Gain customers by starting with a pay-what-you-want model
Gain paid users and important data by launching with pay-what-you-want, and then changing your pricing later.
Gregg Blanchard of PeakFeed ($1,000/mo) was able to quickly get his first 115 paying users this way. It also gave him lots of good user testimonials for his marketing efforts. He recommends a pay-what-you-want model for people who are just getting started, but says you'll hit a ceiling pretty quickly. Today, he uses a standard tiered pricing structure, which he based on the data he got from his pay-what-you-want users. And he still uses his testimonials to inform his marketing message and gain insights into his key features.
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Does anyone have successful experience with this model? I used to write tabletop RPG adventures and sell them online. At first, I tried using a PWYW approach and I probably had 1 paying customer per 400 downloads. With a hard price, I had many fewer downloads (obviously) but made orders of magnitude more revenue.
Curious what other people's experience is!
@MattDrake I don't remember who it was but I recently read about someone doing PWYW with a minimum and they said it worked pretty well. Maybe the minimum is key.
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
@getflookup - Interesting theory, that could totally be true. I think what Blanchard said about transitioning away from PWYW after a short time is an important element, though, and could be why it worked for him.