To charge or not to charge for MVP?
Hi Hackers,
I am building a SaaS product - a library of published iOS screenshots that are tagged by function and category. It is a direct competitor of other libraries like pttrns and Mobbin who run on freemium models. For the MVP which is an Airtable base, the only differentiating factors to those guys is that I am not only including well-designed apps (which IMO is subjective) but also especially those in highly competitive app categories. I am also including additional metadata (for e.g. color hex codes and font style) for each screenshot and app-store rankings for each app (updated daily) allowing you to easily filter apps of interest based on the fields in the Airtable base.
As for the product post-MVP, I would be moving out of Airtable on to a web application and I would like to charge a yearly subscription for this product as I will be continuously updating screenshots and introducing new ones in the library and will be accepting new app requests from users.
The question I have is whether I should be charging that subscription from the onset even in MVP stage? I've read many threads on IH where founders shared their regret of not charging and that they've seen many of their 'free' customers churn once a subscription was implemented. However, given my competition, would charging for an MVP that is not highly differentiated make sense when the said competition offers their products as a freemium?
Always charge. Even as little as $1. That one dollar is proof that your customer believes in your service. If you have customers extremely involved with the product (they give you constant feedback and improvement ideas) I'd say give them a 50% discount because they also bring value back to you.
If you think your product is useful now, but not as feature rich as you intend it to be at a true 1.0 state, you can use beta pricing which will raise to regular pricing after an official launch date.
Thanks everyone for your replies! It has been really helpful and I’ve to decided for my MVP.
For my first project, I decided not to charge. It ended up being exploited and abused. It took me about 3 months to re-monetize it and stop the abuse. But a paywall, even for what I charge -- $2/month has prevented additional abuse. However, since I offer "1" of the item for free, what they started doing was signing up with throwaway email address. So I banned the throwaway email addresses (found on Github), but unfortunately, Github doesn't have them all. And also, they seem to actually be creating Gmail accounts as well. So I tried preventing the same IP address from signing up twice, so I guess they now use a proxy. Anyways, that is the way of the world. My product is https://mypost.io. My next move is to require a mobile verification or just prevent anyone from posting for free (even using "1" of the product) and just charging outright to use it, as it's just getting too annoying. If you can figure it out... let me know.
You should be proud that users want your product so much that they are willing to go through the hassle of using fake emails to get it for discount/free. Finding a way to monetize a product that people want is a not a bad problem to have.
I think that's the wrong approach. Instead of putting effort in banning users from using your service for free, you could ask them as honest as possible why is it that they don't want to pay and explain that no service can last without monetisation.
Hard to "ask" them when they are signing up with fake email addresses ;)
They were using the service to distribute illegal warez, malware, and bootlegged movies. I got shut down. I'm okay with banning those users. Not like they were doing me any favors except drawing unwanted attention from the DMCA.
Ouch. Isn't there something you can do about it? Add filters for spam? How are other website builders handling this issue?
I've tried to filter words but there is always ways around it and for a product I was offering for free -- to constantly patch it up just gets annoying after a while. Paywall and a little monitoring seems to have slowed them down a bit.
I’d say you want to know as early as possible if your key differentiator (additional metadatas) has a high enough value to some people, and if you are able to identify and attract those users to your solution.
Does your MVP in its current form solve the pain/fill the need and do some people have the ability and willingness to pay for it?
It’s probable you won’t know until you try to charge for it.
Build an MLP an charge for it, you'll never be upset ^^
I like the concept, and if I were operating on mobile at the moment I would prefer to pay. You're also catching a bit of a lull in the freemium model of success. It's a bit less favorably seen right now. Its a money grab that is often hit or miss. A pay model lets customers know you're serious up front.
Charging early will help you both validate the concept and will ensure you know what feedback to prioritize.
Every business is unique, but one of the most universal mistakes is to delay converting users to customers.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago