MyHeritage: OldNews and Omni Plan Cost

MyHeritage.com announced a new subscription plan today in conjunction with the launch of OldNews.com. You can read more at Introducing OldNews.com, A New Website for Exploring Historical Newspapers. I'm all about newspaper archives. I personally find obits and articles to be a wonderful way to identify and add family members to my tree. But it wasn't just the newspapers I was after! By now you know my addiction to subscriptions...I wanted to know how much the new Omni plan cost and see the features included.

Let's start with what you get. This "superset" of the complete subscription includes:

• Complete subscription from MyHeritage.com with all the features users have come to expect from this service level (regularly $299/year)
• Access to OldNews.com (regularly $99/year)
• Unlimited access to 2,000 online genealogy webinars for all levels on Legacy Family Tree Webinars (regularly $49.95/year)
• Full access to all Pro features on Geni.com (regularly $149/year)
• Unlimited use of all features on the Reimagine app (regularly $7.99/month - $95.88/year)

Since I already had a MyHeritage complete plan, I wasn't immediately presented with an option to upgrade. The cost for the Omni plan wasn't included in the blog post. I had to search on MyHeritage for a newspaper not previously on the site (I used the one shown in the post) so OldNews would prompt me to upgrade. Since I just renewed a few months ago, I was shown the amount remaining on my existing plan and the additional amount I'd be charged today. The only slight downside is now my MyHeritage subscription renews a little earlier in the year. Bottom line, just like supersizing your meal at the fast food restaurant, Omni costs a bit more, at $399 per year ($100 more than the existing complete plan) but it certainly comes with a lot of additional features. Omni is currently only available as an annual subscription. 

I do want to mention, MyHeritage is not my "go to" site for tree building. I find the interface less user friendly than Ancestry. But I do look for records, periodically upload my GEDCOM so I have an up to date backup location, sometimes use the tree consistency checker and utilize DNA matches and DNA tools. Do I get my money's worth? Maybe, maybe not. It's hit or miss, but I'm not planning on cancelling my membership any time soon. If you don't currently have a complete subscription, you may want to spend some time evaluating whether an Omni plan is right for you, or if you'd be better off just subscribing to OldNews if you want access to it.

Of course I subscribed to the Omni plan! Even though the current price for OldNews.com is 25% off the first year (if all you want is the newspapers), the Omni plan is like getting Legacy Family Tree Webinars, a Geni Pro subscription and unlimited use of the Reimagine app as a bonus. Yes, sure, you're paying for them one way or another, but bundled with a new newspaper archive is certainly great marketing. I won't say I was actually considering signing up for any of those additional sites/apps, but since I have access I'll certainly use them. I would likely have subscribed to OldNews anyway and this gives me even more new sites and tools to utilize. MyHeritage often adds new features with no upcharge (unlike some other sites who shall remain nameless, but we all know who we're talking about). MyHeritage is simply taking some of the sites they already own and "bundling" them into a new plan - a stroke of marketing genius likely to increase their subscribers. 

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