Esnipe rate change
sellitstore
Posts: 2,862 ✭✭✭✭✭
Just received a notice from Esnipe that their rates are going up as of today. OK, they are successful and fairly reliable and have the right to set and raise their rates as they choose.
However, when you presell your services in exchange for a discount as Esnipe has, you shouldn't be able to change the price after the services have been bought and paid for. I (and presumably others) prepaid for Bidpoints at discounted rates (about 3/4 of a cent per dollar spent.) and now Esnipe is changing (doubling, in some cases) my cost.
Or, are they going to only charge me 3/4 cent for the points already purchased and paid for long ago? If they aren't now charging me the new rate until my already purchased points are used up, that would be OK but they don't indicate that is the case anywhere. For those who have also prepurchased Bidpoints, what do you think?
Comments
I use Gixen. It works great and is free. They do offer a "mirror" service that backs up your primary snipe (which increases success rate from 99% to 99.99%), for $6 per year (mega-cheap). I do the the mirror so the site runner has enough funds to keep it going. The iphone app works great as well.
That's good to know. Thanks for the information. Does anyone else know of other alternatives? There used to be programs that ran on your computer but off sight dedicated servers are probably more reliable. Does anyone use BidSlammer?
Esnipe did make an adjustment after two emails, crediting me enough to compensate for the points already purchased. They may provide better service but I'm paying a lot more than $6/yr.
Have you looked at the new cost versus results? How much is the increase? Has the service been successful? I guess my question is, what is the increased cost versus return if you are looking at it from that standpoint. My thinking is that most everything is a little more expensive, and if not, it will be soon. I don’t really look at the cost alone, but figure versus my use, my return, etc. There are tons of free sniping services, and many that cost monthly, yearly, etc. What do you think is best for you? Just to make sure I understand, you are saying the increase is 75 cents per 100 dollar use?
Checkout justsnipe.com
I highly recommend Gixen. Never lost a snipe in over 10 years of using it. Their app used to be clunky but they upgraded it about 9 months ago and it is now awesome! The computer interface is great as well.
One of the free snipe programs was known for not executing bids.
The rate change at Esnipe isn't a simple straightforward price increase. The structure and rates have both changed, so as to assess smaller snipes a higher rate. It's hard to tell exactly how much the increase will be for me, but, yes, it should work out to about 75 cents more per $100 on the larger purchases but minimums just instituted on small purchases makes their rate effectively much higher. Previously, you paid about $1 per $100 in purchases, LESS any offered discount for quantity prepurchase, which could be up to 25 cents per $100.
This is still a small fee for a useful tool but if that fee can be zero or close to it, it can save several hundred dollars per year for me. Yes one needs to weigh the costs and benefits as @NewEnglandRarities says. Esnipe is pretty reliable but hasn't been 100%. They used to miss maybe 1 in 100 snipes but that has improved to maybe 1 in 500 or 1 in 1000, if I had to guess.
Yes, reliability has been an issue with some. It's good to hear good things about Gixen.
Success in baseball as a hitter is achieved by getting a hit 3 out of every 10 opportunities. However, for a sniping program, I'd like to see success 999 out of 1000 times. And I don't want my airline pilot to get it wrong even once.