Logos Now and Faithlife Connect: The Why

1. Thank you for sharing. I understand the financial issues. I don't think this is motivated by greed.

2. $100 (or even slightly more) was/is okay. $240 is way too much. The inevitable comparison is going to be to Office 365. Logos Now/FaithLife Connect doesn't offer anywhere near comparable value for most people.

3. Logos is becoming bloatware. Many of us want powerful Bible software, which you have created. Many of the same people are not at all interested in all the other extras--courses, TV, etc. We want to be able to keep our software updated and nimble at a reasonable cost. $100 a year was reasonable for that. $240 is not. $90 is not reasonable for a greatly diminished alternative set of features.

4. Thank you for the coupon, which mitigates the sting a little bit. I'm going to use mine to buy a Logos 7 feature set to "freeze" my present configuration. I will not renew my Now/Connect subscription, nor will I buy any other subscriptions you offer in the future. When Logos 8 rolls out, I will think very long and hard about whether I really need it or if it is just the start of another lap on the treadmill. So, from me this year onwards, instead of $240 or $100 in subscription revenue, your going to get $0. I'm sure I'm the only one who is change purchasing habits like this. I don't see how this change benefits either customers like me or FaithLife.

since Logos Now's old 'primary value' was fading away,

I am not upset that you killed LN as a program, but you should still have an inexpensive means to subscribe to the features. Why can't it be included in Faithlife Connect Starter (or Starter Plus, if need be)?  

EDIT: I take back the "starter plus." It should be a stand alone offering. Just as you are offering "Verbum Now," with datasets, you should offer the datasets to the rest of your customers. 

So we're trying to find a better middle ground; our goal is to use subscription products to ensure that people who are heavy users forever are also revenue generators forever. By stretching the revenue out over time -- and having it continue as long as the use does -- we ensure that revenue and expenses are more in sync. (As opposed to getting it all up front and hoping it lasts till the next big thing you can sell ships.) And when this model works, a wonderful side-effect appears: the cost-of-entry to the platform goes down. Starting with the product doesn't have a large up front cost; it's just a few dollars a month. That invites more participation, more trials, and (hopefully) more users. Which lets us spread our costs over more customers, and ultimately offer more value for less overall cost. That's how you can watch a movie every night of the month (on Netflix, for $8.99) for less than the price of buying a single movie on DVD.

Bob - this sort of feels like a punishment.

I have a hard time seeing the value.

Forcing people like myself who have paid 10k, and have 10k still being paid off are on the short end of the stick when it comes to subscriptions.

If I thought I had a chance to get it, I'd ask for my 10k back, and to give back the licenses to the 10k (roughly, thats not the exact number) still owed. They can have all the licenses back.

THEN 240$ a year might be an acceptable price. THEN now/cloud/connect might be a good thing for me.

I could use 10k to finish my masters degree. To repair my house from IRMA, to pay off medical bills. Truck repairs... The list goes on. I feel like I've invested in a company that no longer values me. That may change. But thats how the continued march towards subscription feels.

You've been more than fair over the years, and I have no doubt that your fairness will continue.

I just feel sort of like reagan must have when he said he had been left behind by his party. I sort of feel left behind by my bible software company, while at the same time feeling the financial pressures of life, of pastoring a small church, of not being paid a living wage, and yet still trying to pay for seminary.

Thank you for the explanation Bob.

I'm not sure where the idea came from that we'd get new feature updates every six weeks. But I guess I must have missed that or not considered it important when signing up to Logos Now when it first was launched. My understanding was that Logos Now was launched in order to stabilise your income stream between major versions. The perk for signing up was that we got the new features sooner than we would with the major upgrades. I signed up as that was appealing to me, but also to support the ongoing development of Logos. I never expected new features every six weeks, maybe twice a year or so...

The biggest thing I have against Faithlife Connect is that I have to pay more than double the amount to keep the original benefit of Logos Now. If I was working at the moment I'd probably just shrug it off in appreciation for the work Faithlife does, but I'm just starting a four year MDiv, so I'm not eager to pay a lot more money. I can understand that prices will go up over time, and expected this to happen with Logos Now, but going to Faithlife Connect is a steep jump in pricing if you don't want the other parts of the package.

