• Ideas General

  • Fine tuning new subscription model

I think the current subscription model still offers some space for improvement in order to fulfil the need of certain user groups. For example; family’s with kids, the old Join members and company’s that want to give there employees access to the there Business account. Below my thought and possible solution for this. If there are people with additions or a better ideas, please post them in the comments!

My suggestion would be to introduce the ‘bunq invitee’ subscription. This subscription should cost €2,99 (the same as an extra card) and will include one card, but no bank accounts. The only way to get this account is by invitation of a bunq Premium or bunq Business member. The member that is introducing the invitee member will paying the subscription fee. Since the invitee member is unable to open bank an accounts themselves, other users must share a bank account with them. This can be, a business owner that shares a bank account with a employee, a father that shares a bank account with his child or a couple that shares several joined bank accounts.

Why shouldn’t the bunq Invitee user get a private bank account? This because this subscription is not meant as a budget subscription. It is meant as an option to share one or more bunq bank accounts with a non bunq Premium member. In this way it will not be a realistic and cheaper alternative for a Premium membership.

As a alternative for the ‘Pack’ and ‘Join’ discount options, I would like to suggest the following discount options.

Friends & family discount
Connect with a friend or family member that has a bunq subscription and receive both a €1,- discount on your Premium subscription.

Annual and two years payment discounts
Pay annual instead of monthly and receive a €1,- discount. Pay per two years and receive a €1,- discount, invitation for the bunq update and a free ‘bunq invitee’ subscription for a give a way.

For example; a couple that would like to share a grocery bank account will pay €6,99 (€7,99 - €1,- Friends & families discount) for a bunq Premium subscription and, €2,99 for a bunq Invitee subscription. So in total they would pay €9,98. That’s virtually the same as the old Join account, but at this moment the Invitee member cannot have their own personal bank account. When paying annually they would save €1,- extra a month and pay only €8,98. This will save a total €12,- per year.

At this moment we have two extra subscriptions (Premium SuperGreen and Business SuperGreen) for clients that would like to be green or have there payments automated. I think it’s better to separate these two things and offer it as add-ons. So a ‘Go SuperGreen’ add-on (Metal Card and plant trees as you spend) and a ‘Automate’ add-on. I also see the opportunity for an extra add-on in the ‘Identity’. The ‘Identity’ add-on will give you the option to digitally sign documents and SSO at the Dutch government with eHerkenning.

These were just my thoughts. Please share yours!

    @Jelle-B#157027 Hi Jelle thanks for your ideas and sharing your thoughts. Although bunq is never about discounts we have been working behind the scenes on a solution that will address this and other use cases (joint, children, employees). With the simplification of the memberships we can now steam ahead and implement this solution in a timely fashion. Stay tuned!

      @Ali#157043 Is het niet handiger om eerst iets nieuws te maken voor je het oude weg gooit?

      Het probleem met medewerkers bestaat al sinds jullie Free hebben opgeheven en ook toen zeiden jullie (via de helpdesk) dat er aan een oplossing werd gewerkt.

        @Ali#157043

        Nice to hear that this is being worked on! It was never my intention to make the post mainly about discounts. It's just that I looked for an alternative to the Joint and Pack discount options.

        I think the main gaps to be solved are:
        - Being able to give an employee access without letting the employee pay for this;
        - Fair pricing for family’s and households;
        - A cheaper option for people that just want the benefits of Shared/Joint accounts but still have there own main bank account.

          @Ali#157043 Please stop saying that the subscriptions have been simplified. It's obvious to everyone that bunq needs more subscription income. I wouldn't mind paying double if you would just stop feeding this insulting nonsense.

          Curious about what's coming though. I'm a big fan of the product. The marketing not so much.

            @Casper-Yellow-Wolf#157301 If that was the case Casper we would've raised prices which we didn't. This entire change has come out, on average, budget neutral. It's a pity that you choose to believe and draw conclusions without looking at the facts. It's troubling that you seem to persevere in that belief.

            I wish you wisdom and a good night!

              What I've been seeing here on the boards the last few days according to Bunq, is that the main reason to get rid of all the arguebly popular memberships is to make it more streamlined and easier to understand. with fewer subscription models.

              I feel however that its not completely the case or the reasoning behind these changes.
              For instance the joint account was from I see a much more used subscription than the pack subscription.

