Mapwing Restructures Memberships and Price Levels

A month ago, I reviewed Mapwing, a site that allows you to create your own personalized virtual tours using images linked to an interactive map you create. At the time, I thought the service was a great idea that was limited by its pricing structure and associated features, which seemed geared toward a business-only audience, leaving little room for the casual user.

Soon after my review went live, I received an email from Andrew Hagenbuch, the CEO and co-founder of Redbug Technologies, creators of Mapwing. Identifying himself only as "Andrew from Redbug" (I had to Google him to verify that he was, in fact, the CEO), he asked about my concerns about the pricing structure as well as a bug I was experiencing.

On Monday I received a general email letting all Mapwing users know that more features were available for free accounts, as well as an email from Andrew explaining that Mapwing was rolling the former Basic and Plus levels into one free level, with the separate premium Pro level available for businesses and power users. With the new structure, Basic virtual tours can have up to 20 location points, unlimited editing, the ability to embed your tour on other sites, and (my biggest complaint before) the ability to make tours private so that those pictures of you in a bathing suit on vacation don't have to be viewable by the masses. The Pro level allows up to 50 location points per tour as well as a new pricing structure: $15 for a single tour, or $195 for a year's worth of unlimited tours.

The new features and pricing structure make Mapwing a much more attractive site for the casual user, as well as providing a better pricing structure with more options for professionals and power users, and I'm happy to see the site make itself available to more people.