I appreciate that you've given a big discount to us so that we can use to lock in the new features by buying the Extended Features set, and I may need to do that, and that would save me money over the next few years, even compared to the current Logos Now subscription. However, I also would love to keep supporting the development of Logos and keep getting the latest features. I'd love to see an option in Faithlife Connect where we could customise our package, allowing us to only choose the Logos portion of it.

I wish you all the best in what I'm sure is a challenge job in planning the future for Faithlife.

You can also choose to do both, and build your own hybrid either way. Subscribers can buy specific books; purchasers can choose to subscribe for the extra content and tools, and the _incidental, not primary_ side effect of some new stuff sooner.

I like how you coined that. I will always buy base packages and full feature sets at releases, but I will take this year you gave me and try it out. If I like it I will subscribe at the end and make my hybrid system. I subscribe to a lot of stuff already so once I see the value I am in. Thanks for the year to try it out.

Matt

Access to new features early, as they were released, was just a little part of what we imagined Logos Now would be, which we hoped would make it more attractive to transaction users, helping them transition to a subscription world.

This really makes me sad. My only motivation for joining Logos Now was to keep up on new features and support in that way, the development of the program.  I thought of it also as a way to "pay in advance" to help with the sticker shock of each upgrade. I am sad because it appear to reveal the true motivation, something we all have had reason to suspect and that is that one day, our investment in Logos downloadable is going to be outdated software just like Adobe Photoshop downloadable (Which no longer exists) is outdated, or Microsoft Office Suite is outdated.  Your sentence here is the reason for us who have invested heavily to worry regardless of what we hear.  It is the reason for slowing down our purchases.  We have been losing confidence over the years with the decision making process. 

We need a true 'no purchase necessary, pure subscription' product.

I thought that was Logos Cloud.  Why not kill Logos Now and that solves the problem you seem to be addressing.  Logos Cloud is subscription only.  Logos Bible Software is downloadable.  The downloaded product can have a feature to pay for accessing their content only online.  Why is this so difficult?

Why could you not first email long term, heavily invested customers these ideas of yours to get feedback before implementing what amounts to a shock?  Do you not think that many of us would be willing to engage in an honest exchange to help in the thinking process?  You have valid points.  But the roll out of these things could be much better. Would it be correct to assume that people on the beta channel were in the know about this as they were in the change from L3 to L4?

Thanks for letting us know what you think, even if you're unhappy.

Thank you for the thorough explanation. (I was one of the people who owned the feature set, but still subscribed for early release access, although when fewer features were getting rolled out, I was considering letting LN lapse.)

If I was a brand new customer, I'd definitely subscribe to FL Connect, as it would be much cheaper to rent books and features, than to spend the amount I have over the past few years!

Unfortunately, I've made a large investment now, and I can't see how subscribing is anything but being charged to rent books and features which I already own.

The only apparent option remaining is to buy new features, but miss out on any early release access for two years. In that regard, I feel that I am missing out, since there is no middle ground but to pay 2.4x each year to get what I previously had.

I'll say it again. I didn't mind paying $99/yr for early release access -- LN was an amazing value --  but I don't think that early release access is worth $240/yr.

I'll likely take my $X00 and buy the L8 feature set. It makes no sense to rent features at $240/yr when I can own them outright. (I understand there are other benefits to Connect, but features are what drive/advance the software.)

I'm not unhappy. It is what it is, and FL is making a reasonable and fair adjustment in how they market and develop software. Thank you very, very much for the benefits (voucher, extension, and so forth).

If FL Connect changes by the time my subscription lapses -- i.e., a tier without book/feature rentals to avoid being charged for what we own, for ~$120/yr -- I'd probably subscribe.

Thanks again for writing, and for listening. May God bless you and your company, Bob.

Worse, as the tail wagged the dog, Logos Now subscribers (who turned out to vastly outnumber Logos Cloud subscribers) began seeing the product's entire value as the regular release of new features. (Which was not the original intention.)

WOW! Entire value?

I don’t have access to your market data but at least this one user has to strongly disagree. 

Paying for some early release features (it was called Logos Now) was a bonus, but subscribing to the feature sets, getting discounts, a monthly voucher and also helping create a subscription base which would help fuel the next version was a win/win. Logos Now was a bit of a membership club and we were loyal.

