Downsides of Lifetime deals?

I think businesses are missing out on a lot of revenue by not offering a lifetime deal that exceeds LTV.

There exists a significant segment of customers who are allergic to yet another monthly subscription yet have little to no price sensitivity when it comes to "once and done" purchases.

And rightfully or wrongfully, they don't use the product as rigorously as a subscription user would -- they buy it to own it just in case, they're not necessarily power users.

Because of that, I find that claims that support for lifetime users will be overwhelming are overblown.

Not all lifetime users will use the product for the product's lifetime; hell, I'd even say most won't.

I have a consumer-facing freemium model web app that I'm hoping to launch as a 1.0 in the coming weeks. My plan is to offer a very cheap option to buy lifetime access to the premium features in advance of them being available - probably something along the lines of: "Here's the roadmap, premium will be $5/mo but as an early adopter if you fill out this survey you qualify for lifetime access with a one-time $20 payment."

My hope with this approach is to get some good feedback, prove that some subset of people are willing to pay some amount of money, encourage early adopters to feel part of an exclusive club and become evangelists, and (importantly from my personal morale perspective) move the income needle off of zero.

If I was in a small niche I might be worried about cannabilizing future income streams but since RN I don't know if I'll get 100's of paying users or hundreds of thousands more paying users sooner seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

Good luck with your launch!

Yes there's downside, but I think it's towards a positive direction if you managed to launch faster. Launch faster as in launching a new business model or product line once you secured the first batch of early adopters.

I'd shy away from lifetime deals. If customers truly value your product, they'll purchase. Many alternative marketing methods exist that would better support your customer and the business model of your product for the long term.

Here are downsides to lifetime deals:

1. You generally will receive less than needed to support the business.
2. The customers that will buy your lifetime deals most likely aren't your core customers that you'll want for life. If they are, they'd purchase at your regular price.
3. So many companies are now doing lifetime deals that they aren't nearly as shiny and attractive as they used to be.

If you were opening up a car repair shop, would you ever give customers a lifetime deal for oil changes? No, because the customers that you would give that service to would run you high and dry. Software still requires maintenance and work to maintain, so don't leave those costs out of your calculations.

Maybe not at the beginning? Let it run for a while and see how things are first.

I have an app to which I added a lifetime tier after 2 years, and I only do that because there are quite a lot of users were asking for it. I priced it at 3x its yearly subscription price; asking those users to meet me halfway.

That episode from @arvidkahl's podcast shared by @cambodia87 is a good one! Give it a read or listen. :)

Good timing, as @arvidkahl just released this blog post and podcast on the topic:

https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/lifetime-deals-and-saas-businesses/

It goes much more in-depth than my reply here would be able to!

I'd make it dependent on the following two questions:

• How desperately do you need the money?
• How many early adopters can you sign up without a lifetime deal?

Think about whether you can get that vital early feedback without a lifetime deal or not.

i always saw and see lifetime deals as scammy.

but i think saying that is not particularly welcome.