Vimeo’s users were surprised to discover that their videos were deleted after switching from Premium account to Basic account. This situation forced users to continue and pay to Vimeo to keep their videos alive. Read below.

From Plus to a Basic account

I have been a Vimeo loyal user for about six years. My account was under the Plus membership category, which means I have been paying Vimeo $8 per month since 2013. Vimeo always seemed like the best platform for filmmakers regarding quality and prestigiousness. However, as time went by, YouTube has risen above Vimeo in almost any aspect. That’s why I decided to downgrade my Plus account to Basic, and move to YouTube. So I asked Vimeo not to renew my Plus membership.

Therefore, Vimeo sent me this message:

“Your account will revert to Basic. You have 14.2GB uploaded to your account. If your membership expires, you’ll only keep 10GB of videos you uploaded as a paid member. And since the total storage limit for Basic accounts is 5GB, you also won’t be able to upload videos (unless you remove videos until you’re below the limit).”

Vimeo deletes videos

Your account will revert to Basic. You have 14.2GB uploaded to your account. If your membership expires, you’ll only keep 10GB of videos you uploaded as a paid member. And since the total storage limit for Basic accounts is 5GB, you also won’t be able to upload videos (unless you remove videos until you’re below the limit

Vimeo’s statement above says that 30 percent of my videos are going to be deleted, because of the shift from Plus account to Basic account. In other words, I will have to continue paying to Vimeo to keep my videos alive on the platform.

I contacted Vimeo about this, asking the reasons for deleting my videos which I uploaded while being in the paid membership category.

See Vimeo’s answer below:

“Thanks for reaching out about this, and I’m so sorry for any confusion. If your paid Vimeo membership (Plus, PRO, Business or Premium) expires, you only keep the most recent 10GB of videos uploaded during your membership. Because you had videos that exceeded this limit, they were moved to our archives. They will be stored there for up to one year, but are no longer viewable. You can visit this page to see exactly what videos you lost access to when you downgraded to Basic. You can restore all your videos by re-upgrading to any paid Vimeo membership tier. To give you more background on our lapse rules, most video platforms that offer free storage are financially supported by in-stream advertising. Vimeo, on the other hand, is a proudly ad-free and subscriber-supported video platform. The cost of our Plus, PRO, Business, and Premium memberships covers the expenses of all of the services we provide, including feature development, uploading and conversion, video storage, and video playback. Because video storage and delivery are ongoing costs to our business, there is a limit to how much storage we can offer to our free members.

If your paid Vimeo membership (Plus, PRO, Business or Premium) expires, you only keep the most recent 10GB of videos uploaded during your membership. Because you had videos that exceeded this limit, they were moved to our archives. They will be stored there for up to one year, but are no longer viewable.

If so, Vimeo should warn Premium users about their videos being erased in real time while the uploading process occurs. The user is not supposed to discover out of the blue that his precious videos are going to be deleted when he downgrades his account.

Other cases

In this context allow me to share another case of filmmaker Jonny Mass.

Jonny is a well known Vimeo filmmaker that uses the platform to showcase his works. Vimeo has erased his videos due to payment issue, as stated by Jonny: “Vimeo is the biggest scam. Replaced a stolen card recently and forgot to update payment on my Plus membership. Got an email today saying my card failed to charge and that they have deleted a bunch of my videos. Vimeo is the WORST platform to ever exist”

Another user claimed the same: “I wanted to downgrade my account. They said they were going to remove all the videos I uploaded whilst having that Pro account. I was like what? Do I have to continue to pay over 100 pounds a year to keep my videos up? It was a bit of a dispute”.

Vimeo is the biggest scam. Replaced a stolen card recently and forgot to update payment on my Plus membership. Got an email today saying my card failed to charge and that they have deleted a bunch of my videos. Vimeo is the WORST platform to ever exist

Be aware: Lapsing from paid membership to Basic membership

Users that consider creating a paid membership on Vimeo must know the little words (taken from Vimeo’s website): “If your paid membership expires, you will keep any videos you uploaded while you were a Basic member, but you may lose some of the videos uploaded during your subscription. Though there is a 5GB total storage cap on Basic accounts, if you downgrade from a paid membership plan to Basic, you will still get to keep 10GB of the video you uploaded most recently during your membership. Any storage above the 10GB cap will be moved to our archive for storage up to one year, starting with the earliest videos you uploaded to Vimeo as a paid subscriber. If you renew your Business, PRO, or Plus membership during that time, you’ll regain access to those videos”.

The captive audience syndrome

Vimeo is an excellent platform for filmmakers to show their work. However, keep in mind that once you are there as a paying customer, you are captured by their subscription model and most likely, you will need to pay forever to keep your videos alive. The other option is to use YouTube for that matter for free. YouTube has been significantly improved its video quality, and the platform is adopted by most professionals our-there. Furthermore, the YouTube player is a lot faster than the Vimeo player. Your call.

Are you a paying Vimeo user? Share your experience with us.