my personal solution to the passionfruit debaucle

July 26, 2013

It's like the google reader announcement all over again: all bloggers who use passion fruit have gotten the e-mail, and many are less than thrilled. For those who don't know, the now-free service will be a paid monthly subscription come September.

For the more successful blogger who makes a steady income stream from their craft, congratulations. The $9 montly service charge likely isn't an issue. You are likely one of the lovely few who pays for the fancier edition of rafflecopter.

For the smaller or swap only blog, this is an issue. I can accept that the service is worth paying for, but it doesn't make sense for me to pay for a blogging service when blogging isn't really paying me.

something like that. via

Many other bloggers have complained, raised concerns, and sought out new ideas. It's not like we can all mass-migrate to the bloglovin' of passion fruit. There's no such thing as far as I know. is my personal solution for re•solve sponsorships:

All of my ads will be available at the posted rate in August. Swaps will still be available as well. Contact me to swap.

From September on (at least for the forseeable future), all of my ads will be free and chosen at random through the rafflecopter. Five spaces, all of the same size, will be up for grabs each month. I will post the rafflecopter on the last Monday of each month and ads will go up on the first of the following month.

Where does that leave me? I don't know. But I'm happy to help my fellow bloggers and hope that karma will make its way back to me in the end.

How about the rest of you PF users? Who's sticking around? Any other fun ideas?

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  1. I had JUST signed up for Passionfruit a few weeks before that email went out. I can't say I'm happy about it, I had signed up for PF because it was FREE and everyone I knew who used it RAVED about it. I guess it doesn't matter since I wasn't getting any business from it anyways. I'll go back to selling my own for now.

  2. I agree, I'm not happy about it either. I don't make any money from ads but I love having swaps. Guess I will have to come up with my own way!

  3. Girl, you must of known I was gonna email you asking questions about this and your thoughts. What to be on top of it.

    Dang, and I was just looking into sponsorship

  4. "it doesn't make sense for me to pay for a blogging service when blogging isn't really paying me."

    I love how you said this. My thoughts exactly. I love how easy Passionfruit was to use. However, I was only using it for swaps so I won't be paying for the service anymore. I haven't thought about it too much but I was thinking about using a Google form to let people sign up for ad swaps. I like your rafflecopter idea.

  5. I don't make any money from ads either, but I love swapping! Passionfruit is really great, but paying $9 a month just so I can be lazy and let them do some copy and pasting for me is probably not going to happen.

    Found you though the Let Be Friends Link-up and following on bloglovin! :)

  6. I really like your idea...I love the ease of passionfruit so I'm so disappointed. I actually thought about what I want to do and I'm interested to see how it will work...I think I'm going to post about it next week. We shall know, I'd love to get other's input on it...think I could send it to you and get your opinion?

  7. I think I'm going to do swaps over e-mail from now on.

  8. I just signed up for the paid thing, and hopefully within a year I can make $50 in ad sales to cover it. It stinks that it is no longer free, but that is like the oldest trick in the internet business model, suck you in then start charging when they think you are comfortable. I am sure there are little entrepreneurs out there right now working on a cheaper alternative.

  9. I am glad someone is talking about this! I thought I was the only one worried :).


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