Paid Services / Creative Freelance Series
This is the continuation of the Creative Freelance Series (part 4) on Paid Services (Non Management) . If you missed (part 1) on Project Management & Contacts, (part 2) Invoicing, Time Tracking & Contracts, or (part 3) Collaboration & Proofing/Approval, feel free to have a read and comment.
This is broken up into 4 parts and to make this a useful article, I am asking the creative community to participate as much as possible to gain insight into the applications/process you use and/or even worth paying for. Your answers don’t have to be long just concise. Of course I will weigh in with what I use (in the comments below).
The first 3 parts received detailed responses with some very helpful information. I hope you’ll continue to weigh in with parts 4!
The 4 Essential Parts:
1. Project Management & Contacts
2. Invoicing, Time Tracking & Contracts
3. Collaboration & Proofing
4. Paid Services (non-management)
–
4. Paid Services
Can be a paid web app or a paid app that you host yourself.
*Feel free to include services like hosting, domain names, basecamp – by (non-management I mean the focus of this article is not just management apps).
a. Which online paid Services do you use? (Ex. Flickr Pro, PSDtuts)
b. How much do the services cost a month or per year?
c. Do you prefer up front or small reoccurring costs?
Grab the Feed
Which online paid Services do you use? (Ex. Flickr Pro, PSDtuts)
At this point none actually! I have been meaning to sign up for Flickr pro but just haven’t got to it.
How much do the services cost a month or per year?
n/a
Do you prefer up front or small reoccurring costs?
I prefer up front costs. I like knowing that something is paid for, but I will pay monthly fees if it works out to be cheaper or discounted.
~ Aaron I
These are the Services I use:
Flickr Pro, yearly subscription $24.95
PSDTuts, monthly – $9.00
Basecamp, monthly – $24
Mint Stats, one time fee – $30
Domains, yearly – $8 each (about 7 domains).
I prefer upfront costs, but if It’s a low enough price per month and it’s worth it, I will do it. I think basecamp is a bit high for the lowest plan, still determining if I want to stick with it because it doesn’t include a lot of features for the price point.
I have similar expenses to you Adelle,
Flickr Pro – $24.95/year, which just expired actually :(
Basecamp – $24/monthly
Domains – about $8 each/year x 20? (I lose count!)
Mozy remote backup – $4.95(?)/month
Small yearly costs I prefer to pay up front so it’s out of the way and I don’t have to worry about it. Otherwise I don’t mind monthly payments, most of which bill automatically so I still don’t have to worry about them!
Domains – $9 each/year x 3
Hosting – $10/month
Advertising – aprox $30/month
And that’s pretty much it for me. I prefer monthly payment mainly because I’m just getting started so it’s easier to pay a bit more a month than to pay a large chunk up front. Like Ryan though, all of my monthly payments bill automatically so it’s easy to just let it go and forget about them.
-Backpack, $24 a month (work refunds it though!)
-Domains- from Dreamhosts, + hosting for about $5 yearly for domains (I keep buying ones when I think up good names!), and a bit more for hosting
-Things for my iPhone was about $6 I think.
-Just started trying out graze.com (which sends me snacks every week) for £3 a week. (not a webapp, but definitely a service and it’s a brilliant idea)
I much prefer upfront costs, as I often forget/can’t figure out how to unsubscribe. For example, I left my bluemountain.com subscription run on and on for a long time because I couldn’t figure out how to unsubscribe easily!
I don’t get it– why would you pay for Flickr Pro? I mean– what’s the use of flickr Pro if you have hosting?
I use:
- Flickr Pro
- FreshBooks
- Domains/Web Hosting
A lot of web services as free – and I try to use them when I can, but sometimes you can’t replace really great services.
Adelle – how’s Basecamp? I’ve used it briefly but wasn’t too fond of the lack of features.
no cost for me at the moment:)
my friend is the one hosting my site for now.
also Im not fun purchasing some goodies online.but maybe in the future I will go for the advertising=)
Flickr Pro, $24.95 /yr
Hosting @ Webfaction $9.95/mth
Domains @ $8/yr
@ramon, flickr works better than your own hosting if you have plenty of images and you don’t want to waste the allocated space and bandwidth on your hosting account as they can take up a lot of it. Plus, u’ll also get to tap into flickr’s audience. :)
I wouldn’t mind paying for an invoicing webapp or project management webapp but so far I haven’t found one that feels right yet.
I don’t mind recurring or upfront costs as long as they provide value and the price is reasonable.
It’s downright embarrassing how frugal I can be sometimes. This is especially true with premium services – more often than not I will take the free alternative if one is available. That being said there are those few expenses you can’t avoid:
Domains – $8/yr x 10
Hosting – $20/month
I would like to say I prefer upfront costs, but I usually go month to month if it’s an option.
Jacob, basecamp is pretty good, but does lack a lot of features (I think) for the pricepoint. It’s my first full month with it, so I will let you know in another month if I stick with it! Thanks for contributing!
Paid Services-
Flickr Pro, yearly subscription $24.95
Domain Names – roughly $300 or so a year
Up front costs on some things and recurring costs on others. It’s all about where I’m getting the most bang for my buck.
None, other than hosting ($50/m) and my domains ($60 a year). There is a free alternative to everything else pretty much. Oh and Google Adwords $2 a day, tops.
I would rather reoccuring as you can decide when to opt out.
a. Which online paid Services do you use? (Ex. Flickr Pro, PSDtuts)
Intervals for Project Management
DNSStuff for IT issues
Survey Monkey for customer surveys
b. How much do the services cost a month or per year?
Intervals = $100 / month
Survey Monkey = $20/month
c. Do you prefer up front or small reoccurring costs?
Small recurring costs work best with fluctuating cash flow
Adelle–I currently use ActiveCollab instead of basecamp, it was a one time fee and honestly, I manage it on my server so I have a little more freedom when integrating it with the rest of my site as I slowly do so. From what I remember when evaluating project management although it has a “pretty” interface, ProjectPier and ActiveCollab were the cream.
Kall8 – -800 number, follow me service, voicemail & virtual pbx (amazing) $12/mo
-Hosting Servers (Annual Fee) – Dedicated Servers with Inno, MediaTemple and WHB $1,000/yr
-WHCMS – invoicing, recurring billing, etc. 3/mo extra with Inno
-Paypal Payflow Gateway – Online Merchant 30/mo
-Constant Contact 20/mo