Up to 1 TB Storage and FTP Added to Relaunched $199/year Service

Vimeo today has reintroduced Vimeo Pro, the company's playback service aimed at professional filmmakers, offering expanded storage and playback options at the same annual subscription price unveiled in 2011 when the service first rolled out. Vimeo president Dae Mellencamp told StudioDaily that adding 1 TB of storage and unlimited HD plays—the two biggest requests from current users—without increasing the current $199 per year cost is meant to be "disruptive, not just competitive." The original intention of Vimeo Pro, she said, was to create "a super high-quality and cost-effective solution for creative pros and small businesses. Our users loved the service, but we started hearing more and more that they didn't want the storage cap. We always want to give our customers more and we're constantly listening to feedback. What we came up with was a way to essentially disrupt our own service by giving them what they want without charging them for it. Essentially, we just took away limits wherever we could so our users just don't have to think about it."

Making those loyal Vimeo Pro users happy, Mellencamp pointed out, should help bring in new Pro subscribers. "If people were worried about caps in the past, they can now get up to 20 GB per week, translating to over 1 TB per year, with the new plan," she said. "This was a key part of the relaunch and we're really excited about it."

Confusion about how many and how often to buy incremental plays for an anticipated audience—especially if a video were to go viral—led Vimeo to consider offering unlimited HD playback with the new service. "It's HD, it's SD, it's onsite, it's offsite," said Mellencamp. "There are no more add-ons. It's just unlimited, period. People no longer have to worry or guess about play volume or get bogged down in complex math or calculations about bandwidth. If they have a video that goes viral, that's great. We want to be able to support that without having our users worry about how they are going to pay for it." FTP support, another frequent customer request, is also now available in the upgraded plan. "We want our users to invest in their work and not worry about how they are going to pay for high-quality distribution, move files, or get them to play on multiple devices. We want to put that all within their control."

Mellencamp emphasized that the newly revamped service includes a "VIP" customer service perk that will put users in touch with a live tech support representative, at Vimeo headquarters in New York and not at a call center overseas, within one hour during weekdays and within 24 hours on weekends. "Our support is all full-time staff in house—it is not outsourced," said Mellencamp. "These are the same people that we work with as a team, from development to product, every day." Vimeo is concurrently adding priority customer service support with a four-hour response time to Vimeo Plus, their individual-use service.

Mellencamp said the team is continuing to develop new features, like the recently released Vimeo on Demand and Tip Jar. You can read Vimeo's official press release here.

Vimeo Pro: vimeo.com/pro