At Vimeo, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) isn’t a box-checking exercise.

We seek to embed DEI practices into our operations as essential principles for building high-impact teams and products. Why? Because we believe that creating a culture that is fair, transparent, and rooted in belonging will allow each employee to do their best work and deliver better outcomes for our users. That in turn leads to better outcomes for our business, our shareholders, and the broader community we serve. 

We know that meaningful progress is only made through accountability and transparency. As we reflect on 2022, we are proud of the progress we’ve made in key areas, and we recognize that we also have areas to improve.

Team demographics

Below is a snapshot of our team demographics as of December 31, 2022, showing our year-over-year progress between calendar years 2021 and 2022 for global gender representation and U.S. race & ethnicity representation.

Areas of progress

Representation is critical to a diverse workforce, and we are proud of the progress we’ve made to date.

Last year, we continued our focus on creating a diverse candidate pipeline for all new roles, with a goal that 30% of candidates entering our interview process come from underrepresented minority groups.

We also know that change starts at the top, so we made an intentional commitment to increase representation of women within our executive team.

We believe these actions helped us achieve the following outcomes. As of December 31, 2022:

• 44% of our executive team identify as women (4 of 9)* 
• The number of women employees globally increased by 4.6% from 35.7% in 2021 to 40.3% in 2022
• The number of women in management roles globally (Manager level +) increased by 3% from 33.7% in 2021 to 36.7% in 2022
• The number of U.S. employees who identified as an Underrepresented Minority Group (URM) increased by 3.3% from 18.3% in 2021 to 21.6% in 2022

In addition to the progress made in our team representation, we also launched several initiatives designed to foster a more inclusive and equitable culture, including:

*At the publication of this report, our executive team consists of 7 individuals and we’re proud to share that now 60% of our executive team (4 of 7) identify as women. Additionally, we have hired a new Senior Director of DEI, Renee MacLeod, to oversee our DEI strategy and programs.

Employee Community Groups (ECGs)

At Vimeo, ECGs are employee-led and organizationally-supported groups of employees that are drawn together by shared characteristics or interests. Each ECG is a resource, point of connection, and community for underrepresented employees and their allies, and these groups are an important part of building and maintaining an equitable, diverse, and inclusive workforce.  

In 2022, our ECGs brought team members together to learn, grow, and celebrate by organizing more than 20 events and initiatives ranging from discussions around burnout, entrepreneurship, and mental health; to hosting a career panel with NYC students; to taking a cocktail-making class from a Black-owned business.

One of our most notable ECG events in 2022 was in honor of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month in May. BIPOC @ Vimeo hosted a screening of a short film which the group had helped to fund, Invisible Seams by Vimeo Staff Pick creator Jia Li. Jia Li joined the screening, and employees were encouraged to expense a meal from their favorite AAPI-owned restaurant.

To further strengthen our community engagement, we partnered with First Tech Fund, a NYC-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting local high school students from diverse backgrounds, by hosting a speed networking event in October. Over 50 volunteers participated with representation from every department at Vimeo and the students walked away with a renewed sense of confidence, curiosity and excitement around pursuing a career in technology.

Additionally, our ECGs collectively donated over $26,000 to organizations that empower and support diverse communities as well as several minority- and women-owned businesses: 

• Cycle for Survival
• Daymaker
• First Tech Fund
• Hella Cocktail Co.
• Major’s Project Pop
• NewFest
• ReelAbilities Film Festival
• Send Chinatown Love
• The Possibility Project

Looking ahead: DEI priorities in 2023

While we’re proud of our progress in 2022, we’re committed to moving the needle further in 2023. We’re focusing on two key priorities this year: 

1. Expanding the diversity of our team through increased representation
2. Creating an inclusive culture for every Vimean

Team representation goals

To identify our representation goals for 2023 and beyond, we reviewed the data and feedback from our annual employee survey, “Voice of the Vimean”; our current demographic distribution data; and sources like this report from the EEOC* on representation and the latest research on representation in tech like this Statista report and this report from Womentech. Based on this information, we have identified 3 key opportunities and 5 new representation goals.

*Benchmark data based on EEOC data filtered by industry

Inclusive culture 

With these representation goals in mind, we will introduce new programs in 2023 focused on employee development and making Vimeo a home for diverse, high-impact talent.

70% of our DEI budget will be invested in internal programs and driving equity and access for employees who belong to historically marginalized groups. The remaining 30% will be invested in future workforce development and recruitment efforts. Tangibly this will look like: 

• Introducing internal programs focused on inclusive leadership and career path guidance and support
• Advancing our diverse supplier efforts
• Creating greater transparency with our leveling and compensation structure for current and prospective Vimeans
• Increasing access to resources to make our work processes more inclusive, including access to tools on inclusive language, interviews, meetings and accessibility best practice

Our objective is to leverage DEI principles to build the highest-impact teams and products. We’ve learned some great lessons and made progress in achieving that objective, and we’re entering 2023 with more clarity and focus on how to make a greater difference, faster. We can do this in a way that makes DEI practices a seamless part of our day-to-day. We’re all accountable for this work, and we look forward to sharing our future results.

