Gems, the currency used to purchase webcomics and webnovels on Manta, will be undergoing a scale change.
Manta posted the notice on March 24, stating that Gems will now move to a new 10-times scale, including the Gem balance in readers’ accounts, titles that require Gems to purchase, and monthly and bundle plans. Prices will remain the same for Gem bundles, costing at $1.99 USD for each bundle, and those on the Premium plan will have 10 times more Gems. The value of the Gems will remain the same.
Manta’s membership is currently split into two tiers. The standard costs $4.99 per month where members have access to the unlimited library, which has more than 300 series, and also get up to 40 extra Gems with Gem bundles. Those on the premium plan will pay $9.99 with the same access but also receive 90 extra Gems with Gem bundles and an additional 142 Gems per month.
While the update does not seem to make much of a difference, the platform explained that the scaling change was implemented to allow for “more flexible discounts and promotions.”
In its current state, comics typically cost three to six gems per episode with novel chapters costing around two gems with a volume costing around 60 gems. Gem bundles also typically cost between 20 to 625 Gems and those on the premium plan only received 142 Gems a month.
“With the current Gem scale, discounts can only be applied in whole Gems. For example, if an episode costs 5 Gems, it isn’t possible to offer a discount of half a Gem,” the notice read. “This also makes it difficult to apply certain percentage-based discounts. For example, a 10% discount on an episode that costs 5 Gems would equal 0.5 Gems, which cannot currently be applied.”
This update will come into effect on March 31.
Source: Manta