              If the goal was to offer fewer subscription models. Why get rid of the joint subscription but keep the pack one?

              I think the users here have been seeing a trend by bunq. And that trend is that each change in subscription models is going towards higher minimum prices to simply use Bunq.

              It doesnt feel that its about creating fewer options and thus making it easier to understand for users..

              I believe a few years ago. the options were pretty straightforward as well. you had like Free, Premium and maybe one more.

              If anything these constant changes make things less streamlined. less easy to understand.
              Because if you change the subscription models every few months or so or even every year..
              Then how do we know they wont be changed again in a few months. and then again. How do we know the subscription we buy now is still the best opion for us in a few months, or even worse still available in a few months?

                @Ali#157302 Volgens jou is een prijsverandering van 0 naar 8 euro (voor Promo) of van 10 naar 32 (voor Joint gebruikers die met 4 personen zijn) geen prijsverhoging? Hoe noem jij dat dan wel?

                  @Ali#157302 How are any of your users supposed to draw any conclusion other than I have written in my comment? There is hardly any information to go on. I consider myself tech- oriented, yet I didn't understand the implications of the last subscription change.

                  There is a topic by bunq; 'The maths behind SuperGreen' that doesn't talk about the actual euro figure that gets donated for every tree displayed in the app. How is this transparant?

                  What bothers me is that for all the payed services I use, no other company seems to struggle with changes in the subscriptions table the way that bunq does. Often subscribers are grandfathered, but I can imagine that an 'underpaying' user of banking services is too costly to maintain until eternity. Wouldn't it than be better to tell that user: "Thank you for supporting us, however your subscriptions will increase in price."

                  Let's look at the email that I received and then tell me that this isn't evasive. Where is the price of the new subscription? Why is more than 2/3 of the email, irrelevant to the actual message (in order for me to access the features that I use, my subscription cost are increasing from €10 to €20 monthly). Please, look at this @ali and tell me why I feel this is insulting.

                  Title: Your bunq subscription is changing

                  Message:

                  Hey,

                  At bunq we always strive to be the bank that perfectly fits your wants and needs. That's why we recently introduced our new SuperGreen subscriptions, so you can become CO2 free in less than 2 years.
                  To make SuperGreen possible we had to simplify our subscriptions. We were amazed by the overwhelming support: 81% of our community are excited about greener and simpler offerings from us!
                  As a bunq Business user with additional paid features, you have been automatically upgraded to experience bunq Business SuperGreen at the price of standard bunq Business (€9.99 per month) for the next 3 months! So you can get the time-saving business features at no additional monthly costs and turn all your business card payments green.

                    @Ali#157302 Hi, it’s nice to see that you are joining in on the discussion 🙂.

                    We definitely don’t want to draw any premature conclusions: however, based on the facts that have been communicated to us, every single bunq Joint membership is being changed from a €10 monthly fee to a 2x€8=€16 monthly fee. That’s not just a price increase, it’s a pretty steep one! And given the popularity of Joint memberships, it’s one affecting a majority of bunq users.

                    Don’t get me wrong, I love the product. Actually I have repeatedly promoted it to friends and family; however, living in a country where even the old bunq Joint membership is on average around 5-6x more expensive than a classical joint account, those fees immediately scare people off. For me, as a developer, I really appreciate the technology behind bunq. However, I also consider the already high subscription fees to be the main flaw with bunq (just try to imagine how more popular and awesome bunq would be with a more competitive pricing model! 🌈) Therefore, even the suggestion of higher prices are a shock to many of us, and by common sense will force us to leave bunq.

                    Therefore, I sincerely hope that, as you indicate, these changes are really meant to be budget neutral, and that as a consequence with the “new Joint membership”, the (already quite hefty) monthly fee of €10/month will not increase.

                      If Bunq wants to use referral programs, that's great. It can really work with growing. However, I think it's a very bad idea to build this into the pricing model as a permanent discount on the monthly fees.

                        This topic was about ‘Fine tuning new subscription model’. There are several topics that discuss the transition to the current subscription model. I understand that it is tempting to move that discussion to this topic because @Ali has responded in this topic. But I think that if he wants to get involved in that discussion, he will do so in one of the topic that are about that.

                        We don’t have the data to come to an actual price. But we can give our thought about how the pricing model should look like. For example, I would be in favour of introducing add-ons instead of an all-in-one subscription price. This add-ons can cover a number of functionalities. Below some examples.