As long standing user of Logos I’ll figure out how to make this new reality work, but I think you have seriously misread the buy in of some users and have failed to identify what we liked about Logos Now, it’s price point and why Faithlife Connect Starter appears to be a big downgrade. 

Often your posts win me over, but it sounds like us users (the tail) abused the program by wagging the dog and were just looking for the next features. 

"But I passed up purchasing the feature set, and now I'll lose it if I don't double my monthly subscription cost!"

We have tried to address every case of this through credits to help you purchase the feature set, and thus lock in the new features even if you cease subscribing. It was our intention that every Logos Now user who'd chosen to 'upgrade via Logos Now instead of purchase' have the option to re-make that decision, choosing purchase-for-ownership, with the help of a credit.

This is why I’m not upset about the new announcement.  You are crediting back what I’ve paid to try LN over the last two years and I can use the credit to now “own” the full feature set.  Not many other companies out there would do that.

I hope Faithlife is successful in your new strategy; however, I strongly suspect that with the announced changes, your subscription revenue is going to decline rather than increase like you are hoping.  If that is the case, there will be of course new changes later down the road.  

Thank you for taking the time to explain the situation. I purchased Logos Now a few months ago to have access to the feature set, not all the other components. I was not aware that "new features" were due every few weeks. While I appreciated the other components like a free "classic" each month, which helped me learn the value of Logos for more than just Bible study. I considered everything else a perk to the primary value of having the feature set. As a student who just started his MDiv, this new model hurts.

I do not have a problem with the new subscription model for new customers. As I read through the tiers, I realized that there were a few people I know on the fence about Logos and this price point may help convince them. I think Faithlife has provided a lot of value in these tiers (Faithlife TV being the exception.) However, I am holding off on recommending this to friends and family, because I want to see how this transition is handled. 

My biggest concern is the lack of dynamic pricing for the hybrid approach. I see two main pieces to Faithlife Connect (FC): subscribing to content and subscribing to software. I have no problem subscribing to software, I have done this elsewhere as others have mentioned; Microsoft Office being the prime example. After all, for probably most Logos Now subscribers, we subscribed for software not content. What matters for software is the quality of the product, not the quantity of new features it contains. As to content, if I already purchased content that is now offered in a tier, but am going to be charged the same as if I had not purchased that content, I feel cheated. 

This raise a couple scenarios:

1) I own a library now. If I subscribe to FC with content that overlaps what I bought, will the price be adjusted?

2) I own nothing. I subscribe to FC. I purchase a library. Will the library be dynamically priced? I would imagine no, because the content through FC is a temporary license. Will my FC subscription be adjusted due to the licenses which have switched to permanent?

Looking back at my purchasing decision a few months ago, I have a couple observations. When I was trying to determine what to buy, Logos Cloud was never on my radar. I did not know it existed, I wish I did. When I contacted Faithlife with questions about Logos Now, I was not suggested Cloud as an alternative library. Instead I was given the hybrid option, which is fine. I subscribed for software and bought the content. Even finding Logos Now was a bit of an accident, however. It was not featured in a prominent way as an alternative to purchasing the feature sets. For me, the problem with Logos Now and Logos Cloud was the lack of marketing. Even a side banner on the product page of base packages for other purchase options would have helped me navigate my options. 

I’m sorry when that frustrates you, and promise that we will continue to try and do right by every user, even if we have to address each user’s situation specifically. We will also continue to listen to your feedback; it is the most important thing in helping us make decisions.

Thanks for letting us know what you think, even if you're unhappy.

One last thing: Bob, I appreciate your openness to feedback, whether positive or negative, and your willingness to dialog with your customers.

I wish to highlight this section of Bob's post to some of the forumites who regularly jump in and start calling people bad Christians whenever they raise complaints about something FaithLife has done. Here you have it from Bob himself--they can handle the criticism.

Thanks for taking the time to explain.  I have spent around 15k over the years, and have been blessed with access to top resources, and powerful software tools that have helped be dive deeper into the word of God.  I plan to continue to add resources to my library because I love the platform.  Logos now did not make much sense to me, so I think that your decision to change to better defined product offerings is wise.  I can understand why some people are upset.  As is the case with government, after a "program" is rolled out, it is very hard to take it away from people who are benefiting form it, no matter how unsustainable it is to continue to offer (i.e. Obamacare...)

