You find it pointless, they are asking for it so clearly find it useful. I donāt think weāre here to judge how they do their research, theyāre just asking questions. Not really sure how shitting on their methods of research is helping anything at all, itās definitely not helping plus.
I think you need to look at whatās on offer currently in the market as a starting point. People keep mentioning Nationwide FlexPlus because itās the best there is and the one to beat. For Ā£13pm, you get a set of features that are relevant to a lot of people:
Break down cover - most people own a car.
Travel insurance for the family - most people go on holiday.
Mobile phone insurance - everyone owns a phone.
If you were able to compete with this package youād be onto a winner. To take it further, being able to pick n mix would make this a step above the competition. You need to get these fundamentals nailed down before introducing other things that people may see as no value added. Day 1 of the new Plus shouldnāt be about delivering a complex all singing and dancing solution, just the core features done right.
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Just launch a Premium Credit Card please. With annual fee, with cashback, no fx charges, no cash fees, integrated in the app.
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Seconded.
No thanks.
If Monzo want to launch a credit card thatās an entirely different proposition. A different thread is needed for this.
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Thanks @tomdavies for the update! We can all make mistakes, but itās how we learn from them and improve thatās important 
Completed the survey + looking forward to watching the journey unfold publicly!
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Iām reading all this with a vague sense of despair.
Monzo have created a product called āMonzo Plus,ā but donāt seem to know what it is or what it might cost.
As customers, we might assume that it will mirror other premium current account offerings. In which case, donāt ask us, just have a look at the competition.
But at the same time, thereās a suggestion that Monzo Plus is going to be different and unlike other offerings. In which case, how the hell are we supposed to know what Monzo are thinking?
Most of these services markets (insurance, breakdown, etc) are saturated and I see little or no opportunity for Monzo to produce offerings that undercut the price comparison sites.
Iām sad to say that original Monzo Plus offering appears to have been driven by hopeless optimism, naivety, and fantasy. (With perhaps a touch of people wanting to try new card colours.)
Whatever happens next needs to be properly considered and genuinely viable. A starting point would be defining the problem that Monzo Plus is supposed to be solving.
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Budgeting features should absolutely not be behind a Monzo plus paywall. It is a feature to attract users. Legacy banks like Barclays are bricking it and so are very quickly trying to play catch up, they have just launched a summary feature so Monzo needs to ensure its basic account is always ahead of the game.
Do Stirling/N26/revolute/Dozens to offer budgeting features free of charge? If so Iād image people would just move to a competitor if app features are behind a paywall.
In my view app features shouldnāt be behind a paywall, only benefits that have substance I.e. defined values such as insurance/airport lounge access should be charged for.
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I agree with pretty much everything you say in the remainder of your post. However, Iād challenge whether most of Monzoās customers - particularly those living in the big cities - own a car. And many people are single. So offering them a product thatās based on several family members benefitting isnāt going to be cost effective for them.
I think the only way out of this is either to have different product offerings for different demographic groups (e.g. single people living in cities, or people with families living in the suburbs or countryside) or to go back to the modular model - whereby add-ins are selected individually.
I also agree with some earlier posts that the metal card option is of interest to a very select group of customers - and the only way to please them and yet still offer value for money to everyone else is to make them separate add-ones. Ditto swag.
Couldnāt agree more.
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100% this! This is exactly why Plus should be customisable to the individual for it to be better and differentiate itself from the current market, bundles donāt work in the majority of cases as you have customers paying for services they donāt need.
They are very successful if you take NationWide as an example. Part of the reason I suspect NationWide can provide all that cover for Ā£13 is because not everyone needs all 3. If you split them up and provide an a la carte approach I wouldnāt be surprised to find the separate prices jump quite a bit.
I do agree that an a la carte approach would be ideal, but I think we may find in practice the pricing wouldnāt be as good. With NationWide, you canāt toggle on/off the package as and when you need it, so they know from a revenue perspective where they are. That likely gives them hefty discounts when it comes to buying policies in bulk.
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Definitely admire you guys being up front and honest about what works and what doesnāt. Good on you for it
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Iām not sure you can have a premium subscription model without bundles. By definition it targets a specific profitable segment and offers them a bundle some of which they wonāt use, because thatās how it makes money (if itās not a loss leader to attract that profitable customerās deposits). That is why it seems like a great deal.
So who is that profitable segment? Well, comparing to Nationwide Flex apparently it is: have a family, own cars, an expensive mobile, want travel, home and phone insurance but rarely claim on that insurance. This means you can profitably offer a bundle that they mostly wonāt use but are reassured by having and insurance companies will offer you insurance for a reasonable price.
If youāre going to allow choices anyway, why not just offer everyone a range of different products in a marketplace, there is no need for a premium subscription model to wrap that, and make sure you make a little money on each product. It also means Monzo could start experimenting right now with products and see what people will actually pay for them.
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This is a very good point. Iāve been a FlexPlus account holder for years and have claimed on the mobile phone insurance at least once a year. However, Iāve only used the breakdown cover twice and claimed on the travel insurance once.
Some people will use every benefit regularly and others will use them infrequently. However, the point of insurance is that itās there if you need it. Taking this into account, it should be possible to offer something along the lines of FlexPlus at an affordable price. Thereās always the risk that everyone will overuse every benefit but itās highly unlikely.
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The above are options I would like have at points in time, not bundled together in a MonzoPlus Account just to be able to get these, they should be available to all Monzo Customers not just oneās that decide to pay for an Account so they get another card that says MonzoPlus on it.
A possible Barclays style packaged account could work, you pay for what you need insurance / Benefits and small fee for rewards! I think that could reach a large group of people to suit different needs
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They could charge X amount for a bunch of features and then refund part of it for each of the features you donāt use in the year.
For example, if I didnāt claim on my phone insurance give me half the money back. Kind of like a no claims bonus.
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Think you can only claim the insurance back if youāve paid in advance and not used it 
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Yep thatās what I meant sorry 
At the end of the 12 months if youāve not claimed, receive a partial refund.
I also meant Monzo could offer this, not Nationwide 
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