Would you pay MORE to self-host? A pricing decision we made before our PH launch
We're launching BuildBase (a SaaS backend SDK) on Product Hunt Thursday, and one pricing call keeps getting questioned:
Self-hosting costs more than our cloud plans, not less.
Our reasoning: self-hosting gives you our Docker images on your own infra with your own MongoDB and Redis. You get data ownership, no lock-in and your own compliance boundary. For the people who need it, that's the premium tier, not the budget one.
The usual counterargument: "I'm paying for my own servers, so it should be cheaper."
Both sides make sense to me. So I'm asking people who've actually priced this:
- Have you ever paid more to self-host something? What made it worth it?
- Or did a higher self-host price make you walk away?
Honest answers welcome, including "you're wrong."
Good point. Did you test that with users before committing to it?
How did you decide this was worth building in the first place?