Thank you Kyle.

Wow this is a bummer. If i would of known this from the beginning than i wouldnt of upgraded yet. So now because i dnt have the funds i cannot even go back to working on my site for free. :(
This needs to change or be made very clear from the start. Life happens and things become difficult to manage. I shouldnt loose out on making my site and now feel i just wasted money. And prolly wont be able to come back soon since i cant get my site going and earning money to even pay.

I agree growfreedom2

I'm glad I happened to stumble over this before going for Premium.
I think it's REALLY questionable that this consequence is not highlighted before signing up.
It's a partykiller that one can't keep on working on whatever Rubix sites, and furthermore, can't benefit from any affiliate links already posted on the web, or active affilate payments (at the lower rate of course).

What about domain names registered through WA? How are they handled then? (Not the hosted website content - I know this has to be transferred of course).
The domains - do they expire at the end of the month or is it later on? Or will they stay with WA and can be renewed (and just the DNS pointing to servers elsewhere)?

The domain name is just like with any other Registrar.
You own the domain name and can do as you wish with it.
btw: You can stay a Starter member as long as you like.

Thanks Ken. The domain still needs to be paid for yearly, though. Or it will expire. And I have read elsewhere in here that it can be tricky to transfer directly to another registrar without a long break.

(Someone mentioned he tried to move from GoDaddy. He let the domain expire and wanted to pick it up somewhere else - but was told that there was a grace period of several months to take it over. So as he was already using the domain, he was forced to re-register with GoDaddy again and accept their prices).

Besides this problem of possibly being "trapped" - there is also the thing that the account is dormant if not on Premium. So if a domain needs to be renewed some months down the road, I can't log on and do it.

(Hmmm - as I am writing, I am thinking I could make an extra WA user solely for registering domain(s) - and then, on the one that would go Premium, choose hosting "on a domain I own" - I wonder if that would work smoothly or there are other catches?)

Lasse, I think you may be over complicating this.
When you own the domain name. You own it!
You can point it somewhere else or transfer it
to another registrar. There is generally a grace
period after first registration. 60 days is usual.

So if you purchased one here at WA and decided
to leave WA at some point. You can transfer the
domain where you want it. No problem!

You can actually point the DNS for any domain you purchase here at WA to anywhere you like, so if you no longer want to be a member or can afford it, you could purchase a budget hosting package elsewhere for around $100 per year and you will be able to point your domain there and transfer your website.

We do give you an extra 30 days beyond the cancellation, something that NO host in the industry offers and because the memberships are so different, you cannot downgrade (it wouldn't work from a technical standpoint).

$47 per month (or $359 per year) to manage your entire business, every aspect of it and get training, live classes, tools, support, mentoring, networking, etc...is not a cost for an "opportunity" it is a cost associated with doing your business and by far the most cost efficient in the industry. The most comparable education is Full Sail university and they are around $40,000 per year (plus you have to pay for your website expenses, domains, etc on top of this). Just a bit of perspective.

You can always resubscribe and reconnect your membership whenever it best suits you though and we can actually restore your website for up to 6 months of you being away.

I have to add that I do not believe this is a cost.
It is a very small investment in your business.
That pays a fantastic ROI. Just my thought.

Thanks for feedback, Ken. With the answers I got from Kyle, I got confirmed that I can still control my domain (renew subscription, DNS etc.) even if WA premium would be discontinued for some reason.

I appreciate having that option. Esp. if the domain is in active use with a website that has traffic. I think that makes a registrar move more complicated due to the grace period before it can be set up with another registrar.
Anyway, since the pricing seems fine and without all the unexpected/expensive upsells or raises at renewal, it seems fine to keep a domain with WA regardless.

Thanks Kyle. With the option to still control (DNS etc.) and renew the domain, it seems fine to keep it at WA no matter what. I like that the pricing is so transparent.
(The thing I wanted to avoid is having to mess with downtime in connection with transfer of the domain registry for a website that already got traffic).

I am not really complaining about the $47, I just want to know what I can control and what I cannot control - so I know consequences of decisions. (I would guess that once people get really going, the expense increases because people start using the more advanced tools for keyword search, list management and so on. That's cool too. It costs money/investment to run a business).

I'm just a little "prematurely" into the platform, that's all. Because I am at my brokest point ever and started to investigate and plan my long term future. While I am also looking for basic income (which will support the investments).

