Introducing High Demand Pricing for Security Services
In Summer 2016, we began offering a site cleaning service for people with hacked websites. In Spring 2017, we added a second service: site security audits. The popularity of both services has grown tremendously since then. We now service hundreds of sites every month.
Our approach to cleaning or auditing a website requires a highly trained security analyst to perform hours of work on each site. We know that there are shortcuts we could take to speed up the process, but only at the expense of quality. That’s not a trade-off we’re willing to make.
At the same time, while demand for our services is consistently strong, it is also highly volatile. In the last year, we cleaned 3.6 times more sites in our busiest week than in our slowest. These increases in demand are driven largely by the success of cybercriminals at any given time, which is impossible to forecast. We continue to work on our ability to adjust our capacity to match incoming demand, but inevitably there are times when demand exceeds our maximum capacity.
To date, we have dealt with this problem by posting an estimated wait time at checkout. This worked quite well for a long time. Unfortunately we hit a point last month where it stopped working. During an unprecedented spike in order volume, our posted wait times grew to 7 business days. That is simply too long to wait. We knew we needed a new approach.
Introducing High Demand Pricing
Beginning today, we are changing the way we handle spikes in demand for our site security services. When the number of orders exceeds a preset threshold, we will be increasing our prices. The price increases will be expressed as a multiplier, eg 1.4x. For example, a single site cleaning purchased during a period where the high demand pricing multiplier is 1.2 would cost $214.80 (1.2 x $179). As demand increases, we will continue to increase the size of the multiplier.
We believe that with this change, price elasticity will dampen demand during spikes, preventing our security services team from getting swamped with orders and ensuring that you receive an acceptable turnaround time.
We will be closely monitoring the impact the pricing multiplier has on order volume and making adjustments as necessary.
A Continued Focus on Customer and Employee Experience
We have always prided ourselves on providing industry-leading customer service. We also work very hard to make Defiant a company that the best people in the industry want to work for. With that in mind, our approach to handling the inevitable mismatch between demand for services and our capacity to serve it could not compromise on the experience of our customers or employees doing the work.
We are confident that this change in approach will allow us deliver on both. We recognize that this will be an adjustment for many of you longtime customers. Your continued support is what enables us to remain the leader in WordPress security and ultimately make the web safer.
Comments
9:16 am
So... if there is low demand will the multiplier dip below 1.0X?
9:35 am
Hi Jess,
The base price won't change if there is no high demand in effect.
9:17 am
Understandable. Wordfence has provided me with excellent customer service in the past. I'm happy to be flexible.
9:40 am
Still might be useful to have the average lead time. With the surge pricing can see you're busy - but not how long things are likely to take.
9:52 am
Hi Ian,
The goal with the high demand pricing change is to deliver a consistently fast turnaround time, so that shouldn't be necessary going forward, but thank you very much for the feedback!
9:54 am
The business cost for you to provide service is higher during peak demand and my need for your excellent service would also be much higher just at the time that supply is down. Balancing supply and demand is how it ought to work, the only fair way for both the producer-YOU and the consumer-ME. I totally support your new model and for all the other quality and customer service reasons you’ve identified in this post. WordFence helps me sleep better! Thank you.
10:11 am
I think is an reasonable adjust to support your business and the customer satisfaction.
10:14 am
I understand the multiple during high peak.
For clarification if my site needs cleaning during a high peak time eg 1.4 multiply for fast service BUT I’m willing to wait 7 days in the ‘low price’ que will I still have an option of choosing high speed (1x1.4) and/or slow 7day service (1x1)?
You guys are the greatest.
Thanks
10:40 am
Hi Bruce, we have retained the priority option, which will always be available regardless of whether high demand pricing is active or not.
10:37 am
I completely get the new pricing model. During peak times people are going to have to work extra hours to get stuff done in a timely manner and thus be paid for that time. It might also during peak times make some people who have a non critical site issue wait till its slower and cheaper.
12:14 pm
Makes sense.
1:52 pm
Here's to your continued success.
No one beats Wordfence.
2:56 pm
Good idea, because makes sense.
3:49 pm
Does this pricing apply to those who purchased paid license keys? Is site cleanup still included with the paid WF version?
5:32 am
Hi Michele,
Good question! A premium Wordfence license key is included with the site cleaning, but not the other way around. However, if you've only recently just bought a license and you now realize that you need a site cleaning, we may be able to upgrade you. Please reach out to premium support if this is the case!