I got an email last week from my invoice supplier, Blinksale.  In a cleverly worded email they let me know that their free service was no longer available.  No real problem, I’m already a paying customer.  A quick trip to the website reveals that they have in fact been sold.

This is the second free website I’ve come across in the last couple of weeks that has been sold and the had the free plan removed.  Twollow did the same thing some time last month.  I’ve no doubt that Blinksale was making money but a > 1% conversion rate from free to paid accounts was always going to hurt.  The aquirer was obviously planning to recoup some of their investment by removing the free option for a boost to sales.

It seems that the steady march towards paying for stuff is online is underway.