Keep scrolling for a more detailed view of our workforce data by gender, race, and ethnicity in 2022.

With loveo,

The Vimeo Team

Additional demographic data & category definitions

2022 Report Terminology

Declined to self identify

Provision of “self ID” demographic information is not required. As a result, some employees have chosen not to share their demographic information with Vimeo.

Hispanic or Latina/o/x

The term Hispanic was introduced in the 1970s in the United States. This was a new way to categorize individuals with roots in Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas, including Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The term Latina/o/x, which is sometimes used interchangeably with Hispanic, emerged in the 1990s as a way to specifically highlight the gendered nature of the term and to be more inclusive of gender beyond the binary. (Source)

Technical role

Technical role in this context is defined as roles aligned with product and engineering. 

Underrepresented minority

Underrepresented minority has a range of definitions, but in most cases refers to a group of people who are members of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, or other identity group that is disproportionately small in a particular field or context compared to their representation in the general population. Gender demographics in this report are global. Racial and ethnic demographics included in this report are limited to U.S. employees.

For the purpose of this report Vimeo includes the following demographics as a part of our Underrepresented Minority categorization. A person who is:

• African American / Black
• Hispanic / Latina/o/x
• Native American / Alaskan Native
• Native Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander
• Two or more races

Last month I participated in a discussion on Quiet Quitting at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Workforces are changing fast, and it strikes me that we, as leaders, are engaging in many of the right questions: the pros and cons of remote work, the risks and opportunities presented by AI, the need to create more inclusive and sustainable organizations.

But one question is worthy of more attention: if our workforce is changing, technology is changing, and post-pandemic behaviors and expectations are changing…don’t we as leaders need to change too?

There is an entire generation of digital natives entering the workforce. They grew up creating and sharing videos instead of calling or texting, and consider TikTok or YouTube their best source of information. In their personal lives, they are hyper-connected and equally hyper-engaged.

Yet in their work lives, it’s a different story. We’re seeing significant declines in engagement and employee satisfaction among remote Gen Z and younger millennials. Fewer than four in ten young remote or hybrid employees know clearly what is expected of them at work, and more than half of Gen Z employees are ambivalent or not engaged at work. If we think of employee engagement as a leading indicator for workforce productivity, this has major implications for every company and every bottom line. 

What is causing this disconnect? In work as in life, we all want to be part of something greater than ourselves. We have an innate need to belong, to feel a sense of community that is transparent, unfiltered, and human. Yet the more our workforce becomes digitally distributed and AI-enabled, the more difficult it becomes to experience true connection every day. Particularly when we haven’t evolved how we work to meet the next generation. We still ask our employees to digest dense documentation, write lengthy emails, and attend inefficient meetings. They learn about layoffs and company priorities through comms so scripted and robotic that they could have been generated by ChatGPT. And the only pulse we as leaders have on this comes through cookie-cutter engagement surveys, live events with low tune-in and high drop-off rates, and the occasional snarky chat or Q&A.

The traditional managerial model is failing us. It’s time to adapt how we as leaders show up and connect with our employees. Just as we are focused on reskilling our workforce in the face of changing population, demographic and technology trends, we also need to reskill ourselves as leaders, to better build trust and connection at scale.

I’ve experimented with much of this over the last few years at Vimeo. Here are the skills I’m learning and embracing, that I believe can help us show up differently and lead more effectively:

1. Be real, be you.

At the start of the pandemic, I ran a global town hall from my parents’ house in Flint, Michigan — sleep deprived, wearing my velour pajamas, with both my toddler son and my grandma shuffling in and out of the background.

It might have been my most effective communication ever.

Why? Because it was unscripted, vulnerable, and messy. We tend to gravitate to “us versus them” dynamics when we work at a company, particularly in times of stress and challenge. It’s so easy to think of “leadership” as a nameless, faceless machine. Being video-first and visual in your communication is a powerful antidote. It forces you to remove the mask and protection of written and edited comms. The best way to break through is to show up as you are.

By the way, there are definitely examples of leaders being vulnerable and it backfiring…but I suspect in most of those cases, the issue was that it was too performative. You have to be willing for that raw version of yourself to fail in front of your team. Flaws are what make us human. And we all want to see our leaders be brave — it only makes us want to follow them more.

2. Start with the “why.”

Like many leaders, I’ve made difficult decisions in the last year. From layoffs and executive changes to re-organizing and shutting down projects in the name of efficiency. It is my job to make the hard, unpopular calls and enact changes quickly across our organization.

