If 1,000 Energy cost you $1, then trying the most expensive widget would cost you < 10 cents
If it’s a button, it’s less then 2 cents …
I wouldn’t blame us for thinking into this too much, but rather own up to the misleading verbiage that was used. “As said, each widget will need 
Energy to operate” this assumes it cost energy to run a widget over a certain period of time. When it actually sounds like we only pay upfront per widget per project. But that could be just me reading too much/too little into this pricing structure.
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Pay as you go looks to me like a fair way of heading.No Monthly charges or subscriptions and your in control of how much you spend/use widgets. If I understand correctly there’s nothing to stop you from having a couple of dashboards with one or two of each widget and keep them just for testing and only commit to a project when your ready?
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I’m just trying to wrap my head around the pricing model and it’s reason. I understand how it works, just not the why. From a pure cost standpoint (and granted we may be talking about cents here): Why is money “lost” when a widget is recycled? Is there a resource that’s burned, or a cost incurred by Blynk each time this happens? Or is this intended just to discourage people playing around with it to much… which leads to the question: why?
One of the comments eluded to this structure being some kind of compromise… it being in lieu of a flat monthly cost. I do like that but I just don’t understand the philosophy of not regaining the full value of a widget after it’s recycled.
I apologize if this pricing model is standard in some other places and I haven’t run into it. I’m still planning on using the service, of course, but I just want to be able to explain/justify it to those I recommend it to.
I like the idea of PAYG much more than the previously discussed model but I think an API model would have worked better. e.g. The Dark Sky Forecast API. Their pricing is 1k API calls for free, then $0.0001/call after that. It’s palatable for developers since it ties well to both something they can control as well as the perceived “cost” to provide the service (ignoring development, Blynk costs are going to scale pretty closely to API calls and the cost to operate the service will, hopefully/eventually, be the dominant cost driver). When designing, you can decide how “chatty” you want your project/widgets to be (pinging thousands of times per minute vs once per hour vs anywhere in the middle).
This “energy” model discourages development and experimentation. Imagine a user who builds a dead-simple project (so < $1) but with settings that ping the Blynk servers just below the throttle rate 24/7. Assuming there’s no interface changes, this user doesn’t pay again even though they’re continuing to use Blynk resources (heavily). Contrast this with the hobbyist who builds little apps for personal use, sets pings reasonably, and continues to incur cost as they tinker. Maybe it’s not a lot of $ at the end of the day, but there’s a sense of “unfair” to it.
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Forgive me if that was explained already but here it goes…
How does this pay structure work with folks that run their own private/local server? My plan is to run the app and server offline - completely disconnected from the internet.
You can do it easily and without internet.
google rules for in-App purchases is sample…
no refund can be done you can contact App developer.
it’s like that.
what is the exchange rate to USD ?
how many energy units = to 1 USD ?
or it’s about the importance and based on most demand widget has higher value?
sorry i’am accountant by profession.
UPDATE
i just got the update late it seams, now it’s clear . but the Energy lost in recycling is wrong decision
as we used to do a lot of changes before to reach final design.
and makers never reach a final design as you always have the desire to change and improve things…
Are we able to rearrange widgets without having to recycle them? In the past I’ve had to delete things from the project because it took up too much space making it impossible to slide things around. Once i got things where I wanted them I would then add the large widget back.
Based on the pricing in the app, looks like $.001 USD down to $.0007 USD per Energy Unit, base on buying $.99 or $19.99, respectively.
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Whats with us who kickstarted the Digistump Oak with the “Blynk and a box full of widgets” Addon? I’m logged in with the E-Mail I used and still only have 1000 Energy. The other annoncement said we’d get lifetime accounts (http://community.blynk.cc/t/blynk-will-introduce-paid-subscription-in-q1-2016/3177/58)
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Will there still be a basic free package as outlined in the previous plan?
@myggle yes, You have 2000 energy for free. Also Your energy will never go below 1000. (well, it will, but all you need to do remove and create project again).
Also you can create instructable and we will provide you with free energy.
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What about those of us who blog about Blynk and bring it more exposure? http://www.plastibots.com/index.php/2015/06/11/iot-garage-monitor-with-finger-print-sensor/
Also… I’ll add, Im not looking for a free ride here. I havent paid a red cent for this app and love it. Still trying to understand how this whole pricing model works… Guess I’ll just have to keep driving and see how it works! 
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I tried to purchase energy for my local server but my purchase ended up going toward my cloud account. How is energy purchased for local server account, and where would/is the information stored for the local account.
@arduinewb Purchases are separate thing, it is tied with google, not with Blynk. So purchase is done via internet and stored on local server.
@Pavel maybe a “sandbox” page on the app to design the layouts?
one with infinite free adds etc but doesn’t actually work with a Token and hardware??