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4 Comments

Add Subscription System Even When Free?

Hi hackers,

We are planning on launching our app for free to all users and to keep it free for a while. We do plan on monetizing/adding a subscription system later once we have more Product-Market fit. The question is should we add a subscription system into our app now and default all users to have the "free" subscription, or can this be added later with existing users on the system?

  1. 2

    You can definitely add it later. That's what we did at NameShouts.
    If I could go back and do it differently, I will use analytics tool to analyze the behaviour of my free users.

    I would also try talking to the power users and see what else do they need to see to convert as customers. Once I have figured out where to put the paywalls, only then I will add the pricing tiers.

  2. 2

    Depends on what your app is and how much of it is done. If you are releasing more or less all of it now, you might be hard pressed to convert users to a paid tier for what they had for free before unless you have significant value add-on later. Particularly for B2C. You could have 100k users, turn to subscription and have 99k exit.

    If you are going down that path, you should be very explicit that it is a BETA release and it will be moving to some sort of subscription or limited free + subscription later. Set the expectations up front so that you don't have a disgruntled user base doing a mass exodus and bad mouthing your business later.

    As DavideDiCillo said, whatever you choose, architect for it now so that you can just flip a switch later.

  3. 2

    I wouldn't build it from the get go, but as you think the your data architecture I'd keep that in mind and structure your data accordingly.

  4. 2

    I'd worry about it later.

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