Increasingly, I see employees craving transparency behind these decisions— not just the “what” but the “why”. This includes a desire to understand the broader market or competitive context, the trade-offs balanced and weighed, and the process of who was involved and when.

The old comms playbook would say that when you have a piece of critical communication and limited attention, you start with the “what” and get to the point and needed actions. But I have been far more successful getting people to embrace a difficult decision when I treat my team as key stakeholders who deserve to understand the context.

As a result, starting with “why” is a first principle for all comms at Vimeo. Of course there are always constraints to being fully transparent (legal, PR, governance, customer risk), but I’ve found that most of the time perceived obstacles to transparency are just that. Perceived. People will not always agree with your decisions, and I could argue that if they do, you probably aren’t doing your job. But they will respect and embrace those decisions when you start with the why.

3. Invest in in-person, and get personal.

Yes, I recognize the irony of the CEO of a video company saying this. But one of my biggest lessons over the last few months is that we waited too long and weren’t intentional enough in bringing our teams together in real life.

In January, a week after conducting layoffs, we hosted a company kickoff in NYC. We flew in employees from more than a dozen countries. We had employees based in Ukraine who took trains, planes, and cars to get there. We ditched the typical event confetti and opted for a low-key vibe on a budget. It was one of the most energizing and needed investments I’ve made.

It is even more powerful when, as leaders, you get on a plane and meet your team where they are. I have a fully distributed executive team spread across eight locations from Seattle to Switzerland. Most were hired in the last year so are still new, and we are just starting to gel as a team. To help accelerate this gelling, we started hosting offsites in each leader’s home city. We met our CFO’s mom around her fire pit in Vermont. Our Head of Sales wore his apron and made us frittatas for breakfast. We held working sessions around our Head of Product’s dining table.

The pandemic gave us a literal window into each others’ homes and personal lives — if we lean into that, and integrate it into our day-to-day, we have the potential to create better connected and higher-performing teams.

4. Go from “lean back” to “lean forward” experiences.

A critical communication skill will soon be the ability to create “lean forward” experiences, instead of “lean back” broadcasts. As humans, our attention spans are getting shorter (now less than eight seconds, less than a goldfish!). Yet we still communicate primarily through one-to-many messages, whether through an email you read or a highly produced town hall you sit back and watch.

At Vimeo we see this tax on engagement appearing in our own data, where the average time to drop off from watching a Vimeo video has been declining over the past few years. If we don’t change our approach, tune-out is going to seriously hamper our ability to keep our teams aligned and productive.

The good news is that we have the tools at our fingertips to break through the noise. An example I’m versed in is video. Today leaders can communicate updates asynchronously, with a quick and casual video recording that feels more like TikTok than a 60 Minutes segment. We can start making all our video updates snackable and searchable in a cinematic video library that feels more like Netflix than work. We can easily turn any piece of training content or documentation into an interactive video where our employees actively participate and build their own personalized journey.

The key here is to shift our mindset and willingness to try new things. We have a new generation entering the workforce who are ahead of us in their ability to create and capture rich and authentic information. They are ahead because they are free of the constraints our generation experienced for decades in traditional communication modes at work.

They say that employees don’t leave jobs; they leave managers. Well, CEOs are the ultimate managers, and according to a study of more than 113,000 leaders, the number one factor for effective leadership is trust. As leaders we must teach ourselves how to show up in more authentic, interesting, and trustworthy ways. I’m betting that the CEOs who embrace this brave new world will be far more successful in leading the next generation of workers. They will better inform and engage distributed teams, align people to more productive outcomes, and build lasting relationships that bring out exceptional work. They will stop communicating more, and instead, connect better.

Earlier today I sent the following note to the Vimeo team:

Dear Vimeans,

Today we made the decision to reduce the size of our team by 11%. Everyone whose job is impacted has received an email and an invite for a meeting with their team leader and HR. For those leaving us: we are so grateful for your contributions and will make every effort to support you. I will be reaching out directly to offer my assistance. 

This was a very hard decision that impacts each of us deeply. It is also the right thing to do to enable Vimeo to be a more focused and successful company, operating with the necessary discipline in an uncertain economic environment. It positions us to both invest in our growth priorities and be sustainably profitable while continuing to innovate to bring the power of video to every business in the world.

Why are we doing this again? Why now?

Last summer we committed to making Vimeo a sustainably profitable company. We delivered against that commitment by achieving positive adjusted EBITDA and positive free cash flow in Q3 of 2022— but as we’ve discussed, our bookings and revenue trends require ongoing cost discipline to maintain that trajectory going forward. 

Several things have changed since we reduced our workforce by 6% in July. We have seen a further deterioration in economic conditions, in the form of prolonged geopolitical conflict, rising interest rates, and global recession fears. We also have a better understanding of where post-pandemic demand is settling and how that might impact our self-serve growth in the near term. Finally, we have a new executive team in place with a clear plan to focus our investments on 2 business priorities: re-accelerating self-serve, and doubling down on Vimeo Enterprise.

