Evernote Now Takes Alipay Payment for Premium Features in China

Evernote’s Chinese cousin, Yinxiang Biji, is now accepting payment via Alipay for premium access to extra note-syncing services. Alipay is the huge Alibaba-owned e-payment platform, and now it can process the monthly charge of 30 RMB ($4.76) for folks who want premium features in Evernote’s Chinese app. Or there’s the cheaper annual rate of 283 RMB ($44.90).

Evernote launched its separate syncing service for China a few months ago, and has quickly grown to the point where it has 1.1 million users in the country. Chinese who opt for a Yinxiang Biji premium account will get access to things like offline notes, a PIN lock, notes up to 50MB in size, and 1GB of monthly uploads.

But I notice that one Evernote premium feature is missing for China users, and it looks quite odd. If you compare Yinxiang.com/premium to Evernote.com/premium, you’ll see that the “work together” feature is absent, meaning that folks here won’t be able to use Evernote as a team by giving permission to others to edit their notes. It’s a curious omission. A cynic would think that it was being prohibited by Chinese laws that tightly regulate any form of real-time online service, especially one that could be used by people to organize and mobilize themselves online. Yes, online collaboration is counter revolutionary.

In terms of convenience, the Alipay payment option will be crucial to Android users of Evernote’s Yinxiang Biji as it’s their only means of getting that premium account. At least iOS users have the option of paying via an iTunes in-app purchase. Also useful is the fact that any locals who were using Evernote International – as the company calls it – will not have to pay again for Yinxiang Biji premium features, and can transfer over their accounts.