App.net Lowers Prices As Membership Approaches 20,000 Users

App.net, the fledgling social network that launched in August with an annual membership fee of $50 per account, is lowering that price and introducing a monthly membership plan, too.

The annual membership fee will be $36 going forward, and all existing account holders will have their memberships extended to reflect the lower price. The service is also introducing a $5 per month membership plan.

Founder Dalton Caldwell announced the changes Monday, saying that the site’s “momentum and scale” makes the lower subscription fees possible. Caldwell says App.net is about to surpass 20,000 members, and the original $50 annual fee was based on a goal of hitting 10,000 members.

Activity on App.net is nowhere near what larger, older social networks see, but that’s to be expected. According to Appnetizens, a site offering public metrics on App.net activity, the site has averaged in the neighborhood of 10,000 posts per day over the past several weeks.

The recent activity is even more impressive when you consider that IFTTT recently dropped its Twitter triggers, meaning Twitter users could no longer auto-post their tweets to App.net.