Its hard for me to get too worked up about this since the goal of all these "books" and "features is to dig deeper into the bible and apply it to my life, and teach it to others, for the glory of God! 

I am truly grateful for the hard work that you and your employees put into making Logos so great.  I am not a Preacher, I am a CPA, so if it were not for Logos I would not have the time, the training or the resources to go as deep as I do! You have been fair and I trust that you will continue to be fair. 

God Bless

Mark

We also need to support the pure transactional model for people who want to 'buy it, own it, and not have to pay again.' That's what we've always offered, and what we plan to continue to offer.

That is a very worrisome statement. It is far less assuring than statements you have made in the past.

Bob -

Thank you for your explanation of the economics of the problem. I cheerfully admit to being one of those who "over-valued" the 6 week cycle of updates. I will also admit to seriously considering Logos Connect for my Luthern pastor daughter-in-law. I'll be evaluating the library for its useful to a Lutheran.

I have, however, been slightly disappointed with the 6-week cycle of updates but not for the reasons you suspect. With an IT background, I was aware that there would be only so much "low-hanging fruit" projects for Logos to both push out visible improvements and make the infrastructure changes necessary to keep the product on the forefront of the industry. Therefore, I was anticipating a number of visible data and small projects to be rolled out. Examples:

• The Narrative Lectionary used by a group of ELCA churches
• The Creation Lectionary used by a variety of churches in a variety of countries
• Updating the Compare Pericopes to include more recently added Bibles
• Updating the Saints data to include at a minimum Anglican and Lutheran data
• Addition of the data-types for the Protestant Confessions and Catechisms to allow the viewing of multiple translations in parallel
• More noticeable/lightlighted progress on the Factbook
• Additional entries in Interactives such as Before/After, Bible People Visual Timeslines, Bible Outline Browser, Narrative Character Maps ...
• Add an attribute for text of sermons based on Catechism or Confession (in my library primarily Heidelburg, Augsberg, Armenian, and Westminster)
• Add a predefined label with the standard attributes used by the music feature for users to add the attributed to the hymn texts in their library (preferably as community labels)
• Add the ability for users to add milestone tags to any documents in Text Creation Partnership bundles (preferably as community milestones) to make them more usable (I'm thinking especially of the Psalters). Note we can label the sermons to make them more directly useful.

Yes, the ones that come to my mind are ones that reflect my interests, but I am certain that a number of your users could provide lists of small projects that would enhance the usefulness of Logos for them. As the 6 week development cycle seemed to greatly improve your quality control and as there are many small projects still fitting into the 6 week cycle model, I'm not thrilled that Logos Connect does not retain the new feature aspect of Logos Now.

I've been thinking about what other model would work for both FL and the customers, and I understand the need and desire to go towards a subscription model. I think you can successfully do this with just tweaking and reprioritising what you already have.

Logos is in a bit of a unique situation where you have both advanced software and resources. It's sort of like Amazon Kindle and Microsoft Office combined, where you buy resources but also get very powerful tools to work with your resources.

You mention that your subscription model, Logos Now, failed because of lack of uptake. I think that main reason this happened was because it wasn't implemented as the default purchase method for new customers and version upgrades. If you change your website so that the default purchase method was a subscription service, you could steer new customers to this, and promote it to new customers.

May I suggest going with a subscription model for your software, plus outright purchase for books?

I would suggest the following model: (I've just put some prices in to flesh out the idea - I don't know if they are realistic for FL's profitability)

Users first choose the software & feature package. Include the option of outright purchase for those who want it, but make that the secondary purchase option, not the first.  Also allow for dynamic pricing so that a percentage of the subscription fee would go towards the full purchase price - this would allow people to lock in features at some future point - e.g at retirement. This step would be a slight modification of your Feature Set purchase option.

1. Basic Logos Engine - Free (would just give basic function and access to all purchased resources)
2. Logos Starter - $50/year (would provide some basic features suitable for casual Bible study)
3. Logos Advanced - $100/year (would provide more features, plus one free book a month)
4. Logos Pro - $150/year (would provide all features, plus two free books a month)

Users choose a base library package to purchase outright. Possibly give one year free subscription to one of the above levels, based on the size of the purchased library. Splitting the library package from the software features may allow you to be able to decrease the cost of the base packages - making Logos more attractive.

