We're rethinking Monzo Plus bundles (and some other updates!)

Monzo Chat Monzo Plus
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Hi everyone! :wave:

Last month we announced the new bundles for Monzo Plus, as a way to make Plus simpler while still letting you choose the most relevant option for you. But we heard loud and clear from you that this isn’t what you wanted. So we wanted to hold up our hands and say: we’ve missed the mark here.

Not only did we get the product wrong, but we didn’t communicate with you enough during the process. We want to change that, and make sure you’re the first to know when we take a new approach or need your feedback. And that starts today. Here’s some updates on what we’re up to.

Bundles haven’t been performing very well. So we’re pausing this direction for now.

We’ve seen a significant number of people sign up for the Supporter bundle, but not Traveller or Home. (For context, we didn’t do a big push on social media or elsewhere - because we were still testing out the new bundles). But overall, take-up of the new bundles isn’t what we’d hoped it would be.

People can still sign up for the bundles if they like what’s on offer, but we’re not migrating existing Plus customers over to anything just yet. Until we know exactly what you’re migrating to, we won’t move you.

We’re looking again at other models

We’re accelerating our research and planning into a different structure for Monzo Plus.

Previously we’ve said that single bundles don’t offer great value, and that’s exactly what drove us to build and test the previous models - the Core and Custom features we launched the first time around, and the most recent bundles. But there’s no point in building something that’s super personalised if only a minority of customers want it - to make Monzo Plus a success, it needs to work for a significant chunk of our customer base (which will soon hit 3 million! :tada:).

We’ve removed The Home bundle

We discovered yesterday that we’d mistakenly removed some key information from the latest flow. It’s not something we could easily fix so we removed the bundle entirely. We won’t add it back until we’ve figured out the direction we want to take Plus in, and the best way to offer contents insurance generally.

Metal cards are coming, but not right away

We’re still finalising the details of the metal card prize draw, and waiting on some prototypes to be delivered - so these plans may change.

But our current thinking is that once we’ve fully tested metal cards (hopefully towards the end of September) we’ll start running prize draws for all new customers who’ve bought the Supporter bundle and for all customers who’d signed up to Monzo Plus previously, but haven’t had a chance to switch to The Supporter.

The "buy 3 bundles, get a metal card free" offer will apply for anyone who did so before we removed the Home bundle. As we’re now reconsidering the future of Plus, it doesn’t make sense to extend the offer more widely. If you’re eligible, we’ll be in touch when we’re ready with your metal card.

We’ll make sure that anyone who wants swag gets it

We’re finalising the details of swag as we speak, but anyone who joined Monzo Plus as an early bird (i.e. if you’re paying £3 per month for your Core features) who feels like they’ve missed out on receiving swag will be included in the first swag run of the Supporter bundle. This is even if you choose not to switch to the Supporter bundle in the future (if that becomes an option). We’ll let you know more about this when we can!

We’re testing adding deposit interest back in

You told us that you were unhappy about us removing the interest on balances. As of today, we’re testing adding it back in. We’re doing it as an experiment, which means some people will get it, and some people won’t. We know that can be frustrating but bear with us. If the test results look good, we’ll look to make it available more widely.

How you can help

Something the last few weeks has shown us is that our Community is great at letting us know when we’re on the wrong path. You know what makes Monzo awesome - you helped us get there!

So please keep telling us when you think we’re on the wrong path. Explain what doesn’t feel quite right. Tell us what you personally would expect and like to see us do. We can’t promise we’ll always do what you suggest, but we’ll always listen and consider it.

Please share your feedback in the knowledge that the Monzo Plus team is working hard to build something awesome - but we’re only human, and we make mistakes.

We’ve made some missteps so far, but we’re confident that we can build Monzo Plus into something really amazing with your help. Thanks for bearing with us! :hot_coral_heart:

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The speed in which you can respond to feedback is what makes Monzo what it is. Great work on listening.

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Yeeey this makes me feel warm and fuzzy about Monzo Plus again :heart: :hugs:

You’re now back on track in my mind. Interest and a rethink on how you can deliver what you originally set out to do is needed.

Here is a reminder:

Use your awesome Monzo brains to solve that and you’re onto a winner. This will set Monzo as the bank that breaks the mould again instead of following what is already done :slight_smile:

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Thanks for listening and hopefully we can all help shape this product to work for the majority

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I don’t think you’ve properly tested the extent to which people want super personalised options.

The previous iteration required the Core package as an entry requirement to accessing customization options. This entry requirement is what was unappealing to many.

Try super personalized options again but without the requirement for a Core Package.
Or if there must be a Core Package make it very cheap (ÂŁ1 to ÂŁ2 per month).

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I’m glad to see that Plus is getting a rethink! I along with many others still believe that the original customisable model had real potential. I don’t think any amount of market research can accurately reflect this, because people won’t know how great it is until you build it.

Out of curiosity, how is this test being measured? Personally I think interest may not be the reason people are signing up, but it might be the only thing keeping them from cancelling (from the feedback seen on the other thread and from my own point of view). How can you record that kind of data? :thinking:

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Maybe try asking next time what people want next time (instead of asking just FIVE PEOPLE). Just an idea. We would have told you they would not perform well - before you wasted a ton of investors money in it.

Custom bundles was ALWAYS the way to go, but the implementation was just awful. You can make this work. You have good people.

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Fully agree with this.

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Genuinely interested in what the experiment is set out to measure?

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I’m not a massive fan on Monzo and primarily just hang out here for fintech related chat in general, in fact I do my banking with Starling.

Looking at it from the outside this is a really nice update, and it looks like everything has been taken on board. Kudos to the plus team, despite messing up, you’ve admitted it and began to take steps to make things right and that speaks volumes about the type of people involved in the project.

Mistakes happen, it’s how you handle them that matters.

Really impressed.

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I just want to personally re-iterate what I mentioned before. Although it made tough reading (I’m sure more so for the people who worked on it!) we are endlessly grateful to all of you who gave us your clear, concise feedback on the previous announcement. What I was especially glad to see is that the feedback was all shared with the intent of making something better that wasn’t working for you all in the form we’d thought it might. And even though some folks were understandably frustrated, it was coming from a good place and with the right intentions.

This is a testament to the true power of this community. And that makes me so happy. A perfect example of making money work for everyone.

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Plus is to Monzo as AirPower is to Apple
 :man_facepalming:t3:

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Thanks for the update, I’m glad you’re listening.

I’m still not sure how Plus will recover (in the short term) from what has happened over the past few months but I do hope it gets there in the future.

Can I ask what’s happening to us customers who are still on the first iteration? I’m still paying £3 a month and had the intention to add insurance as and when it was announced but I now have no idea when that’s going to be? If ever? Are we going to be able to cancel our current subscription with a refund?

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Hey Harry. We’ll let you know when we have a more certain option for you to migrate to. Until then, you can cancel and hold out for the new Monzo Plus if you’d prefer :slight_smile:

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is JAs part of the re-think pls

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The experiment is still running, so we can’t share much now without risking influencing the results! :eyes:

But ultimately, what we want to figure out is how best to offer deposit interest - how much interest to offer and where it belongs.

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Defaqto 5 star family travel insurance please

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You’re welcome.

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I thought “swag” was going to be referred to as “merch” from now on?

Also, well done for listening to what the vast majority of people have been saying.

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I’m not a plus user but this is so wonderful to hear. I’m super psyched about the readdition of interest. Keep on the track Monzo and I will definitely consider signing up to Plus :slight_smile: )

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