Why does Thurrott offer a premium membership?

• The online content space works with two models, page views and premium content. With page views, you are dependent on advertising income to support journalistic efforts which means if you are writing a post, you need to make sure it will bring in enough hits (ad impressions) to cover the cost of the effort gone into producing the content. With a premium model, you are no longer bound to this restriction and can focus on quality content, not quantity, which for Thurrott means keeping the bar high on the content that is produced.

Where is my money going?

• When you become a premium member, your support helps Thurrott.com deliver the high-quality content you have come to expect from Paul and the rest of the team. In addition, we will be expanding the mediums used to bring you the latest news and reviews to include more video content.
• Your backing also allows us to cover Microsoft events in-person. For example, covering a Microsoft event averages about $1,500 per person, per event when you account for travel expenses. By supporting Thurrott.com, you make it possible to attend these events and do so in a way that we don’t have to create ‘click-bait’ style stories to make sure we get the page views needed to cover the cost of traveling.

Are you removing the ads from the site for premium members?

• With a premium membership, we will be removing the majority of the advertisements from the site. We say majority as the traditional ad-banners will all be gone, pop-ups and overlays will not be used but we retain the right to find sponsorships for forums, podcasts and other content mediums that may be shown to premium members in a non-obtrusive way.

Why wouldn’t I run an ad blocker and save myself a few bucks a month?

• You could run an ad blocker but you would not be able to see the premium content that is restricted from non-premium members. In addition, by running an ad blocker, we do try to display our ads to non-premium users as unobtrusive as possible, you are stealing content that cost real dollars to produce. By showing ads on Thurrott.com, it is one way to show support for the site.

What is premium content?

• Premium content is material that you can only find on Thurrott.com. This will include but is not limited to, analysis posts, video content, monthly and quarterly reports and behind the scenes videos.

What happens to Thurrott.com if I am not a premium member?

• While we hope that every reader becomes a premium user to help support the sites high-quality content, we know that some users will opt to remain a basic member and support the site through display advertisements. Those users will still be able to read many of the posts on the site and will be allowed to read a select number of premium articles a month but after their monthly allotment has been reached, basic users will not be able to read some premium content (this feature is not currently live but will be in the near future).

What is the cost?

• The standard rate for Thurrott Premium is $55 for the year, please check our signup page for the latest offers.

Why do I need to change my subscription to get the new price?

• BWW Media Group, the parent company of Thurrott.com, does not store your financial data; we use trusted third-party processing systems. When we change the price of an annual subscription, we cannot retroactively change your current subscriptions which means that we need to you apply the new subscription to your account at the new price.

Why did I receive a cancellation email? 

• Depending on your payment provider, you may receive an email saying your membership/subscription is canceled, with Thurrott.com but you are not actually canceled, that is an automatically generated email from your provider; we are rolling you into a lower priced plan and you are still a premium member of Thurrott.com.

What if I have more questions that are not answered here?

• We are happy to answer any questions and you can reach Paul via [email protected] or @thurrott on Twitter.