We took action last quarter to streamline our non-headcount costs, from marketing spend to perks to office space. However, our team remains our largest cost as a company. We are entering 2023 with a more focused strategy to simplify Vimeo, and ultimately, our team size and composition needs to reflect that focus. This reduction enables us to achieve our growth and profitability goals in a way that is far less dependent on the broader market, putting us in full control of our destiny.

Who is impacted?

We made reductions in 2 ways: first in structural areas of our product and business where we have decided to significantly reduce focus and investment in 2023, and second by streamlining team sizes across the company to operate more efficiently. As a result, there are reductions in nearly every region and department at Vimeo. The majority of people impacted are in Sales and R&D, as those departments make up the majority of our overall workforce. We will be sharing specifics about which product and business areas are most impacted in a town hall tomorrow.

We care about the people leaving us and will provide them with financial and transition support similar to what we have done in the past, with a few enhancements. While we won’t be openly sharing the names of impacted employees, we are providing transparency on who to contact for critical ongoing work as we transition.

What’s next?

We have demonstrated time and again that we can do hard things as a company. I am proud of our agility and resilience, but I also know that what we need right now is to come together with humanity.

Thank you to those leaving us. I want each of you to know how much we care about your future, and to experience the lasting benefit of this community as you move ahead in your career.

For the rest of our team, we are entering 2023 with more clarity and structural alignment than ever before. I believe in our strategy and in our collective ability to make it happen, as do countless others. The future of work will only become more video-first, and in times of economic constraint, the world needs easy and innovative solutions to communicate and connect better. Let’s focus today on showing up for our colleagues with humanity and care. Tomorrow we will gather at 9 am ET to discuss and reset, so that next week we can go forward.

Sincerely,
Anjali

Here at Vimeo, we are bringing the power of video to all the ways we work. Over the last few years, we’ve delivered new tools and innovative capabilities to meet the ever-evolving demands of teams and organizations of all sizes, from content creators and video pros to the largest companies in the world. 

Starting today, we’re introducing new subscription plans that better match our products and services to the needs of our growing community of customers. We’ve designed these plans to support how you are increasingly using video at work: with access to a broader range of features, the ability to collaborate with more people in your video workflow, and the flexibility to better select your plan based on the volume of videos you create and the features you care most about.

Here’s what’s new

Vimeo is offering four new subscription plans; Free, Starter, Standard, and Advanced, as well as a custom Enterprise plan. Our new plans are designed to do three things well:

1. Move from storage caps to numbers of videos. Choosing plans based on mega-, giga-, or terabytes makes it harder to gauge your video needs, especially when there is a wide range of video formats, lengths, and resolutions. Our plans now provide a specific number of videos with each subscription tier so you can focus on your content, not if you have enough space.
   

2. Treat video as a team sport. Teams of all sizes are bringing video into their workflows, and want to share and collaborate better with their colleagues. All our paid plans now provide the option to add additional paid seats to a single account or add view-only team members for free, making collaboration accessible and easier for more people.
   

3. Provide you with more value, regardless of your budget and video expertise, by adding a broad set of tools for each plan. Many of the capabilities previously included in higher-tier plans or as add-on services are now baked into each subscription level.

Let’s look at the plans

• Free: As a registered user, you will continue to be able to make, manage, and share video on Vimeo for free and always ad-free. We’ve also improved our free experience by adding essential video analytics on a single dashboard so customers can review source, device, and region reports on viewership.
  

• Starter: Our Starter plan provides a well-rounded toolkit to help you and your team get more out of your videos, including adding chapters, making them easier to navigate and boosting SEO optimization, collaborative review features including comments, time-coded notes, and tagging, and more.
  
  
• Standard: Our Standard plan turbo-charges your ability to make and share professional-quality video, with sophisticated player customization and marketing features including the ability to add branding and watermarks to videos, and include calls-to-action and lead capture directly in the video player.
  
  
• Advanced: Our Advanced plan expands the type of video you can create for work, making it more affordable to live stream and host virtual events and webinars with an extensive suite of features to make the live experience great, including attendee registration, live Q&A, and audience polls.
  
  
• Enterprise: Our Enterprise plans are custom-built for all your needs, including additional options like a video library to manage and share videos organization-wide, advanced interactive video tools, additional security with SSO and identity management, a dedicated support team, and a variety of other features.
  

How will these plans be rolled out?

Starting today, any new Vimeo user can sign up for these new subscription plans. If you’re already a paying subscriber to any of our Plus, Pro, Business, or Premium plans, you can continue on your current plan or you can switch to one of the new plans if it makes sense for you. We currently have no plans to require existing paying subscribers to move to one of our new plans unless they want to.

