The FreeGreen Premium & Professional Memberships are Here

Posted June 18, 2009 06:16 by David

Tags: freegreen premium membership, green home product discounts, autocad house plans, customization discounts, free and premium house plans

Hello All,

Today we are proud to announce our FreeGreen Premium & Professional Memberships.  We are sure that these new site features, and the new site functionality surrounding these programs will raise many questions, which we wanted to address here.  As always please feel free to leave a comment below, or contact us at support@freegreen.com to discuss, give your feedback, and help us develop a better site.

Q1: So….Is FreeGreen Still Free?

A1:  Yes and no.  FreeGreen still allows users to sign up for Basic (free) membership, which gives you access to all of our great, high quality free (vendor advertisement supported) house plans, our green products database, our knowledge base Q&A center, and our blogs.

Q: Who is the Premium or Professional membership for?

A: Our different membership levels are meant to target a wide audience:

• The Basic (free) Membership is for anyone just browsing FreeGreen or looking to learn about green design.  These members can still download any of our free sponsored house plans.   
• Premium Membership is for any individual who is planning a green home building or renovation project.  
• Professional Membership is for a Builder or Architect who is serious about building and designing green homes.

We are very excited about these new membership levels and helping green home enthusiasts in new ways.

Q: What is included in the Premium and Professional membership levels?

A: See our Premium Membership Benefits, Builders Professional Membership Benefits, and Architect Professional Membership Benefits pages for a good comparison. We are working on a tour that will walk through benefits in a more dynamic way. Stay tuned.

Q:  Why a premium membership?

A:  A decent subset of the FreeGreen community and outside media has expressed both appreciation for our plans as well as a concern that an advertisement-supported house plan may be biased.  Though we are confident in the performance and green characteristics of our product specifications, we understand how this perception can create a certain hesitation in a user.  In response to this sentiment, we developed a set of house plans that do not contain product advertising.  This way, this choice is your, free plans supported by advertisers, or a paid membership to access all of our non-sponsored plans.

However, no ads meant we'd have to charge for these plans, so rather then go into the “traditional house plan” business we wanted to put together a useful membership package which would truly help our users with their green home projects.  Said another way, If we were going to charge a fee, we wanted to offer users more than just the plans.  To do this we first worked with many of our green product vendor and retailer partners to obtain exclusive discounts on their products that we could offer to our members. Then we decided to allow Premium Users to have access to the CAD versions of our house plans so that they can easily work with local contractors and designers on their projects.  We also included huge (50%) discounts on our customization services, and of course the ability to have access to our Premium Plans.

All in all, FreeGreen Premium Membership puts a lot of resources at your fingertips.

Q: What is the value of a Premium membership?

A:  A FreeGreen Premium membership provides $9,000-$15,000 of value for only $19.95/year.  Here is how we figured that number:

• Typical AutoCAD formatted house plans cost $3,000 per house plan
• Typical house plans cost $500-$2,000 per house plan
• FreeGreen estimates that a user could easily save $5,000 to $10,000 on their home project by using our discount program
• FreeGreen estimates an average savings of $500 per customization service

 But you don't have to take our word for it.  Do your own research and let us know what you find. 

Q:  Why a Professional Membership?

A:  We wanted to offer a toolkit of sorts that would help any professional who is serious about building and designing green homes.  This package exists to offer professionals:

• Full Premium Membership benefits
• Constant access to our Building Science Corporation reviewed details library, with bi-annual updates
• Full AutoCAD files of every plan we offer for your use as you please, whether to grab a detail or edit for your clients
• The ability to interact with FreeGreen users and match them up with the right designer or builder.  Professionals are able to develop a relationship with a user by answering their questions during their research phase and establish themselves as a trusted advisor by the time the user is ready to move forward.

As any professional knows, one use of a CAD plan, the time saved accessing a building detail (rather than drawing from scratch), or a successful project lead would pay for the modest member fee immediately and many times over.

For more on the benefits and pricing of the Professional Membership please see our Builders Benefits Page or the Architects Benefits Page.  

Q: But Your Name is FreeGreen, How Can You Charge for Anything?

A:  Premium membership was the natural next evolution of FreeGreen's offering.  In providing unbiased, ad-free plans, thousands of dollars in product discounts, and CAD files of each plan, we further enable users to realize their dream home. Also see “Why a Premium Membership?” above.

FreeGreen's mission has always been, and will continue to be, to significantly improve the quality, energy efficiency, and environmental impact of residential construction by increasing access to good green design.  We feel that we have stayed true to that mission throughout our company’s history.  In just over one year, we have engaged over 10,000 registered members, given away 30,000 house plans (the equivalent of $3 million), and helped hundreds of people plan for, start, and complete their green home projects.  FreeGreen will continue this mission with an expanded offering to its users.

E-mail | Permalink | Comments (1) | Comment RSS