Hi IHer,
For the first time I'm validating first, then building if validated. Working this way is unnatural for me, as I typically build to scratch my own itch, but it makes sense and I'm enjoying the process.
The solution I'm toying with is a mix of vitamin/painkiller. What I'm not sure about is if I should be charging from the outset or offering it for free to early users, or some other strategy. All suggestions welcome.
The landing page is here, if you're interested.
I would highly encourage you that if you go with free access, you should definitely add a paid plan too.
Freemium is actually an acquisition model and not part of pricing
The easier for your user is to see the benefits of the paid plan once enrolls into the free tier, the higher the likelihood that you validate the idea sooner.
Furthermore, paid users who convert from free tier tend to have better retention, and much lower CAC. ( I know it's for later stage, but it's always important to keep your metrics tight)
I post a SaaS Pricing Tip per day on my Twitter
I'd love to get to know you!😁(following back)
Yes I have free and paid plans, with the latter offering a fair bit more than the former. It seemed like a reasonable starting point. Thanks for the advice!
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Customer Acquisition Cost
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It's the industry standard, but I agree with you.
Usage of acronyms on a broad audience base indicates tendencies to be considered an authority, which was totally out of my scope. Apologies for that 😀
The larger the audience the better. Even free will cost money to market. The trick here is keeps your costs at bare bones until you have traction. With an audience you have the ability to do user interviews. This is the biggest advantage .
Received a reply on Twitter yesterday that I'm following, to not have a free plan at the start, because free users are not per se customers...
<me removing the free plan from the pricing page>
source: https://twitter.com/dagorenouf/status/1482709416730193920
Thanks for sharing. I looked at the thread, it seems many agree. I guess if just trying to determine any kind of interest, a free tier is fine. But to determine whether or not people will pay, I guess there's really only one way.
Yes that's exactly what I get out of that thread.
And it still is kind of"scary", because of the fear to miss potential customers.
But my view now is that I can always change it back
I think it depends on leverage. If users are dying to use your product you should charge. If you're looking to work with early users and have them work with you to better your product it's probably best to offer the solution for free (for now).
What is the expectation of your target audience? Let that be your guide.
My assumption would be that most if not all competitors in this space offer a freemium version, thus customers probably also expect this from your app.
Yes this is my thinking too, it's the approach I've started with but needed a sanity check.
A (generous) free trial with credit card upfront works best for Zlappo, though we do offer a no-credit-card free trial for a shorter period.
It is very hard to get someone who has been paying $0 to pay more than that in the future. Business savvy friends prefer to say instead "the price is $$$, but for you, we are giving a 3 month discount of $$$, so your net bill for Q1 will be $0, with prices reverting to normal after that". The $$$ acts as what psychologists call an anchor. The customer hopefully feels they are getting a $$$ service for $0, and is thus less resistant to paying when their discount period is over. The price is not rising from 0, it is returning to normal. Please don't start people at $0!
Depends on what stage you're on. If you're trying to find product-market fit, I'd advise you just start charging today. It's painful since fewer people will use a paid product BUT it'll help you get good committed customers (imagine how desperate someone must be to buy a prototype/early product). Then once you've refined the product with their feedback...you can turn on your growth engine via freemium.
Discounting is never a good idea unless you have PMF already. If your customers are really hesitant to pay, try offering a money-back guarantee.
I was thinking just get some initial users interested and using it first. It seems weird and feels uncomfortable charging people for something that's not even built yet.
That's fair - you could just give it away for free but then you should unweight sign ups in your mental model and solely focus on usage. :)
For that kind of product, I’d start with free. It’s in a crowded niche and the hardest thing will be to get people to use it all.
A very promising idea and validation first is a good choice, in my opinion. I actually like what you have at the moment (crossing out the price point users otherwise would pay and keeping it free for pre-launch users). How did you come up with the current price, though? Don't you think $10 is a bit steep?
Thanks. I did wonder if $10 is too much, I'm still testing the water on that. The idea is that users will (quite easily) be able to reduce the fee through various in-app activities. It might make more sense to go in the opposite direction though — start discounted, with the higher price kicking in on failing to meet "targets", or something along those lines.
We'll see. A healthy habit brings its own rewards, but I want users to receive a real-world reward too for maintaining the habit. This is includes me!
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It's for this reason I expressed the following sentiment in another comment:
I didn't expect the opinions around this topic to be so polarised. Probably shows my inexperience when it comes to marketing, etc.
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Yes, but still... I was hoping for clarity on an approach but it's instead more confusing.
I'm just going to do what I feel comfortable with and makes sense to me. Either way, I'll learn something, whether or not I make any money with this particular venture.
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