And, we know that it’s the creators and video pros at the heart of the Vimeo community who tend to be our power users. Certified Vimeo Experts and anyone who has one of their videos named a Vimeo Staff Pick will receive triple the number of videos their subscription level provides. In the coming weeks, we’ll also be adding the ability to increase the number of videos on all of the new paid accounts, because we want to make sure that our subscribers have the flexibility to use Vimeo however works best for them.

Our goal is to make using video far easier and more accessible for any business or team, and we are excited for these new subscription plans to give you more value and flexibility in how you can use Vimeo.  We will continue to work hard behind the scenes to introduce more features and capabilities to help you unlock the power of video in your work.

For more information on each of our plans, please visit our pricing page for details and a list of FAQs.

Learn more about Vimeo Plans

Today I sent the following email to all Vimeo employees.

Dear Vimeans,

Today I have hard news to share: after careful consideration, we have made the decision to reduce our workforce by 6%. We are making this decision in order to ensure we come out of this economic downturn a stronger company.

Our people are what makes Vimeo great, and losing any of them is a personal failure that I feel deeply. But after assessing the challenging market conditions and uncertainty ahead, I believe this is the responsible action to take. It is the right thing to do, but still a painful outcome that impacts the jobs and lives of people we care about and have worked with side-by-side.

How did we get here? In recent months you have asked about layoffs, and I have said that we would do everything we could to avoid this situation. I have also said that we have cash in the bank and a supportive board that trusts us to operate smartly and with agility. All this remains true. Our leadership team has spent a lot of time looking at scenarios for how to best position Vimeo with the appropriate amount of financial flexibility during this period. We slowed hiring, both at the start of the year and more recently, and have been actively evaluating and shifting our investments and expenses. And we committed to reassessing our financial position at the end of the quarter based on what we see. The reality is that the challenging economic conditions around us have impacted our business. We must assume that these conditions will remain challenged for the foreseeable future, and that we aren’t immune. So while we’ve intentionally taken action across other expense areas first, it’s become clear that we also have to look at our largest area of investment, our team.

We have tried to be as thoughtful as possible in determining how much, where and who would be impacted today. It is worth saying that these decisions were not based on blanket cuts across the board, but rather on a small number of structural areas of the business where we have decided to adjust our focus. I know all of this doesn’t make it any easier, especially for those we are losing. But our vision is only as strong as our ability to execute effectively and sustainably, and these were the strategic choices we had to make.

We have spoken with each Vimean affected by this decision, and our People team and managers will be working with them 1:1 to ensure they are supported and cared for through this transition. Each departing Vimean will be receiving:

• A minimum of 12 weeks of pay plus additional time depending on tenure;
• An extended timeframe to exercise their equity;
• Cobra health coverage for medical, dental, and vision in the U.S.;
• Mental wellbeing support; and
• Job transition support including professional outplacement services and support through #Alumneo, a new alumni community we’re standing up

We won’t be openly sharing the names of impacted employees and will leave that to each individual and their manager to determine how they want to share. But we have incredible people leaving Vimeo who we want to make sure are set up for success in finding their next job opportunity. Our leadership team and I will use our networks and relationships to help do that, and we encourage anyone who wants to help to leverage their business contacts and make introductions as they can. We’ll be sharing some ways to do this in our #announcements Slack channel.

We will gather as a company tomorrow to answer your immediate questions and walk you through where we are adjusting our priorities with these changes. Department leads will also be holding impromptu town halls over the coming days. Finally, we will be publishing this email on our blog and I will be posting it on LinkedIn for transparency.

To those who are leaving us — I want to express my sincere gratitude to you, for everything you’ve built to get Vimeo to where it is today. You have helped us grow, innovate and bring the power of video to millions. Thank you.

To our team that is staying — I know this is a difficult day for you too. We are parting ways with respected coworkers and friends, and I am sure you will feel uncertainty and some fear about what comes next. I want you to know that I believe in Vimeo and our future. These changes are happening in order to make us stronger, and the best thing we can do is honor our colleagues’ contributions by continuing to build Vimeo and help our customers unlock the power of video. Our leadership team is wholly committed to our strategy, our ability to win in an enormous and early market, and our desire to build a team and company that we can be immensely proud of. We won’t stop giving it our all until we realize Vimeo’s full potential.

Sincerely,
Anjali

At Vimeo one of our guiding principles is “Users First.” We seek to continually improve our service by making our community’s pain points our own.  I believe that over the course of our 17-year history, we have consistently done this. However, it’s become clear that one of our policies is failing to serve the best interests of a group of our users.

For those who consume large amounts of video bandwidth — repeatedly hitting the bandwidth threshold for Vimeo’s top 1% of users — we have continued to enforce legacy policies that are poorly communicated and that are causing unnecessary friction and anxiety. We have been too slow to act upon user feedback, and as a consequence, have damaged user trust. This pains me greatly, and does not do justice to the passion and hard work of our team. I’d like to offer an apology for this, and more importantly, a solution. 

