Ezoic Premium Plan Review – Why NOT to join ? Perception vs Reality?

We have been using Ezoic for over couple years and have been part of their journey. We started off with basic plan and then moved on to the premium plan upon invitation. We were excited and joined the premium plan. Though we made a little money, we were locked in and had to pay a lot of money to exit, when the performance of the ads degraded and we had no choice. Below is our real experience.

What is the Ezoic Premium Plan ? How does it work ?

Ezoic Premium Plan is something that is tagged as an elite exclusive plan that you would be invited to. They have positioned the plan in such a way that anyone getting it feels that they got a big accomplishment in life in Ad industry. Below is how it works.

1. Ezoic would say that you have been accepted to their premium plan that is for premium advertisers and all that sales pitch and says, it is a limited offer. Also, they say if you dont take it, you may not get chance in future.
2. You pay an upfront cost based on your traffic like below at the beginning of the month anywhere from in few tens of dollars to few thousands of dollars as you can see below screenshot. You can only upgrade the plan from one tier like 5 start to Diamond or Double Diamond, but you cannot downgrade your plans from the tiers. You can move within a tier from basic to Elite and vice versa.
3. Ezoic will lock you into a 1 year contract after that and will not even inform you about renewal and do it without your knowledge.
4. Every month they will show your earnings as premium earnings that are slightly higher than the amount you paid. They also limit your earnings on what you can earn as per their guidance given for that plan. We never made anything to the maximum limit, they will put it in middle and even 5 to 10 percent lower than maximum possible you can earn.

Ezoic Premium Plan – Reporting Perception Vs. Reality

The whole idea of Ezoic to pay you upfront and lock you into contract is to make you feel that you are part of an elite group. Their customer service is great, but this whole premium thing is not about the service, it is about creating a perception of premium and make the advertiser pay it upfront. We have no issue with paying a premium fee for platform, but it tucked under RPM and other things that seem like really bloated, which is not true.

The point is not about the little extra money you make, it is about how it blows up all the metrics and changes your perception about the RPM (ePMVs in ezoic world) See below how it works. If you see the Revenue with thicker green is premium revenue in below screenshot. if you look closely, you can see the relative RPM or EPMV ( earnings per 1000 visitors) is also blow up. This creates a perception that you are making more money. But in reality, you are not making so much money. Remember, you are paying some money upfront, that is also added to revenue, so your perception is that you are making a lot of money, but you are not.

In any case, they do this for their SaaS business. No other vendor does the lock-in like this and take such hefty fee. The simple logic is why you should you pay for the ads, when your site as a publisher is high quality. It is just defies basic logic. We kept basic plan only for reporting.

One thing to be clear is, you will NOT lose money, but on the same way, you wont make A LOT of money too. It is around what they say in the list. So, say you pay $440 as per their plan, you may get $600 to $650. It is a not a lot, but definitely we did not lose money.

Why NOT to join the Ezoic Premium Plan ?

While the plan sounds really good on the surface and we also made money, we exited the plan as they renewed the plan without our knowledge and we were asked to pay the monthly payment for premium. So, we ended up paying more than we actually got out of Ezoic. They renewed our plan for Second year without giving any notice or anything. That is the worst part. You have no intimation of the same. So, be careful.

Though you do not lose money and make a little money like 20% return on what you paid. Example, you have paid $400 you get paid $80 more, it is not worth the money because it inflates your metrics and lock you into contract and then the performance is degraded…but, you cannot do much as you are locked in.

Is Ezoic Premium Worth it?

Honestly, Ezoic Premium is not worth it. It will make you feel that you are getting more money, but you are probably marginally getting a little higher. Their whole game with the Ezoic premium is to lock the publisher, so that you do not leave you.

Also, think about it logically, why should you pay as the publisher to be part of some program to get more money? Isn’t it the ad provider like Ezoic’s duty to get you the most value for ads on your website. I personally think it is a scheme to lock you up.

Conclusion

In general Ezoic is a decent platform and ad tech company to join, if you are a new player in the space and do not have enough traffic to go with Raptive or Mediavine. Our advice is not to go with the Ezoic premium, it sounds very much like a black box and does not help you, if you want to make any decisions. Also, you are locked in to something which you cannot get out.

What are your thoughts on this ? Share your feedback for users.