Subscription fee history
PCBG note: I have not changed our subscription fees since 1st July 2010. In several countries, the local currency equivalents of our fees have gone down since then because their currency has strengthened against the Pound over that time. This is even though the Families Database has grown significantly and improved in other ways since then. I thought our fees were really good value back in 2010. They are even better value now!
The following shows our past and present Membership subscription fees:
| 7 days | 14 days | 31 days | 93 days | 365 days | note | |
| 01.09.07-23.09.07 | £1.00 | – | £2.50 | – | – | (a) |
| 24.09.07-30.06.08 | £5.00 | – | £12.50 | £25.00 | £52.00 | (b) |
| 01.07.08-28.02.09 | – | £9.00 | £12.50 | £25.00 | £52.00 | (c) |
| 01.03.09-30.06.10 | – | £9.50 | £13.50 | £27.00 | £57.00 | (d) |
| 01.07.10- | – | £10.00 | £15.00 | £30.00 | £60.00 | (e) |
Notes |
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| (a) | Trial Period. Membership was not needed as the free viewing period per page for non-Members before interruption was several hours. | ||
| (b) | Membership required from 24.09.07 otherwise viewing of a data page in the Families Database is interrupted after a few seconds. | ||
| (c) | The following note was provided by PCBG to explain the change: | ||
| “This is the first change to the subscriptions set-up since the launch of the Membership Scheme in September 2007. I am sorry for anyone who finds the new subscription too expensive but I do think that it provides good value for money. I have made this change not least because I have gained the impression (from the statistical information we obtain on the site) that quite a few people have used a week to take a huge amount of information from Stirnet for very little cost, making me feel that I was giving too much away too cheaply. At the same time, the change will be helpful to those who wish to try the site for a short but meaningful period and found one week to be a bit too short.” | |||
| (d) | The following note was provided by PCBG to explain the change: | ||
| “I had hoped not to change the fees for at least another 6 months but a knock-on effect of the failure of certain banks to behave responsibly has been that they have cut-back on the facilities they provide even to longstanding customers and this has affected us (fortunately not too badly but enough to lead us to be a bit more hard-headed with our business approach). As it is, the fee increases are (I think) reasonable in the circumstances. In fact, the fall in the cost of sterling means that, for many non-UK members, the fees are cheaper now (March 2009) than they were in the past – as shown in the table below.” | |||
| (e) | The following note was provided by PCBG to explain the change: | ||
| “I like round numbers not least because they make it easy to compare different periods. I have been working towards these fee levels for a while. Having reached them, I hope to hold the fees steady for at least 2 years. The table (below) shows how the fee increases over the last 3 years have hit some members more than others, depending on the currency they pay in. What it does not show is how the Families Database has improved over the years, both in terms of family coverage (many more families are covered now than were 3 years ago) and in terms of reliability, for there have been many corrections & improvements.” | |||
| Cost of a 1 month (31 days) subscription in selected currencies. Exchange rates can fluctuate wildly so the rates shown below should not be viewed as giving much of a clue on what the rates are at present. (E&OE!) |
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| £ | Euro | US$ | Aus$ | |||||||||||
| amount | increase | rate | equivalent | change | rate | equivalent | change | rate | equivalent | change | ||||
| (1) The following shows how our fees (for 31 days) have changed over the years. The rates are (roughly) what they were near the beginning of the relevant period. | ||||||||||||||
| 24.09.07-30.06.08 | 12.50 | – | 1.43 | 17.88 | – | 2.02 | 25.25 | – | 2.31 | 28.88 | – | |||
| 01.07.08-28.02.09 | 12.50 | – | 1.26 | 15.75 | -11.9% | 1.99 | 24.88 | -1.5% | 2.07 | 25.88 | -10.4% | |||
| 01.03.09-30.06.10 | 13.50 | +8.0% | 1.13 | 15.26 | -3.1% | 1.43 | 19.31 | -22.4% | 2.24 | 30.24 | +16.9% | |||
| 01.07.10- | 15.00 | +11.1% | 1.22 | 18.30 | +19.9% | 1.49 | 22.35 | +15.7% | 1.78 | 26.70 | -11.7% | |||
| (2) The following shows whether or not our fees (for 31 days) have increased or decreased over the periods shown. The rates are (roughly) what they were near the end of the relevant period. | ||||||||||||||
| 24.09.07-31.12.21 | +20.0% | 1.19 | 17.85 | -0.0% | 1.35 | 20.25 | -19.8% | 1.86 | 27.90 | -3.3% | ||||
| 01.07.10-31.12.21 | 0.0% | 1.19 | 17.85 | -2.5% | 1.35 | 20.25 | -9.4% | 1.86 | 27.90 | +4.5% | ||||
There are many web sites which can give you an indication of the current/historic exchange rates (see here for one we sometimes use for current rates, see here for one we sometimes use for historic rates). Remember that, if such sites show just one rate, that is likely to be an average of the buy & sell rates so you will probably not get (or have got) as good a rate as those sites suggest. However, the difference should be roughly consistent over the years.