When we charge for bandwidth

For quick background: Vimeo’s business model is ad-free, meaning that we do not recoup any of our content delivery costs through advertisements and instead charge a flat subscription fee. This means that if a single user requires an exceptionally large amount of bandwidth — likely driven by the number of viewers consuming their content— then their costs can quickly scale above what our flat subscription fees were designed to support.

We generally try not to limit or impose additional fees for bandwidth consumption, and the vast majority of our users — over 99% — don’t reach the threshold that would require us to charge them extra. For those who consistently or significantly exceed these thresholds, our goal is to charge them rates they can afford and that are lower than what they would be charged for ad-free delivery elsewhere. We believe in the value of this offering because it is validated by user behavior: over 70% of users who originally hit their bandwidth threshold choose to pay more to continue using our service, and go on to become some of our longest-retaining customers.

It’s also worth noting that we do not specifically target video creators in employing this model, which applies to all users equally. We believe deeply in supporting our core creator community and continue to invest in products and programs to support them, from Staff Picks to our For Hire network to Experts, a new online program for creative professionals to help sharpen their skills through courses, network, and find work. We will continue to invest in these and other initiatives to help creators thrive.

Upcoming changes

After fully reviewing our existing bandwidth policy and listening to feedback from some of our highest bandwidth users, we will be making the following changes and commitments:

• Shifting our bandwidth threshold from a percentage to a flat 2TB. We historically have determined that users who are in the top 1% of bandwidth usage are subject to bandwidth charges. To improve clarity and transparency moving forward, we will be setting the monthly bandwidth threshold at 2TB (or 2,000 GB)— which would impact even fewer than 1% of our users. Users can access their bandwidth usage report directly on their Vimeo account to track usage (see here for how to access).

• Giving users more frequent and visible alerts. In addition to the analytics dashboard that shows ongoing usage and in-product alerts, users will receive notifications via email when they’ve exceeded the monthly bandwidth threshold.   

• Extending our notice periods. In the case that a user exceeds the monthly threshold, we will give them a minimum of 30 days from the time of our initial outreach to respond to our team and reach an agreeable resolution. During this time, there will be no changes to their account, videos, or service.

• Giving users more alternatives. We will continue to provide a pro-rated refund for any current paying subscriber user that exceeds our bandwidth threshold and decides Vimeo is no longer the best fit for their needs. In those instances, we will provide time to migrate their videos off of our platform and repay the remainder of their account balance.

• Outlining an exemption policy. We have rolled out an exemption policy where certain creative professionals and small non-profits will not be restricted by the 2TB bandwidth threshold. You can review the policy in our Help Center.

Vimeo was built to empower you to use video. Our platform has certainly evolved since our founding, but only with the goal of serving more people and businesses around the world. Never to put up friction, but to eradicate it. We won’t get everything right, and we will make mistakes as we scale. But we will always be honest about our shortcomings and never stop striving to build a company that puts users first and innovates in making video accessible to all.

We remain focused on our mission and committed to serving you. 

Sincerely,

Anjali 

Updated 4/19/2022 with bandwidth exemption policy information.

The invasion of Ukraine is devastating. We are horrified and saddened by its immediate impact, with thousands of people killed and millions more displaced. We stand behind Ukraine in condemning this unprovoked and unjustified attack, and we are in awe at the extraordinary spirit of our employees based in impacted regions and of all the people of Ukraine.  

At Vimeo, we believe in the power of video to spread truth in a way that no other medium can. This power becomes especially important during times of global crisis, when the risks of misinformation and propaganda become even more dangerous. Historically we do not have a  practice of suspending support for users based on geopolitical events. However, several recent actions have occurred— including Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law that could penalize our users with up to 15 years in prison for publishing content — that have made it untenable for Vimeo to continue operating our service as we have been.

As a result of these actions, we are suspending our support for new customers in Russia and announcing updated content guidelines to be more explicit in what we define as misinformation and propaganda on our platform. Our aim is to balance freedom of expression with our responsibility to protect our community from content that has the potential to be dangerous or incite harm.

Beginning today:

• We are not accepting any new customers from Russia; We will continue to provide access for existing users who adhere to and have not violated our community guidelines, and are not subject to international sanctions. 
  
• We are taking the opportunity to reinforce our content guidelines by explicitly banning false and misleading content (including fake news, deepfakes, propaganda, or unproven or debunked conspiracy theories) that creates a serious risk of material harm to a person, group, or the general public. 
  
• We will not do business with entities who are broadly sanctioned by countries outside of the U.S. This includes Russian state media outlets that have been banned in the EU.

