Why Our Site Has a Monthly Fee

We thought long and hard about whether or not we should charge a monthly fee for our website. The other options to have the business be financially stable would have been to sell your personal data and/or bombard you with ads, which we didn’t want to do. We also didn’t want to charge you per script or for every new feature we add in the future.

Script protection

The main reason we returned to the importance of a monthly fee was to protect you. Charging a monthly fee ensures that random strangers with sinister motives will be deterred from signing up on the site. We’ve gone to great lengths to allow you to be in control of your script’s privacy. It’s your script so you should be able to decide who can see and access your ideas.

The problem with free sites

One of the largest problems on an open site is the fact that anyone can sign up, read your loglines, sometimes download your script, and cancel their membership. We did not want that to be the case. We’ve given you complete control. Learn more about your options for script privacy settings.

Requiring a credit card with free trial

We further ensured this by requiring a credit card upon sign up even during the free trial. We know asking for a credit card upon sign up when there is no charge for the 30-day free trial may deter even the honest and moral writers that might sign up without a credit card, but we did this for you, the writer. Why is it important that we require a credit card?

Most sites that require you to sign up only ask for an email and password. The truth is that anyone could sign up under a fake name with an email they can trash. It was very important to us that the people on our site have accountability. Since we know their full name and credit card information, you can rest assured that the people you are exchanging your hard work with are the people they say they are. In addition to this, you can also see everyone that has access to your script.

To add more helpful features for you

The other reason for a monthly fee is so more tools can be added to help writers improve, find community and collaboration, and find success. There are many features yet to be added. As writers ourselves, any tool or new feature that could make writing easier to create and a more enjoyable process should be and will be added to Writers Spotlight.