This article was updated on October 8, 2021.
Starting on June 22nd 2016, our PNG and PDF export as well as the print feature will be available for users of MindMeister’s Personal, Pro, Business, and Education plans only.
Uhm, why’s that?
Export and print are two of the most technically challenging and time consuming features in MindMeister. We’re constantly working to improve the quality of these features to enable people to create complex, well-structured documents, or nice-looking presentations and images from it. Since it’s almost exclusively professionals who need these high-quality exports, we feel that it makes sense to move them into the subscription plans meant for professionals. This also means we’ll be able to provide a better service for our paying users.
OK, but…
What about Education users?
PDF and PNG exports, as well as our print feature, will be available for paid MindMeister Edu Plans, too.
Is this change up for discussion?
Nope, sorry.
Where can I complain about this?
Right here in the comments 😉
Is there anything you can give us \”free\” users in return that is *not* technically challenging? Some of us are only occasional users and like the software, but do not use it enough to justify a subscription. Still, it\’s nice to think the software is getting better and offering more value to everyone. I can imagine that some of us occasional users may be disappointed.
Hi William,
Our dedicated team of full-time developers constantly works on improving MindMeister, its technology in the back-end, its speed, reliability and functionality – and not just in those parts that are open to paying users only. Over the past 6 months we\’ve added an integration with Atlassian\’s Confluence, updated our infrastructure, added the zoom on location feature, improved the map listing and topic connections – all of which is beneficial for our Basic users.
Don\’t get us wrong, we very much appreciate all our users and we chose a freemium model precisely because we thought that occasional users, too, should be able to use our tool without having to pay for it.
So when you ask whether we can give our free users \”something in return\”, we\’re wondering in return for what exactly.
I think that this is a fair-enough development. Good news is that the free element still includes managing a couple of maps online for free and I like that because it means I can access the mind maps from multiple locations. The bit I will complain about is that I wanted to upgrade my account to Personal so that I can export the mind maps into freemind format but need to pay USD$39 for the privilege. Can I join for a month, do the download, pay my USD$6 and be happy knowing that I dont have to type it all up again?
Hi Nenad,
Thank you for understanding, we appreciate the feedback. We\’re curious what it would take for you to keep your mind maps in MindMeister instead of moving them to Freemind – is there something in particular you\’re missing in MindMeister or is a subscription simply out of the question for you?
We currently don\’t offer monthly plans, but please feel free to contact our support team – sometimes another solution can be found.
That is actually a very good question. I wanted to convert my two maps to Freemind primarily because I really could not be bothered typing them up again and I just wanted my mind maps on my PC in my office to tinker with. But, and if I am really honest, I can actually do that online with MindMeister so really no net loss.
Having thought about it, now that you have asked, what I really wanted is to retain control over my content. I did not want my mind maps locked to a platform that prohibited me from withdrawing it, printing it on a massive piece of paper, standing in front of it with a marker pen (you get the image). Creating and withdrawing content to me are two sides of one coin – like working and getting paid.
The whole point of a platform is that people develop familiarity with it and keep coming back to it. But that implies a presence of choice. With this latest move, you have kind of eliminated the choice by locking the exit in the Basic option. I feel it would have been much more effective if you said: OK folks, from June 20 you can only have one mind map, limited features and you can export only to PDF. If you want extra please pay (and by the way, if you want a free trial of all features for a short period of time please register your interest and we\’ll think it over). That approach would then make me think really hard about paying for the next level up of the membership.
As for the subscription being an option…You see I am not a super-user. I will make a mind map and then spend the next six months realising it. For smaller stuff you are competing against pen and paper which I find very therapeutic (can you believe they make colouring books for adults?!). So paying a subscription to something I will only really use 2-3 times per year compared to a subscription to Stratfor, or HBR or similar just doesn\’t make any economic sense.
The more raw version of what I said above is that I hate periodic payments which is probably why I am not rich but I do have less to think about if I change credit cards which I do on occasion.
However, I am a fan of a one off cost for a standalone/integrated product I can use in perpetuity with the features i need – like an app (Just came across Simplemind)
Fundamentally however, out of everything I wrote above, it just really comes down to me not being a super-user and only really needing your basic offering with the export option. This includes a low cost app. There are ample free alternatives (albeit not as stylish as Mindmeister) which in combination with Google Drive are a credible option. However, being cheap takes time and I like my time as well as when things integrate well. I don\’t know if this will be enough to sway you one way or the other but it is what it is. Mindmeister is a nice tool and I wouldn\’t have a bother recommending it to people who are interested in these sorts of products.
Apologies for a long message but you got me thinking about it so this is all I had (unedited – sorry).
Nenad
Hi Nenad,
Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback. We have seen a lot of people who went from occasional users to power users once they realized how many benefits and use cases there really are for mind mapping, but of course we also understand that not everyone will switch to MindMeister to do all of their planning, brainstorming, strategizing and presenting, and we realize that an ongoing subscription might not be justified for such occasional users. The discussion of monthly vs 6-monthly vs yearly plans is an ongoing one, and we will take your feedback into account. We\’ve also thought about offering lifetime access for a one-time payment, so I guess that would solve the periodic payment problem, too 😉
\”Starting on June 22nd 2016\”: It\’s June 21. Is there a reason why I can\’t export my maps as PDF?
I find myself in a situation similar to what others have pointed. I would pay for my subscription myself and I rarely use MindMeister. Maybe once every 6 months.
I do like the product, even if it lacks features I\’ve needed recently (support for brainstorming by a distributed group, for example). However, I am not sure I\’m ready to pay for the couple of times a year I\’m using it.
Hi Olivier,
Very sorry about this, not sure why the feature is already blocked for you. The deadline is correct though, so we can absolutely export your maps for you. Please just send an email to [email protected] and tell them which maps you\’d like exported.