I shipped my first product after a year: a WordPress assistant that books and quotes
Background: small web agency, no funding, no team. I built the thing I kept wishing existed for my own clients.
What it does that a chatbot does not: books appointments on real availability inside the chat, generates a branded PDF quote from the business's own price list, scores every conversation hot/warm/cold with a written reason, and runs a technical audit of a prospect's website that lists problems and never solutions.
Business model decisions I am unsure about and would like challenged:
Bring your own AI key. Zero marginal cost for me, but a bigger setup hurdle and no usage-based upside.
Free tier is a separate plugin on WordPress.org rather than a locked build. Cleaner, but it means my free users are not in my funnel at all.
Tiers by number of sites (1 / 5 / 20), identical features. Simple to explain, but I am leaving money on the table with single-site power users.
Numbers so far: launched this week, so honestly zero. Ask me anything, especially the uncomfortable questions.
Free version: https://wordpress.org/plugins/sabriel-ai/
The interesting tension is that the product already has a clear multi-value workflow, but the pricing choices are still unresolved. BYO AI key reduces your cost but adds friction, while site-based tiers may undercharge high-value customers. That feels like the real commercial question to solve next.
Congrats on shipping. The separate free plugin feels like the biggest risk because it removes the natural upgrade path and splits reviews, support, and analytics across two products. I’d keep it separate only if the free version creates a clear upgrade moment when someone reaches a real constraint.
BYO AI keys may work for agencies, but could become a serious setup hurdle for ordinary business owners. Who is the primary buyer: an agency installing this across client sites, or a business owner managing one site? That answer probably resolves both the onboarding and pricing questions.