Sprout Builder starts charging

I've always loved Sprout Builder , a service that allows you to construct widgets through a great online interface. I've used it to create loads of projects and I always thought it was a brilliant way to try out and demo potential projects. Of course Sprout have to create a revenue stream, and after a long free period they've introduced a charging structure. You can pay from $19 a month for individual access which gives you 15 projects up to professional status for $299 a month and 60 projects. Not a bad price for a service that offers a lot. But - one thing that bothers me is, what happens to my widgets if I cancel my subscription?

Q. What happens to my sprouts if I cancel my subscription?
A. If you cancel your subscription both your account and your existing Sprouts will be made inactive and you won’t be able to access them.

This means that you have to keep up your subscirption for ever - even if you end up with only a single live widget. There's another problem with this structure. Maybe 15 widgets (Individual) or 35 widgets (Designer) is a useful amount to start with. But what happens after the first year or two, when you are up to your limit? What happens when you have 60 live widgets out in the wild - there are no levels after 60 (except for a nebulous Agency structure). Do you have to start culling some widgets? Tell some clients that their widgets are going black?
It seems that what Sprout need is a far more flexible pricing structure, with the ability to add extra widgets on a one by one basis - and the ability to buy extra bandwidth if you need it.
Unfortunately, with the current setup I would find it hard to recommend using Sprout Builder in a professional capacity.

Comments

[Ivan Pope]

I guess I'm just calling for more sophistication - i.e. the ability to pay for selected widgets long term, the ability to pass on widgets to the client - otherwise it's going to get very complicated and messy. As for Wordpress, I don't pay for Wordpress on a subscription basis. I do pay an annual amount for TypePad, but it's small enough to justify paying each year, and allows me to make as many sites as I want. I don't think the Sprout pricing scale is realistic in comparison.

[john rheinhart]

they still have free accounts, up to 3 projects. if you find yourself with maximum number of projects, why not just create a new new account under a different email? Or an account for each client and then pass the costs off to the client for the duration of the project. you pay for wordpress in the same way, pay them as long as you want your blog to be online. Its pretty standard in the Software as a Service model.

[Rick]

I have only one "project", and there is no way I am going to pay Sprout $19 per month to host that one little widget.
I am looking for an alternative right now.