I’m struggling a bit with this all, to be honest.
My instinctive response is a visceral “no” to Monzo becoming a chargeable product. But if you break it down, I think there are areas where it might make sense and areas where it doesn’t.
Let’s start with where it doesn’t. The survey published by @tomdavies in the fresh start post had a mock up in it that had three options: Monzo Pro, Monzo Premium and Monzo Basic:
I find this fundamentally uncomfortable. By calling the current account “Basic” anchors a number of things: in customers’ minds, they aren’t getting the ‘full experience’ (but maybe that’s the point?); in Monzo’s mind, it cements the thought that the ‘normal’ bank account is a basic one. That it isn’t the place for advanced features. Or new features. So the basic account becomes more basic over time. And new features end up in the paid for plans.
This, to me, is the freemium model. This is what I don’t want to see. Monzo might be both a tech company and a bank, but there’s a different emotional model between (proper regulated) banking and, say, Spotify.
So what do I think works? I’d like Monzo to move towards a marketplace model for extensions to the app itself. I’ve proclaimed war on toggles - because I don’t think the app should become cluttered. But if someone has a particular advanced need, then I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to buy it from an app store. The example of YNAB is an interesting one. I have no need of that in the app - I might try it if it were available, but it’d probably just clutter things up for me. But if there were an app store to allow folk to buy extensions, then I think I’d be down with that. And I think it should also be open to third party developers like @Sherlock.
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect Monzo would make an absolute fortune from this model, if they had a bit of faith (and got the regulator on board).
(If anyone’s interested, I set this out in more detail over here).
But this doesn’t really answer the question of paid-for features in the short term.
On balance, I’d say I’m against it. Indeed, I worry that “Monzo Basic” will be seen to be pre-paid like card - and make it harder to convert folk to go #FullMonzo - as it’ll be presumed you have to pay for that. And that Monzo Basic will be seen as your coffee and transport card.
I’d be willing to pay (maybe) for a packaged account. We’ve mentioned FlexPlus a lot. If Monzo Pro offers similar value, I might go for it - but if I feel like I’m being pushed down the the Monzo Pro route only because features are getting pay-walled, rather than it adding extra value to me, then I’ll probably CASS elsewhere and just use Monzo for spending money. Which, ironically, will relieve Monzo of the revenue that I’m currently bringing in.
This does all feel rather short-termist. These things are not mutually exclusive, but what about things like offering those who are Full Monzo (and therefore profitable) a choice of card colours after a year or something? Or the ability to buy into that option beforehand as a chargeable thing? Basically, find a way to drive up engagement to go Full Monzo - it feels like that would be a better route to profitability surely?