Answering some of the questions from yesterday's Premium Launch:
Is there a monthly plan for Premium?
No, there is no monthly Premium plan at the moment. And there won't be one at least until the IPL concludes.
What happens to current monthly/yearly/lifetime plans now that Premium is available?
They stay the same and provide the full range of Covers Off that drew you in and convinced you to subscribe - complete 24-hour, 7-day, 365-day daily fantasy cricket content coverage.
Everything you've seen on our website and expected to get will never be moved to the Premium plan, because it all comes under the original scope of Covers Off, a fantasy cricket content, data, and tactics website.
Why should the Premium plan's benefits be included in the Premium plan but not in the standard plan?
It is straightforward:
They are not part of the initial Covers Off scope. Fantasy tools, for example, are out-and-out tech. We seriously considered making technology and 5X platform growth part of the standard plan, but the costs were so high that we only had two options: do it at Premium pricing or shelve it for a couple of years. Shelving it is clearly a bad plan. When we get big enough, we will also get generous enough. At this point, we are only big enough to give you a lifetime of daily fantasy cricket coverage free and as much as we would love to, nothing more.
Fantasy Masterclass, Player Profile, and all of the massive changes we have made to our daily and tournament packs all remain free because they fall under the initial scope of Covers Off. We've been told several times during our four months that we should raise our prices and that we're giving too much for too little (set up separate rates for pre-tournament packs, daily packs, player profiles, fantasy masterclass, predictions, and so on), but we've resisted all of it because it's too easy for someone to come now and tell you that you're doing it for too little after the success we have had.
When we first pitched the Covers Off concept to big corporations, the first question was why people would pay for something when there are so many free Telegram and YouTube channels. After a point, we decided it is better to show them than to tell them. The same companies are back now negotiating a deal with us. We knew when to bring Premium in (Phase II plans) and for what (out of initial scope).
As we expand our reach and accelerate our Phase II (2024+) plans, we can no longer restrict ourselves to content plans. Setting up all of these things raises our expenses and time investment. There's a reason we don't do post-match stuff, or why any of our platform specialists directly cater to the majority of DMs. Because they aren't a part of what Covers Off is. It takes us longer and more resources to complete it, recover from it, and then return to pre-match duties.
When we first started, we had a creator package for 1499, which our first 1000 subscribers will be aware of, but a lifetime plan for that was impractical to execute because none of the creator platforms took lifetime subscriptions. As a consequence, we were forced to cancel it and launch only the 999 plan with no creator support. However, we continue to get a lot of questions about why we do what we do after the toss, particularly coach player trades/player stocks purchases, as well as more tailored draft and auction fantasy supplies, such as an overall fantasy ranking order for fantasy draft games. For example, in our first month, we had Exchange 22 and Rario coverage running on a creator app, but we couldn't continue that on the website because there was too much to do in the present package. They're all back in our plans now, and expecting all of this to be completed at INR 3 per day is unreasonable.
Why wasn't there a practice run, and why were they all immediately put on payment plans?
We think we have done well and worked hard enough in the last four months to not give anything away for free. When we first began, there were some concerns about the subscription model, but having worked in the content industry for ten years, we essentially said that either this starts as a subscription or it doesn't. We are not informing or educating people, but we are generating money for them - and this comes at a cost. And that policy applies here as well.
Do lifetime members get any special offers?
We had no intentions for an offer at first because, as we previously stated, this was not even in our Phase I scope when we started. And we see this as a completely different offering than anyone could have expected. And there's a reason we only have 100 Premium slots right now: it's not a natural expansion, and it brings new forms of communication.
However, we have chosen to make two offers right now to keep lifetime slots as special as they have always been:
While the original aim of our lifetime offer was to provide an appealing deal for our customers, we soon realized that having a lifetime offer gave us a lot of flexibility to do what we did. Our website was initially a shambles, but neither our subscribers nor us were concerned because the days were 'infinite'. And the product itself was excellent. We want to retain that freedom to do what we best.
Will you introduce Premium Ultron, Premium Gigatron. and Premium Megatron in the future?
No, as with all regular subscription services, Premium has always been included in our plans. However, there will always be only two slabs: Standard and Premium.
And nothing from Standard will ever be moved to Premium.
Will Phase II Premium spots be more expensive?
We can't confirm that right now, but rates do increase over time, as you've seen with our yearly and monthly rates. With all effective and high-quality products/services, this is a natural progression.
What is a fantasy tool?
The goal of fantasy tools is straightforward: to improve your in-game experience. The key here is 'in-game', not pre or post. We are withholding it strategically because we want to be the first to market, and plagiarism is a major issue in the business. It is also better seen than told.
Phase I Premium Slots left: 85/100
