Price revision for 10K Land Impact packages for owners of Buy Down or Grandfathered Regions
closed
Count Burks
Since the announcement of the pricing adjustments for private regions where retail price for a prim package of 10000 Land Impact was reduced from 30 USD monthly to 10 USD which went into effect on July 8 2026 I have been in contact with Linden Lab customer concierge support looking for answers why I as a grandfathered and buy down region owner am being charged triple the retail price when I decide the add a 10K Land Impact package to my regions.
I asked your customer support representative Sine Linden to explain to me why I as an owner of Grandfathered Regions and Buy Down regions for which I paid hefty buy down fees and transfer fees am being overcharged 20 USD monthly on prim packages if I decide to add more prims to my region.
I received this as an answer from your support staff:
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Hi Count Burks,
Thank you for providing the exact text from the article. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify how this wording applies to your specific account.
As noted in the text you quoted, this upgrade path is designed for regions starting at the "standard 20,000 prims" tier. Standard full private regions operate on a different, higher monthly maintenance fee than your discounted region.
Standard vs. Legacy Pricing
Standard Regions: The article specifies that standard regions incur a $30.00 upfront fee and a $10.00 monthly maintenance increase. This applies strictly to accounts paying standard retail tier rates.
Buy Down / Grandfathered Regions: Your region operates under a specialized legacy contract. Because your base rate is already significantly discounted, it does not follow the standard region upgrade rules.
Legacy Tier Breakdown
As mentioned previously, the legacy pricing structure for Grandfathered and Buy Down regions remains completely separate and unchanged:
GF/BD 20,000 Prim Region: $179.00 / month
GF/BD 30,000 Prim Region: $209.00 / month
The $10.00 maintenance increase described in the article cannot be combined with a legacy rate.
Linden Lab is fully honoring your Buy Down contract by keeping your 20k maintenance locked at the discounted $179.00 rate. However, to increase the land impact on a legacy region, the tier must transition to the corresponding legacy 30k tier of $209.00 per month, rather than applying standard upgrade rules to a discounted base.
Please let us know if you would like to proceed with the legacy tier change for your region.
Best regards,
Sine Linden
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Your support staff mentions that Linden Lab is honoring the contract of the buy down and the grandfathered pricing, yet the excuse for overcharging customers by triple the amount for retail pricing of a 10K Land Impact package is I would be the owner of "Legacy Regions".
When I paid a buy down fee of 600 USD or paid a region transfer fee for the same amount it was NEVER AT ANY POINT disclosed that my region would now become a Legacy region. Your support staff just made that up, this shows in the further communication I had with Sine Linden:
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After carefully reviewing your response, I believe it does not address the central issue I have raised. My concern is not whether my current monthly region fee remains $179.00 under the Buy Down agreement. Rather, it is why Linden Lab charges Buy Down and Grandfathered region owners a higher monthly price for the same 10,000-prim upgrade that is now offered to standard region owners for $10.00 per month.
I would therefore appreciate a direct response to the following questions.
- When Linden Lab introduced the Buy Down program, where was it disclosed that a Buy Down region would become a separate "legacy" region type that would no longer qualify for the standard pricing of future products or upgrades?
To the best of my knowledge, the Buy Down agreement stated only that a customer could pay an upfront fee in exchange for reducing the monthly maintenance fee of a standard 20,000-prim region. I cannot find any statement from your company indicating that the region would thereafter become a different category subject to a separate pricing structure for future Linden Lab products or services.
- Where has Linden Lab informed customers that owners of Buy Down or Grandfathered regions would be required to pay more than the advertised retail price for future optional products or upgrades solely because they own a Buy Down or Grandfathered region?
The current advertised retail price for increasing a region from 20,000 to 30,000 prims is a one-time fee of $30.00 and a monthly maintenance increase of $10.00. However, Buy Down and Grandfathered region owners are required to pay a monthly increase of $30.00 for the same increase in land impact.
My question is not whether Linden Lab considers these to be separate pricing schedules. My question is where this distinction and its financial consequences were disclosed to customers when they entered into the Buy Down or Grandfathered arrangements.
I would appreciate a direct answer to these questions rather than a restatement of the current pricing policy.
I am looking forward to your reply on this matter.
Count Burks
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Suddenly the tone shifted, here is Sine Linden his reply:
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Hey there—
Thanks for reaching out and for your patience!
Thank you for following up regarding your specific questions about the recent private region pricing adjustments and legacy tier structures. While our support team operates within the current established billing guidelines, deep policy discussions and structural fee evaluations are primarily handled on our Feedback Portal (https://feedback.secondlife.com/). At the moment, we are suggesting that Residents who have detailed inquiries or historical concerns regarding these regional upgrades share their perspectives on the Feedback Forum, where our product management and development teams actively review community input.
We appreciate your diligence in breaking down these points and sharing your perspective on the value of the Buy Down agreements. Your detailed arguments help us better understand the impact of these tier adjustments on our long-standing community members, which helps our teams shape future pricing models and policy updates. I am sorry for the ongoing frustration this may have caused, and I hope our teams can review and address these structural concerns effectively as our land features continue to evolve.
If you have any further questions or concerns regarding this matter, do not hesitate to reach out.
Kind regards & warm wishes,
Sine Linden
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Oatmeal Linden
updated the status to
closed
Hello Count! I am closing this issue. I have notified support of your concerns about the response you received, and you should be contacted by a supervisor shortly. Closing this post does not remove it from our system.
We do periodically review our pricing for all of our various services and fees, and perhaps at a future date region services fees may change. Please keep an eye on our blog for any announcements!