                        Go SuperGreen add-on
                        - Metal Card
                        - Plant trees

                        Automate add-on
                        - AutoVAT
                        - Scan receipts

                        Identity add-on
                        - Sign documents
                        - SSO at third parties

                        PSP add-on
                        - Webshop payments
                        - Card terminal

                          @Jelle-B#157407 I think the problem with the current subscription roster is that it builds around the idea that 'everything included' equals simple and thus is what users want. I agree that some add-on structure could be part of a more longer lasting solution.

                          To me, it seems a lot simpler to offer:
                          - 'Pay as you' go subscription with a lower starting price (marketing wise 'free' works best, but obviously I don't know the financial ramifications for this). In this subscription, added features cost extra.
                          - 'Premium' subscription with all current features included. At any major update bunq could consider raising the premium subscription pricing, no problem, but (and this I find incredible that bunq hasn't already opted to do so) current 'premium' users are grandfathered with the same subscription costs, but also the same feature set as before the update. Meaning, if a user doesn't want to miss out on the new features, they could go for the new 'premium' sub, if not, they can remain where they are.

                          The other big issue that I have with the current subscription offerings is that the tree planting idea is a feature. It's like having 'Premium' and 'Premium Auto Save'. Why would regular 'premium' users not be able to donate through bunq? Why isn't a fixed amount donated (I can't find an explanation from bunq what percentage of €100 goes to the tree fund and where that money comes from)? I know the history, but from an outsider perspective, what does a metal card have to do with 'green'? You know what is made of 100% less plastic? No card.

                          For businesses, I find it hard to visualise the use case for an 'everything included' subscription. Businesses know what solutions they are looking for and aren't motivated to start using a new feature (like receipt saving or auto-vat) if it doesn't apply to them. My personal example is that one of my business accounts has 1 IBAN and uses Zapier and costs €20 monthly (Business SuperGreen). However you want to spin this, the subscription roster doesn't work in this business' favor. The only way I would see 'premium' working for businesses is if it would feature priority support.

                          To sum up, I think the subscriptions should look like this:

                          • Personal (pay as you go for personal use)
                          • Premium (everything included)
                            --
                          • Business (pay as you go for business use)
                          • Business Premium (everything included + priority support)

                            @Jelle-B#157407 Alles wat een add-on was is juist door bunq in het Business SuperGreen abonnement geschoven. Wat jij voorstelt is dus precies het tegenovergestelde wat ze net hebben gedaan 🤷‍♂️

                              @JeroenE#157460
                              Daar heb je gelijk in, Jeroen. Echter is dat waarschijnlijk precies wat wij allemaal NIET willen. 😁

                                Ik begrijp waarom er een einde moet komen aan de 'free' en andere accounts omdat dit niet rendable is..
                                Maar er wel behoefte aan een wat gelimiteerd account ( voor familieleden, joint gebruik, enz).

                                Om dan maar alles te schrappen en deze accounts om te zetten naar een premium account is, is volgens mij geen goede zet.

                                De meeste mensen die namelijk die accounts hebben, doen dat omdat het premium account te duur en teveel bied.
                                en aangezien er geen andere optie meer overblijft, is er maar 1 optie over, namelijk stoppen met Bunq.

                                De aankondiging dat er over 2 maanden een nieuwe joint aankomt is ook niet slim, dat had al klaar moeten liggen, voordat deze mededeling er kwam. Nu is er onduidelijkheid, wachten we nog 2 maanden in de hoop dat de nieuwe "joint" voldoet, en vertrouwen we wel dat dit er ooit gaat komen.....

                                Anagezien ik nog andere bankrekeningen heb (voor hypotheek enzo), ben ik gelukkig niet afhankelijk van Bunq.... dus ik wacht nog even 2 maanden af, of er nog iets nieuws komt en zo niet, dan is het helaas voor mij einde Bunq...

                                  @bunq#157484 Hey. What do you mean share my thoughts about Free & More subscriptions?

                                  I dont have those subscriptions. I have no thoughts about it. I dont know what to say about it?? Actually I dont even know what the more account was about. did you wanted to tag someone else? by mistake? And also removed my message by mistake? please clarify

                                  My message was actually about this topic not about more subscriptions or free accounts. It never even mentioned a free account or more account in the entire message...