We will continue to stand by our Ukrainian team and users and find ways to support impacted communities, whether providing relocation programs and financial assistance for our employees, matching employee donations for nonprofits who are on the ground, using our platform to amplify the voices of Ukrainians who are experiencing firsthand the catastrophic impact of war, and educating those who are denied accurate reports of the current crisis. 

We hope and pray for a peaceful resolution soon.

Review Vimeo’s terms of service

At Vimeo, our aim is to provide our users and their audiences with the highest quality video experience possible. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to ensure we can accomplish this at scale while operating our business sustainably and maintaining a fair and open platform for our more than 260 million global users. This is why we have a policy on bandwidth usage. We know that there are often questions about this policy, so we wanted to share more context around how it works at Vimeo and why.

Unlike most video platforms, Vimeo does not recoup our operating costs through advertising. In fact, there are no ads on Vimeo at all. We offer paid subscription plans that enable access to our platform to cover the costs of our operations. Each paid tier provides different limits on usage and different access to advanced video tools and features. 

We believe in this ad-free model because it enables our users to maintain complete control over how their content is displayed, without having to worry about ads cluttering up their viewers’ experience or other videos being suggested that take their audience elsewhere.

Our platform is powered by a variety of technologies and capabilities that we keep a close eye on, one of them being bandwidth usage. Delivering these videos requires data, which is what we call “bandwidth.” Bandwidth is the data that gets used when someone interacts with video content. If you play a video, live stream an event, or even load a thumbnail, bandwidth is used. The larger the number of people interacting with a video, the more bandwidth used.

Here’s an important distinction: bandwidth is not the same as video storage, although the two can influence one another (the larger the video file, or the greater the number of videos published, the greater the bandwidth required). Like storage, bandwidth has associated costs — all video platforms rely on and pay third-parties (Content Delivery Networks or CDNs for short) to seamlessly deliver video content all over the world. For the vast majority of our users —over 99%— we don’t charge extra for that bandwidth. However, there are instances when someone uses more bandwidth than we can sustainably provide at no additional charge.

Specifically, if someone consistently or significantly exceeds monthly bandwidth thresholds, we reach out to try to find a mutual way forward that’s agreeable and sustainable for both parties. Our goal is to continue supporting these users while offering them lower rates than they would be charged elsewhere. This way Vimeo can keep providing the best possible video solutions for all users of our platform.

Vimeo provides a number of ways to keep users in the loop of their bandwidth—a dashboard to track usage, in-product notifications, and emails from our team—and we are actively working on enhancing these measures for even more transparency into bandwidth usage.

We hope this is helpful! For more information on bandwidth usage at Vimeo, you can read our FAQ in Vimeo’s Help Center.

Update 3/18/22: After fully reviewing our existing bandwidth policy and listening to feedback from our community, we are making some changes to better support those who consume large amounts of video bandwidth at Vimeo. You can read more about these changes and our commitment to improve in a blog post authored by our CEO.

Review our bandwidth FAQ

The past year at Vimeo has been filled with incredible highs (we went public! we grew our team to 1,000 employees!), as well as real challenges, as we navigated a global pandemic and political and social unrest around the world. While we have adapted our approach as we learned, our goal has remained the same: we are committed to building an inclusive culture where all of our people — employees, customers, and partners — can support each other and thrive. We believe that doing so is not only good for business, but essential to building a great company. 

Since our last DEI update, we have continued to try new programs, learn and adapt, educate ourselves, and use our platform and our resources to effect change. From honest conversations on racial bias, intersectionality, and mental health, to supporting organizations on the frontlines of COVID-19 and cancer research, to celebrations of Pride and Juneteenth, to new recruiting practices and training, we have done a lot.

And we have seen that when we partner together, with empathy leading the way, we can make a real difference for our team and within our communities. But despite our efforts, our workplace diversity metrics are not where we want them to be. We haven’t moved the needle in our workplace representation to match our intent, so there’s real work to do.

Whenever we face a tough business challenge at Vimeo, we ask ourselves what’s working, and what isn’t (yet). We use this framework in our meetings as a way to be intellectually honest about what we need to do better. So here’s where we made the most progress in our DEI efforts, as well as where we have the most work to do:

What’s working

Our People team added more structure, transparency, and accountability to our hiring, performance, and HR policies, including:

• Conducting annual leveling, compensation, and pay equity reviews for our employees. 
  

• Adding new inclusion tools for our recruiters who audit job descriptions for inclusive language, capture pronouns from applicants, and assist with name pronunciation.
  

• Establishing self-care days and vacation minimums to encourage employees to take the necessary time for themselves and their mental well being.

Our Employee Community Groups (ECGs) continue to scale and act as passionate drivers of our culture and programs:

• We now have hundreds of employees engaging with our 6 ECGs (A11Y, VimEco, Vimeans for Good, Vimeans of Color, Queereo, and Vimeown). Each ECG has an annual budget, mission, executive sponsorship, contributes to a monthly newsletter, and provides quarterly updates to the company in our People & Culture town hall. 
  

