I received an email on the morning of November 17 from Bublup letting me know that costs have gone up and that they were raising the price of their base level account by $1 USD/mo. They were also eliminating their free accounts going forward due to costs. And, they were not going to grandfather or freeze the data on any existing accounts, but were going to be deleting it on Dec. 1.

I can understand the price increase and removing the free accounts going forward. And I can even see why they want to reduce their data storage in their free accounts. But only giving two weeks notice to users to download their data prior to deletion seems to be a harsh in my book. Would it really have been that difficult, or costly, to give people a month or six weeks?

I tried it out several months ago when I first discovered it and found many great features I liked, but was on the fence about a subscription since I am already using Walling under a paid plan. I might have considered a paid subscription, but the two-week migration period left me quite cold.

More details here: https://www.bublup.com/support/changing-to-paid-app/

--Ken

Such a shame...I had only recently gave this one a good look and really liked it.
However such a dramatic change in so short a time with as little warning makes me worry about its true state and what other drastic actions may happen down the (likely short) road.

I simply cant justify suddenly paying, when it feels like a "do it now or you data gets it" situation.
Can anyone recommend similar products? Perhaps in a more stable state?

Thank you.

My feelings as well. Bublup has a lot of potential, but it still needs some features for me to be willing to pay for it. The note feature, especially is very weak. This is just another app that isn't quite there yet, and I can't afford to keep paying for those.

Steve

Sam Altman unexpectedly has lots of free time. Maybe he would help out.

Barrage wrote:

Such a shame...I had only recently gave this one a good look and really
liked it.
However such a dramatic change in so short a time with as little warning
makes me worry about its true state and what other drastic actions may
happen down the (likely short) road.

I simply cant justify suddenly paying, when it feels like a "do it now
or you data gets it" situation.
Can anyone recommend similar products? Perhaps in a more stable state?

Thank you.

Mutual feelings. Stephen can probably also recall similar programs, but the two that immediately come to mind are Walling and Milanote. Both have been discussed on the forum and a search can bring up some useful posts.

--Ken

Yes, Walling and Milanote are similar to Bublup in a lot of ways. I'm not sure how their free plans stack up against what Bublup used to offer free. The paid versions are very nice, but about the same cost as Bublup will be. Also, Bublup has the advantage of accepting content through email, which is a great feature.

I would suggest also checking out xTiles:

https://xtiles.app/en/pricing

Also, the other option is MyMind:

https://mymind.com

Steve

Ken wrote:

Mutual feelings. Stephen can probably also recall similar programs, but
the two that immediately come to mind are Walling and Milanote. Both
have been discussed on the forum and a search can bring up some useful
posts.

--Ken

By the way, I just got an email from Walling offering a 50% off black Friday sale on the premium edition. Although, when I clicked on the link to "claim" my discount, I didn't find access to the discounted price. They must have a glitch. The annual price with the discount should be $$36. If you're interested, check in with them and ask about it.

Steve

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

By the way, I just got an email from Walling offering a 50% off black
Friday sale on the premium edition. Although, when I clicked on the link
to "claim" my discount, I didn't find access to the discounted price.
They must have a glitch. The annual price with the discount should be
$$36. If you're interested, check in with them and ask about it.

Steve

GMTA. I forgot to mention XTiles, but remembered it earlier today while I was away from my computer. And I also received the Walling discount email. While Bublup did have many nice features, I find Walling's color coding helpful as it lets me mark what I have read and what is important.

--Ken

And Ken, you got that email on the 17th? Here it is the 22nd and they *still* are offering the free plan on their website. Sheesh.

In the "Account Alert" that appears when you're in your Bublup space, it says that as of Dec. 1 the free account will have limited functionality. And then spell that out:

"View or download your existing content, no ability to edit or interact with private folders."

So it looks like they perhaps rethought their plan to delete users' data and erase all unpaid accounts.

Donovan wrote:

And Ken, you got that email on the 17th? Here it is the 22nd and they
*still* are offering the free plan on their website. Sheesh.

Yep. But they did change their pricing page to reflect the new structure. I looked at the reviews on Google Play on my Android phone and the recent comments were not pretty. I am not sure where they hit a point of getting costs aligned with revenue, but I also have to wonder how easy it is to push past that when shedding customers to reduce costs.

--Ken

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

In the "Account Alert" that appears when you're in your Bublup space, it
says that as of Dec. 1 the free account will have limited functionality.
And then spell that out:

"View or download your existing content, no ability to edit or interact
with private folders."

So it looks like they perhaps rethought their plan to delete users' data
and erase all unpaid accounts.

Too late for me. While I did not close my account, I did get rid of all the data that I had there since I only tried it out for a trip we recently took. I can understand the need to pay the bills, and I can accept reducing free options moving forward, but giving people just two weeks to download data is the action that totally soured me on them. Had they not taken that action, I might have given a subscription consideration. This is another reminder as to why I always look to see how easily data can be exported when evaluating a product.

--Ken

Just received an email today saying that they have a new plan structure that includes a basic and a free plan.

Here is a link to their plan page: https://www.bublup.com/premium-features/

--Ken

Ken wrote:

Just received an email today saying that they have a new plan structure
that includes a basic and a free plan.

Here is a link to their plan page:
https://www.bublup.com/premium-features/

--Ken

I recently received another new email announcing additional affordable plans. Not sure what to make of it, but it seems they may be having second thoughts on the changes they initially made to their plan pricing structure.

--Ken

I liked Bublup, finding it a nice alternative to Evernote and/or MyMind. But the developer really bungled the switch to paid only plans. Two other things concern me. They don't list updates on their website and the website still says copyright 2023.

Steve

How do you like MyMind? It seems relatively expensive, especially if you want the Reader, but I also find it intriguing like Bublup.

I like MyMind. It is a bit on the pricey side, no doubt. But it is very easy to bring material into the app and it is easy to retrieve it when needed. It isn't a space for working with the information. It doesn't have back-links or graphs. It's just a junk drawer that is easy to use and has proven very dependable. One thing that bothers me -- and it is probably just me -- MyMind isn't always top of mind for catching information. I don't know why that is. Maybe it is the way that it displays my captured information in a messy jumble. That is, there's no form to the way my information looks in MyMind. You can add some form with the Spaces feature, basically saved searches. And you can pin important notes for quick access.

If I had more confidence in the developers of Bublup, I might switch to that app. But MyMind seems pretty rock solid.

exatty95 wrote:

How do you like MyMind? It seems relatively expensive, especially if you
want the Reader, but I also find it intriguing like Bublup.