I agree. I wish I would have known this too before upgrading. I had to cancel my membership at one point, hoping to be a free member for a while til I could afford it again, but couldn't. So within the 30 days I had to transfer my site to another host. I thought it had all worked out, until I lost my site, and realised I hadn't done the transfer properly.

But I've come back as a premium member and I managed to get my site restored by the team at WA. So it kind of all worked out in the end. But I still wish I could have known beforehand.

Can't agree with you more.I ended up same.Why you can't even downgrade.The training should be unavailable,but at least working on site should be allowed.You should try wordpress if you want free or pay for premium or business,still would be cheaper,if it is just for blogging.
In fact i putted so much time effort to my site to find out that i cant downgrade,in fact i work and i can pay,but whats the point if i dont have energy to check things up.
Just by staying and paying,that's not logical.


Well i ended up deleting my website accidentially(maybe for its own good),because i couldn't find downgrade option and maybe i just clicked on my paypal once thinking about WA.
WA is not your life and in life things happen,that you cant afford 49 usd or 47 usd,i can afford 20 usd for not doing,by staying.
But for 50 usd and i work 5 months,so i cant check for 5 months,maybe 250 usd out of my pocket.
Once i start my work i am not sure when i can check WA in my free time,since i am always tired up.So i would like to keep my site running,but i dont want to participate of training at my working time,if i want to there should be an option to bring back that.
Now i can't work on my website at all,since i deleted,but i have domain.

i really agree with you as i cant keep mine either right now because of money shortage .i paid for the premium to in the beginning now i have wasted a moth trying to get site going to find out that it was a waste of time these systems are a money grab thats it .
i cant say they dont care because there really is a lot of good guides at the site being premium and well worth the money but if one falls and cant pay what than .....

I hope you can be making this clear to people while advertising for premium

you can stay on starter for as long as you like and keep your two free websites and work on them

but if you unlock all the premium training then you can't go back down to starter because you have all the training - get it?

only go premium when you know you can afford it - or take the yearly membership or Black Friday deal which leaves it less than $30 a month - bear in mind that is high end hosting in there too, it is a very good price

Great .. thank you so much..i was asked these questions and could not answer

Thanks I think your the only one who really tried to help me do not have enough money or time to but into a side business after working full time.

so once you been premium and cant pay to get it back for lets say a month or 2 can i still promote wa through my links

I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous argument. If someone chooses to leave the site altogether (the only option left to them), they'll be no worse off than if they'd been allowed to revert to a basic account, yet they'll still have the knowledge. What are they supposed to do - try and forget it?

If people were allowed to downgrade, WA would remain, essentially, a hosting provider for their website(s), but little more, which is fair enough. They'd have paid for any training knowledge they'd already accrued (probably several repeat payments over a number of months), so they'd not be ripping anybody off. They wouldn't benefit from additional training (new videos, blogs etc.) or be able to access the wider community, so the Premium members would still have that advantage.

If I buy a book, I pay for it and potentially learn from it. If I want to widen my knowledge, I may buy another book so as to learn more, or I may stick with my investment so far and not buy another book because I feel I know enough to satisfy my needs already. I certainly don't have to keep buying the same book every month just to maintain the level of knowledge I'm happy with, which is the equivalent of what happens at WA.

By encouraging people to create websites on here but then refusing to let them downgrade, WA is effectively holding them to ransom with Premium membership, against the inconvenience of having to migrate that site to another hosting provider (and it can be very inconvenient - I've just done it).

And with SiteDomains, it's even more difficult to go elsewhere once you have bought your site address here.

@xhjregina
I really do not see that as being a problem.
When you buy a domain name you own it.

@xhjregina.
No it's not. It takes about 2 minutes to put in the new name servers for a new host. And while that is in the works, it will take about 5-10 minutes to log in via the FTP username and password we are each provided, and download all of the files to your computer. Add another 1 minute to perform an export from Wordpress. (That download can be imported into another installation of wordpress when you're ready). So this is nothing to be concerned about.

The best buy here is the annual premium, because we can save nearly 20/mo. Naturally things do happen in life—sometimes unpredictable events. I just want to reassure you that transferring everything to another host should not be a concern.

WA training itself is so substantial, that the education alone is worth many times more than the cost of premium membership—especially once we put it to use! :)

--Fran

Thanks for clearing that up!

You're very welcome, @xhjregina. :)

Thank you so much for the info.. I was able to have everything transferred...

? .. did you get the website first build and then joined the affiliate program

My site is always under construction, but yes I had a good start. They want something to look at so they know they aren't selling via porn sites and other unethical uses of the Internet.