• ECG programs have included creating psychologically safe spaces to discuss topics like microaggressions, mental health and anxiety, hosting workshops on topics like financial literacy, climate change and authentic leadership, supporting film festivals like Reelabilities and Newfest as well as local minority-owned businesses, and providing guidance to our product team on how we can make better choices related to user accessibility.

Our Marketing, Product, Partnerships, Community, and Legal teams have found new ways to use the scale of our platform to advocate for change, including: 

• Investing in highlighting Black-owned businesses and filmmakers through Stories in Place, a program providing seven Black filmmakers the opportunity to produce films that show the spectrum of experiences among Black small-business owners and their communities in the shadow of a global pandemic, economic collapse, and ongoing racial injustice.
  

• Partnering with both TikTok and Facebook to support Black-owned businesses by providing access to Vimeo’s tools and educational resources.
  

• Taking over key parts of our site to encourage voting in the US and guide individuals through their voting plan (how to register, where to vote).
  

• Petitioning the FCC to reinstate Net Neutrality, as we fundamentally believe that open access to the internet is indispensable for ensuring everyone can use the internet to express themselves freely.

What we’re working on

We have further investments to make on the People side to move the needle on inclusion, engagement, and workplace representation. To do this, we are: 

• Conducting a full review of our benefits offerings, with well-being (both physical and mental) being a key focus.
  

• Rolling out Competency Rubrics for every department so there is consistency and transparency for individual performance expectations as well as expected contributions for building an inclusive team.
  

• Working to increase making more diverse hires. Earlier this year we rolled out a diverse candidate pipeline target for all new roles, that requires our recruiters to ensure that women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and / or candidates with disabilities comprise a minimum of 30% of candidates who reach the phone screen interview stage in the hiring process. We are seeing increased diversity at the top of the hiring funnel, but now need to focus on converting that funnel to drive a clear increase in diverse hires.
  

• Investing more in Inclusion focused workshops and making them required for more employees.
  

As a stand-alone public company, we will be establishing Vimeo’s formal Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategies and publishing our first Annual ESG Report next year. We’ve started this work by investing in two forestry projects to offset Vimeo’s 2020 carbon emissions and kicked off Vimeo’s first ever Carbon Emissions Report.

We are building out new leadership focus for DEI and are in the midst of hiring our new Head of DEI. We look forward to working with them to take our DEI strategy to the next level in 2022. 

Looking ahead, our philosophy remains the same: to embed equity and inclusion as essential principles in how we build our teams and our products. We’ll remain focused on identifying and mitigating biases that preserve the status quo. We will prioritize diversity, empathy, candor, and transparency in our office culture. And we will continue to adapt our approach until we find what works. 

We also believe that sharing our aggregate employee demographics is an essential part of our commitment to DEI. So below is our U.S. workforce data by gender, race, and ethnicity in 2020, as compared to 2019.

Vimeo’s 2020 workforce representation

The problems worth solving are rarely easy to solve. It takes persistence, creativity, honesty, and passion to innovate in bold new ways. We’re excited to partner with our incredible team of Vimeans and with thought leaders in the space to keep trying, relentlessly, until our metrics match our beliefs. And we’ll keep you posted on our progress. 

With love, 

Vimeo

More from Vimeo HQ

In-house art by Megan Lucki and Annette Wong.

Dreams do come true.

Today Vimeo was listed as a public company. This has been a 16-year labor of love: sparked by a few inspired minds, nurtured by patient investors, and kindled by over a thousand passionate humans who have built, pivoted, innovated, and scaled. 

We’ve gone through a lot of change over the years. But what has never changed is our belief in the power of video. We put creators first, and put the power of professional-quality video in the hands of millions. We built an innovative software platform, a wildly creative community, and a strong and resilient business. I don’t think I’ll ever feel more proud of a group of people as I do today.

As we look ahead, there is so much more to do. Spurred by a global pandemic, video has become an essential medium for staying connected, productive, and informed—an essential medium for businesses to thrive. Yet there is so much more to imagine and build.

Video can usher in a better, more evolved way of working. Video can unlock whole new business models and revenue streams. Video can move every business forward, regardless of their budget or expertise. Everywhere we look we see opportunity—from transforming our platform into a teams-first experience, to reimagining the future of virtual events, to enabling anyone to create beautiful video content daily. So we will keep innovating, with urgency. We won’t stop until we bring the power of video to all. 

To our users, supporters, and every single member of the team past and present: thank you. We’re honored to be a part of your story, and grateful to you for being a part of ours. 

On behalf of our 850 team members today, working from home setups and laptops around the globe, it is our privilege to take Vimeo into the future.

Our labor of love continues. 

Onwards,
Anjali