Choose add-on subscriptions. This would include things like:

1. Faithlife TV - $50/year
2. Proclaim -$50/year
3. Mobile Ed 1 - one course per year - $50/year
4. Mobile Ed 2 - three courses per year - $120/year

Another thing that I noticed was a couple of mentions about people buying less.  This is to be expected as your larger customers run out of stuff they need/want to buy.  This is also why (as others have said)  you need a strong focus on getting new customers - particularly those with no library, who will likely be future big buyers. I'm thinking particularly of seminary students. I'm not familiar with what you do in order to promote Logos to seminary students, so forgive me if I'm suggesting thing you already do.  My thoughts were:

1. Offer one year free subscription to the Logos Pro software & feature package described above. This introduces them to the product and its features with no financial risk.
2. Offer textbook packages - at least common generic ones - ideally customized to each seminary (I know this would likely be a lot of work and may not be feasible). Students have to buy the textbooks anyway, and this would be a great way to get them to start committing to Logos as their main platform for Bible study.
3. Keep up with book editions (I understand that you can't afford to freely upgrade book editions, but please allow for multiple editions of books in your store). I've had to buy one or two textbooks from Amazon because Logos didn't have the latest edition.

I think my first suggestion could help transition Logos to subscription service, while not upsetting current users by including dynamic pricing and still allowing outright purchase, while the second suggestion would help FL to gain future big-spending customers before they have committed to competitor products, supporting the long term viability of Logos.

Hopefully my suggestions are useful to FL. I really want to see FL continue to do well in the future.

HI Bob,

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain your companies decision to introduce this.  My concern is the way that everything is lumped together which I know your e-mail touches upon with an analogy.  It sounds like the reason for the product introduction is to keep revenue flowing in order for you to develop the product, run the business and make a profit.  This makes sense total sense from your side of the fence and I can understand why as a business you want this. From my perspective as a customer I want this too, if only to see the product develop and be available in 20 years time so we are on the same page there.   I would also like to thank you for the "break in" period and I have to say I feel you have looked after me personally over the next year so thank you for this.  My criticism is the bundling of features which we may or may not want seems unfair.  For example I have a lot of the books in the bundle you are including but I have to effectively pay for these again (month after month). How about doing something smart and including books we don't already own, or giving us a discount for stuff we already own. Also I love Mobile Ed but I want to own the courses for future reference so renting them for 6 months is for me pointless - how about letting us buy the courses as a very much reduced rate or even giving us them as part of the subscription.  What you have suggested  may be workable but I think you need to be customer driven and not revenue driven - aim for customer satisfaction and you will hit your revenue targets - aim for revenue targets and you are likely to miss both.

Please consider applying this product in a better way :-) 

Thanks

Bob,

Thanks for the post.  I am like several others who chose LN as a way to support development efforts and use new features before they were offered in a package.  When I renewed this year, I wasn't thinking about a 6 week release cycle but about the features that I would likely use this year.  

If the lowest offering had the Sermon Editor and a few other features that I use in LN, I'd maintain a subscription.  Since FL has sent a discount code towards the purchase of a package that would get me those features, there's no reason for me to be upset.  You've been more than fair and we've seen a better web product and feature sets along the way.  

Bob,

Thank you very much for the extended, detailed explanation behind the new direction. You don't owe us that, but I definitely appreciate it.

Despite all of the data that you have gathered, I think there's an incorrect premise in your explanation. It's not that we wanted new features every 6 weeks - it's that we wanted to have the easiest possible way to make sure we always had all available features (including datasets). If you had rolled out significant new features annually, that would have been fine - I know that I'd have them.

What I (and many others, based on all the threads) wanted was a known, fixed cost that ensured I'd have all the features. There are two reasons this is important: 1) I don't need any more large package book purchases; 2) FL's long-standing policy of not releasing feature-only upgrades on the day of major upgrades. As I said in another thread, if I knew for sure that I could upgrade on the day of release for the equivalent of $99/year, I'd be content. But we don't know what the day-of-release offerings are going to be, let alone the price. LN gave me predictability at an easy to swallow price point. That's disappeared.

