Video plan preview, launching Monday
I posted a couple months ago about improving Micro.blog’s video hosting. Not just fixing the existing problems but greatly expanding what it can do. I’ve been thinking about how this impacts current and future customers, and I’m ready to share the next step.
Technical plumbing for the new video support is already rolling out. It’s the biggest change to how uploads work since we first added photo hosting. Instead of a single hosted file, videos are processed into chunks at multiple resolutions to support quick playback.
All Micro.blog subscribers will get 1-minute video uploads. There will be a new subscription plan to increase the limit up to 20-minute videos. The new plan will also be the place we add new features for podcasts.
Videos hosted on Micro.blog will automatically cross-post to PeerTube and Bluesky at launch. POSSE! YouTube will be enabled whenever Google approves us. Mastodon will get a link back to your blog post to watch the video.
I have heard the feedback that it appears too limiting to have only 1-minute videos on the rest of our plans. However, Micro.blog and Micro.blog Premium are a good value with their existing features. There’s a simplicity to not needing an asterisk on each plan for how long videos can be.
After it ships, the complete set of plans will look like this:
Micro.one: $1 — cheap, while supplies last!
Micro.blog: $5 — standard hosting
Micro.blog Premium: $10 — up to 5 blogs plus more features
Micro.blog Family: $15 — up to 5 members per blog
Micro.blog Studio: $20 — coming soon!
Each plan includes everything at the lower tiers. This is a lot for us and for users to juggle, but I believe the best way we can keep prices low is by adding new features at higher tiers instead of raising the price on the $5 and $10 plans.
For comparison, here are some other services and their prices:
Tumblr Premium: $7 — up to 10 minutes
WordPress Premium: $18 — less than 2 GB recommended
Vimeo Plus: $12 — up to 5 GB
Twitter / X Premium: $8 — up to 2 hours
Bluesky: $0 — up to 3 minutes, 100 MB
Mastodon: $? — less than 100 MB
It’s all over the map. The pricing we have in Micro.blog feels right to me, and hopefully will be sustainable enough that we can support and expand it well into the future. And of course, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are there if you want to directly monetize your videos, or if you want the $0 price and don’t mind feeding the ad machine.
I can’t wait to share more about how this works in Micro.blog. It officially launches next week.