For years the people who utilized web-based systems to build websites have been spoiled by no-cost options such as Blogger, WordPress and Ning. As interest in these types of services has grown and the systems have become more complex the costs to run the services have risen as well. These factors have lead to more premium options where you are asked to pay a few dollars for additional storage, extra features or no ads on your site. Some services have chosen the freemium model offering a completely free tier of service with certain limits that can be removed or extra features available for a fee. Others have chosen to go 100% premium perhaps offering a short free trial period and then requiring a monthly payment to continue using the service. Completely free options are few and far between these days but that is a good thing in my opinion.

Blogger (which is owned by Google) is still 100% free but its features are limited when compared to many newer, premium services. Blogger is still great for creating blogs but if you want to move beyond the blog to create a web system then you'll need to look elsewhere. WordPress.com runs a freemium model. You get your blog for free and can pay to remove ads or add features such as video uploading or custom CSS. WordPress.com is still very much a blogging platform although the number of features (mostly premium ones) has increased over the last couple of years. Ning used to run on a freemium model but on July 20th they go 100% premium with plans starting at an affordable $2.95 per month.

Ning won't find themselves alone in the premium web system market. Most new services are launching with fee-based services. Squarespace has been around for a few years and they're business model is a premium one. They've met the competition by offering point-and-click design tools, a very detailed and feature-rich web based interface, strong native analytics and an iPhone application. Squarespace has also been aggressively advertising on some top tech shows such as Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech. Their hard work has attracted a recent round of funding that will help Squarespace take on their other well funded competitors.

While Squarespace and Ning are built on proprietary platforms WordPress.com is built on the WordPress open source package. It might seem a bit strange to charge for something that is available to download for free but it is now very clear that there is a lot of value in having someone handle the infrastructure, upgrades and other advanced services for a fee. Many hobbyists might not care about things like that but businesses and even individuals who are serious about web publishing and building communities do care and are willing to pay to reduce their hassles and increase functionality. So it's no surprise that the Drupal platform has spawned a pair of pretty high profile web-based services with Drupal Gardens and Buzzr. Both allow customers to build out sites using web based tools. Both allow new users to try out their service while at the same time being focused on converting site builders to paying customers.

Buzzr has enterprise pricing that covers up to 49 websites. Drupal Gardens does offer a free level (with ads and 1GB of storage) and premium tiers (ad free while offering more storage and bandwidth) for $20 and $40 per month. Based on the pricing differences it's obvious that Buzzr is more of a business-to-business offering targeting web development shops while Drupal Gardens is more oriented towards individual web developers as well as those who are very new to Drupal. Both expand on the very basic Drupal interface to add tools and options that make building sites faster and easier.

So the trend that I'm seeing is that new services are launching with paid tiers from day one while existing services are expanding their features and charging for the new functionality. These are good trends. Maintaining a quality web system costs money. There are wonderful economies of scale with web technology but those economies don't matter if no one is paying the bills. There are a number of competing services and that gives customers a choice. If service A is going to charge a monthly fee than they had better deliver something more than either the (quickly dwindling) free options and the other premium options in the marketplace. The revenue gained from charging a fee makes it easier for all of these services to grow without having to worry about how to pay the bills and keep investors happy. Having to pay would stink if there was no competition and the feature sets remained stagnant. That's not happening though. Rich media support is improving. Bandwidth and storage allocations are improving. Over time I think that customers will get more for less as the economies improve and the user base of these services grows.

Here's the bottom line. Do not lament the fact that you will probably have to pay to have an ad-free website or blog. If you value your content and the people who consume it or if you hope to build a web-based community or web-based business then $5, $10 or $25 per month is a small price to pay for a site whose technology is managed for you. That means you can focus on distributing your content, expanding your community and building your business.