person on the forum gave a good argument. He wants to be able to sell this - right. He does a mock up, shows the product and sells it. Now all well and fine. I pay $600 a year and I can only pitch my product to 7 people?

What if I want to show the client 3 samples of what I can do for them?

Crap now I'm down to 2 sales now. Oh, wait I could use those other 2 to sell to someone else. Man, I hope they want the same size as what I got.

I can see it now:

"No, sorry it has to be this size."
"Please, I really need it to fit in right here"
"Well ok, I guess I could do another one, but that's going to cost ya an extra $1000."
"Are you sure you don't want this $130 one?"

I say this all in fun, but image - it could happen.

I could go to the $3000 a year price and pitch it to 30 people. Hey now I'm down to only $100 per sprout sale. I don't know about you, but this was a tool for quick ins and outs, to be sold with a design for promotion. The key word here is Promotion not my main site.

How many sites could I pump out for that kind of money at my cost? Quite a lot and I own the programs, web space and files. I could also incorporate any type of files I want! Wow!

I would think a flat rate of $50 to $100 a year with unlimited use would encourage me to stick with it. One of their arguments is a super high bandwidth that will be pulled from their server. Fine let me build it, download it and host it on mine. Hell, I'm already paying for bandwidth usage. There problem solved.

They are boosting 99% up time. I do not recall the last time my site was down other than a scheduled move last year that I was notified about 2 months before hand.

I would even go with the bannered widget that promotes Sprout as a freebie. I'm not 100$ sure on this but it looks like now you have to go to the $3000 level before they remove it from existing ones.

Needless to say I will not be going with them as they turn from beta to the major market world. I also expect the large majority of builders now to abandon ship as well.

I have sent emails to them as well as posted on their forums. There has not been one word issued from Sprout so far and I was in a class of 37 post as of tonight. Crickets are chirping as feet are walking.

I will link to the other free sites at a later date.

Bye Sprout builder, Sorry everyone who just came on board.