Power User account

bsvirginian

:scratch I now have a Standard usage of Smugmug and had tried recently to the Pro level with dismal results. Toooo hard. I have a couple of questions concerning the "Power user" account.
1) if I upgrade to power user will the rate be adjusted to take into account that I am already a Smugmugger?
2) My failure with Pro was the language was too complicated for my feeble brain. Although I had many of you're people offering me help they were in different time zones or such and we do work for a living so couldn't actually sit around for hours and sometimes days to get a response. In "Power" all I would want to do would be develop a header and a referred e-mail address for viewers to contact me. bsvirginian

Andy

bsvirginian wrote:

I now have a Standard usage of Smugmug and had tried recently to the Pro level with dismal results. Toooo hard. I have a couple of questions concerning the "Power user" account.
1) if I upgrade to power user will the rate be adjusted to take into account that I am already a Smugmugger?
2) My failure with Pro was the language was too complicated for my feeble brain. Although I had many of you're people offering me help they were in different time zones or such and we do work for a living so couldn't actually sit around for hours and sometimes days to get a response. In "Power" all I would want to do would be develop a header and a referred e-mail address for viewers to contact me. bsvirginian

Hello bs, I'm sorry that you found all that help unhelpful

Yes, we take into account the money you've paid for your account, and prorate accordingly - it's all automatic if you hit the "upgrade" button in your control panel.

bsvirginian

Thanks Andy

MacLoyal

I'm going to try out the Power User level
I have four days left in my trial period. I'm signing up for Smug, but I haven't had time to play on SM the last couple of days. I'd looked through all the information describing the different levels a few times and didn't see anything compelling about taking this midstep upgrade. I'm not in the Pro Account league.

Now that I have several galleries posted in the Standard level, I want to do more. The tidbit that actually grabbed me about the Power account is something I think Andy said in one of the posts in this category. It's that I can control the SM options from the pull down menu rather than letting viewers choose them (I believe that most viewers don't even notice or experiment with them). I particularly like the journal format for the type of posting I do.

I'll see what I think of the Power Account for a couple of days, but I'm guessing that's where I'll end up.

MacLoyal

Question about changing account type
I'm finally getting a chunk of time to play with my photos and SM again. I'm specifically looking at the viewer controlled drop down menu (in the standard account) and how that changes the pages if I select one of those options for display in the Power account.

If I set up a page with Power account options and I were to decide to downgrade my account, what would my pages with Power customization revert to? Specifically, would that change just the style in look & feel, or would a more drastic default set for all the customization features take over?

I'm still on the fence about which level to sign up with because I don't have a very good vision yet of what the Power level unleashes for me. I'm thinking of just getting the standard account and then upgrading at some point. Can you give me some reasons to just go Power now?

Andy

MacLoyal wrote:

I'm finally getting a chunk of time to play with my photos and SM again. I'm specifically looking at the viewer controlled drop down menu (in the standard account) and how that changes the pages if I select one of those options for display in the Power account.

If I set up a page with Power account options and I were to decide to downgrade my account, what would my pages with Power customization revert to? Specifically, would that change just the style in look & feel, or would a more drastic default set for all the customization features take over?

I'm still on the fence about which level to sign up with because I don't have a very good vision yet of what the Power level unleashes for me. I'm thinking of just getting the standard account and then upgrading at some point. Can you give me some reasons to just go Power now?

The power account is the same as Standard, but adds the ability to upload movies, and do complete customization: If you'd like to see some of the possibilities, have a look here: http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1801307 for some really well done SmugMug sites!

In case you didn't see it, this page http://www.smugmug.com/price/ outlines all the differences quite well

MacLoyal

MacLoyal wrote:

If I set up a page with Power account options and I were to decide to downgrade my account, what would my pages with Power customization revert to? Specifically, would that change just the style in look & feel, or would a more drastic default set for all the customization features take over?

Andy, could you or someone else who knows the answer, address the questions I asked about downgrading after you set something up with a Power account?

I appreciate you putting both of these links in the same place. I've reviewed them and revisited them. Those links give a good glimpse at the possibilities with a Power account. The pop up window that appeared in my sign up area about the different account levels is written in such spare language that it's not very informative and it's devoid of enticement. A link back to the more in depth descriptions of the accounts included in that pop up window would be so helpful. I took the time to go back into the SM site, find the location of the additional information and read the descriptions again. I think more newbies might do that if it were as easy as clicking on a link.

I've decided to sign up for the standard account even though I think the Power account will suit me better. Each time I read anything about the customization of banners and HTML code changes, I get intimidated. That's the thing that really makes the Power user's pages stand out, IMO, and I would definitely want to do it. I just don't want to stress over learning anymore at this time.

I'm going to continue playing and getting more proficient with the tools on the lower tier. Sometime down the road I will almost surely upgrade. I don't see any sense paying for it now when I won't be ready to use it for a while.

Thanks for your help. I'd still like my questions above answered because I wonder about spending the energy and time building more beautiful galleries and having something happen that would impair my ability to keep the higher level service.

Andy

MacLoyal wrote:

Andy, could you or someone else who knows the answer, address the questions I asked about downgrading after you set something up with a Power account?

Hi, if you customize at the power level, and then go back to standard, you cannot have a customized site anymore. So you lose that ability. Sorry I missed that part before