Further, if LN users only make up 1.8% of revenue - you admitted it wasn't as widely adopted as you'd hoped - what makes you think that Connect will have any better adoption rate? As I look at the price points, a new customer could buy packages that he/she would own for the annual cost of a subscription, which would disappear if the subscription is not renewed. It's not clear to me how Connect provides more incentive to adopt than LN.

One last point: You made it clear that you're trying to ensure that you can have an appropriately profitable company - completely understandable. But the extra "benefits" in Connect Essentials surely cost something. So the price point for Essentials has to cover the costs for all Logos features plus 2 courses plus TV plus other resources plus whatever other "benefits" are included. What's the objection to offering a Logos-only subscription which doesn't have to cover those costs. As I read all the threads, the majority of respondents state that those benefits have been lightly used at best in LN and aren't actually of interest.

I suspect your response will be: "That's all understandable, Donnie. That's why you can still buy the feature sets." That would be a perfectly fair response, but it would still miss my main point: The purchase price point for feature sets when major releases come out is unknown and unpredictable. $99/yr solves that problem for me (and I think many others).

Thanks again for responding and answering so many questions. It's generous of you.

Donnie

As someone about to graduate from seminary, I was thinking that Now would have been an affordable way to stay up to date on the software without adding to my library. I didn't think I'd be able to afford the feature only packages going forward, and I've pretty much gotten my library to where I want it with the exception of some "nice-to-haves" that I probably won't end up buying.

I don't think the primary value of Now was new features "every six weeks" so much as just up-to-date software without massive financial outlay. You could have been on an annual or semi-annual update schedule and it still would have been valuable.

But if some people thought that "cool new features every six weeks" was the most important aspect of Logos Now, they had a lot of help coming to that conclusion...because that's how you marketed the product. You aggressively marketed this product, and one of the main talking points was new features every six weeks without having to wait for the next major update. I mean, you did name the offering Logos NOW, as in I can have new features NOW instead of waiting two years. You marketed Logos Now in every way imaginable. Many of your Logos Pro training videos are basically extended length advertisements for Logos Now, since you always made sure to include menu options that people didn't have unless they had Logos Now. That added to people's confusion because they would try to perform the actions in the training videos to discover they didn't have the feature that was being demonstrated, and it wasn't always explicitly called out that it was a Logos Now-only feature. My very detailed oriented mind (I was an accountant/financial analyst in my former life) means I automatically look for those little details, but not everybody thinks that way. They assume that if you show them something on a training video, they will be able to do it in their software.

My point is that Faithlife creates a lot of their own problems through their own aggressive marketing/communication tactics. I see it over and over again every time you have a new product/service release or promotion. Every time, there is some level of confusion (usually mass-confusion) that can be directly traced back to vague/misleading communication or even out-and-out overselling of products offerings or promotions (meaning pretty much overstating or playing up offerings to the point that customers consistently think they're getting more than they actually are). You pretty much do have to have an accountant's or lawyer's eye for detail and precision to see what is really being said and what's not being said, and I see why the average person may get confused. You need to focus on clear communication in advertising going forward, or you will continue to have these problems.

As many have said, the greatest value you offer is the actual software itself with all of the wonderfully helpful features. It has been indispensable during my seminary education. I love the software and the powerful tools it offers, and I hope to have a reasonably affordable way to keep my software up to date going forward. I know you need to make money, and I want your to business to be sustainable. One major reason I chose Logos over Accordance is that I thought you were more up to date on the latest technology trends in software, and thus would be more sustainable going forward since I was making a big investment in the future of any bible software program I chose. Keep up the good work and remember to continue to focus on what you're good at. Sorry for the long post, but I've wanted to say this for a long time but never felt like typing this much before and thought it would be overkill. [:)]

Live long a prosper, Faithlife...seriously, live long and prosper.

If you didn't get an email, ... contact us. We'll make it right.