We thank you again for your feedback on the response you receieved from support.
Oatmeal Linden
updated the status to
contact support
Oatmeal Linden
updated the status to
tracked
Hello Count! Thank you for the suggestion! We are marking this as tracked for future review of our pricing.
Count Burks
Oatmeal Linden I would like my questions to be answered. This is not a feedback post. I want to know why I am being overcharged:
- When Linden Lab introduced the Buy Down program, where was it disclosed that a Buy Down region would become a separate "legacy" region type that would no longer qualify for the standard pricing of future products or upgrades?
- Where has Linden Lab informed customers that owners of Buy Down or Grandfathered regions would be required to pay more than the advertised retail price for future optional products or upgrades solely because they own a Buy Down or Grandfathered region?
Why I am being billed 30 USD for 10K prim monthly Oatmeal when the retail price is 10 USD for this product you offer?
Oatmeal Linden
Count Burks: Our current region services fees for all privately owned regions may be found in the Knowledge base: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/managing-private-regions-r50/#Changing_your_private_region__9ce4a7
We do periodically review these fees for any adjustments that may be made. That is why this issue has been marked as Tracked.
If you have further questions about an interaction with any support agent, please request to speak with a supervisor in your support ticket.
Count Burks
Oatmeal Linden First I attend your in-world trust and safety team meeting hosted by Linden Lab asking for an answer to this question.
I am being told to file a ticket so your concierge support team can answer. Then I file the ticket, I get some bogus answer that is not making any sense. Then I ask your support team to clarify their statements and answer several questions about this irregular pricing on your products.
The reply to that is, "We really don't know Count Burks why you have to pay extra instead of our normal price, go ask it at the feedback portal where our product management and development teams can answer.
I spend a lot of time writing all this up and you provide a link to your knowledge base article.
And meanwhile you are happily charging 3 times retail price to owners of buy down regions and grandfathered regions when they choose to add more prims to their region.
I would like to ask that you forward this matter to your head of product or whoever is in charge of your pricing and explain why Linden Lab is triple charging certain customers for a product that is being offered to others for regular retail price.
Count Burks
To read the entire post sort through oldest first. Also I could not upload a txt. with the full text.
Count Burks
That is precisely why I believe this pricing policy deserves serious reconsideration.
The issue is not my $179 monthly maintenance fee. Linden Lab continues to point to that figure as though it answers the question, but it does not.
The issue is that Linden Lab has established a retail price of $10.00 per month for a 10,000 Land Impact upgrade while simultaneously requiring Buy Down and Grandfathered region owners to pay $30.00 per month for exactly the same increase in Land Impact.
There is no technical difference in the upgrade. There is no additional service being provided. There is no additional value being received. The only difference is the class of customer purchasing it.
Customers who paid substantial upfront fees to obtain favorable long-term pricing are now expected to pay three times the advertised retail monthly price for the same optional feature.
I cannot reconcile that outcome with the representations Linden Lab made when it encouraged residents to pay $600 to buy down their regions or to pay significant transfer fees to preserve grandfathered pricing.
If Linden Lab genuinely believes this pricing is fair, transparent, and consistent with the Buy Down program, then it should have no difficulty identifying the document in which customers were informed that purchasing a Buy Down or Grandfathered region would permanently exclude them from paying the standard retail price for future optional upgrades.
To date, no such document has been identified.
I therefore ask Linden Lab to reconsider this policy and apply the same advertised monthly retail price of $10.00 for the 10,000 Land Impact upgrade to all Full Region owners, including Buy Down and Grandfathered regions.
The Buy Down program was sold as an opportunity to reduce monthly maintenance costs, not as an agreement to pay premium prices for future optional products. Those are two very different propositions, and only one of them was ever presented to customers.
Please provide me with the following answers:
- Show me where it says when I paid a buy down fee for my region that my region would not be considered to be a "legacy region" inside of a normal standard 20 Prim private region.
2.Show me where it says that because I own a grandfathered region or buy down region I am being excluded from paying regular retail price for other Linden Lab products or product upgrades.
Count Burks
The bogus argument of : Well Count Burks you need to pay 30 USD instead of 10 USD per month for your extra prims because you have a "Legacy region" is not holding up. I feel strongly, like many other owners of Grandfathered and Buy Down regions that I am getting overcharged.
If Linden Lab respect the Buy Down on a region that makes it 179 USD per month and if that Buy Down is indeed respected then why is Linden Lab charging me TRIPLE RETAIL PRICE for extra prims? I find this so absurd. It reaches the level of absurdity that your own trained concierge support staff is not even able to explain why that is.
What concerns me most is that Linden Lab's justification appears to have been created only after the fact.
The Buy Down program NEVER stated that customers were purchasing a different category of region. It never stated that a standard Full Region would become a "Legacy Region" for the purpose of future pricing. It never stated that customers who invested 600 USD dollars in Buy Down fees or transfer fees would permanently lose access to the standard retail pricing of future optional products or upgrades.
The only promise made by Linden Lab was clear: pay a one-time fee and receive a lower monthly maintenance fee for the lifetime of your region.
That is the agreement customers accepted.
Now, years later, Linden Lab has introduced a completely different justification by claiming that Buy Down and Grandfathered regions belong to a separate "legacy" pricing structure. If that distinction was part of the agreement, then it should be easy to identify where it was disclosed to the customer. Instead, when I asked Support to identify where customers were informed of this, no answer was provided. My questions were simply redirected to the Feedback Forum.