I hadn't received the email so I contacted customer service yesterday specifically asking about an email containing a coupon which I had read about on the forums, and 30 minutes later I received a generic customer service reply:

Dear James,

 Thank you for contacting us! The information about Faithlife connect as you can see we have a lot of forums   https://community.logos.com/forums/p/160514/956980.aspx and information comes here https://connect.faithlife.com/ https://connect.faithlife.com/logos If you are a Logos now member, don’t worry you’re not losing anything actually you’re winning a lot more

Here https://www.logos.com/compare/feature-sets shows you what are you winning

Sincerely,

Andrea Cruz
Faithlife Support Department
800-875-6467 | 360-527-1700 | UK Callers: 0(871)218-1700

www.Logos.com/Support - Logos Support
www.Logos.com/Videos - Training Videos
You study with Logos, now present with Proclaim.

There was no coupon or anything about credits or sales or special offers specific to me (and I would think I fall in the "handful of customers" who have spent over $20,000 on this investment over the last 7 or 8 years). And I will say I have been very impressed with Logos and Faithlife, but I would like to receive this email/coupon you've referred to. I just don't know who else to contact.

Bob, thanks for explaining the situation so clearly. Obviously, no software company, Logos included, can continue to develop next year's product on last year's sales. The $18k I've spent was for the product that I downloaded and have used since, NOT for indefinite future releases. Paying a comparatively small amount for the feature set upgrade every couple of years (about $150 for Logos 7) is a really inexpensive way to make sure that my Macbook Pro and Logos continue to get along. I don't have to purchase the same books over again, so I don't see the problem. 

Logos Now cost more to develop than it ever earned in subscriptions, and was adopted by so few that keeping it going made no sense. Purchase sales have flattened to the point where some kind of subscription model is necessary if Logos is to continue to function in the future. 

Got it. 

Thanks again for explaining it!

Greg Lawhorn

Bob, thank you for your very lengthy, very clear, very level-headed post. This is excellent customer service, as is giving nine whole months of notice before making the switch. Nine months should be more than enough time for people with strong emotional reactions to calm down and get used to the idea. It also gives you more time to tinker with/improve Faithlife Connect, which is also good.

(NB: I have not read all of the responses to your post, just the first page.)

For my part, I think that what you are doing largely makes sense, and I myself am glad that Verbum Now is sticking around because it meets my present needs better than the present Faithlife Connect offerings do. Perhaps some of the people who want to keep 'old Logos Now' should subscribe to Verbum Now!

No. This is not like a magazine. You all said yourselves this is your "online service". It's not understood by the users to have an expiration date in the same way paper magazines do. That's not how any other online service works. At all. Anywhere.

Think instead if Amazon Prime renamed, dropped half their services, and told every subscriber they could have it back for twice the price. Or if Netflix did the same. That's the proper analogy.

This is shady. And giving a 9 month head-start doesn't change that.

Adding tremendous new features to justify a new tier at a higher price or choosing a more modest price bump would have been standard practice (for companies without a moral compass).

I am just so very, very disappointed. As someone who has been a loyal user for years, invested thousands of dollars, I did not expect so little from Logos. I have had my view of your business significantly altered through this.

There's an answer. Walk it back. This is does hurt you. And it violates a trust we put in you.

I love Logos and have invested into its software because it gives me indispensable tools.

I just hope that Logos does not get so caught up in looking at market trends that they forget to pay attention to why their business exists in the first place, which is to give people powerful tools for studying the Bible. 

My feeling as a Logos customer is that a subscription service will most likely price me out, or under deliver.  But, you said that you are keeping the buy-to-own service, which I am already very happy with, so I will have no problem. 

I hope you are able to make the business work and keep it flexible

I have looked at the comparison chart.  The Logos Now features I regularly use will not be available through Faithlife Connect Starter.  I am being forced to pay double for Essentials.  Other new features available still does not bring back the current features I now use.  $200 off Logos 8 is nice, but does not solve the issue of still having to pay double for what I now use.  You can say all you want that Faithlife will give you this or that, but the fact remains that I will still have to pay double for what I currently use.  This does seem like punishment to me.

Good day to you Mr. Pritchett,

I hope this reply finds you well.  May I make a suggestion.  All the people that have been Logos Now members could be grandfathered into Logos Connect Essentials at the price they have been paying for Logos Now until such time as they no longer subscribe. It is hard to take away products at a certain price to customers and charge more than double for the same.  Then all new subscribers can pay the new price.