One plan, $19 flat, everything included. bold or naive? (0 customers so far)
hey IH 👋 ahnaf here, solo dev in melbourne.
i built relnotely, a hosted changelog. you write a release note once and it goes to three places: a changelog page on your own domain, a "what's new" widget in your app, and an email to subscribers who double opted in.
the pricing is the part i keep second-guessing, so i'd love some outside eyes on it.
when i compared changelog tools, several of them charged more for a custom domain or for taking their badge off your page. so i went the other way:
- one plan, $19/month, flat
- custom domain included
- no "powered by" badge, not even on the trial
- more readers or subscribers never costs more
- no free tier, but writing and importing old notes is free. a card only comes in at your first publish, which starts a 7-day trial
- if you stop paying, your published changelog stays online. only writing stops
left out on purpose: roadmaps, feedback boards, segmentation, SSO, team seats, reader analytics.
where it's at: billing is open, 0 paying customers, basically no audience. so i'm building in public from zero.
two questions for anyone who's been here:
- free tier, or is "free to write, pay to publish" fair enough?
- does one flat plan hold up once teams get bigger, or am i leaving money on the table?
you can poke around the real thing without signing up. relnotely's own changelog runs on relnotely: https://relnotely.com/changelog
With zero paying customers so far, are you seeing any evidence that prospects reject the $19 price specifically, or is the bigger unknown whether they want a changelog tool at all?
I actually like the simplicity of the offer. At 0 paying customers, though, I’d be more concerned about proving the $19 value than optimizing pricing tiers. If someone can clearly see how the changelog saves them time or improves communication with users, $19 becomes an easier decision. I’d probably validate that before adding a free tier or more plans.
Not naive. One plan removes a decision, and custom domain + no badge are exactly what people resent paying extra for. I'd just watch whether "card at first publish" is where people drop; if the first 10 trial starts all stop there, test publishing to a preview URL without a card.
Flat and badge-free is a real differentiator in this category. I'd lead with it on the pricing page instead of listing it as one bullet among six.
On your two questions:
"Free to write, pay to publish" is fair, and for a changelog it's arguably better than a free tier. The value moment is the first publish, so that's exactly where the card should come in. One thing I'd add: a private preview of the page, widget and email before the card, so the 7-day trial doesn't start at the moment people are least sure.
One flat plan holds up longer than you'd think, because the teams that outgrow it will ask for exactly what you left out on purpose (SSO, seats, segmentation). When the third company asks for SSO, that's your second plan, priced for them, and the $19 plan stays honest. Don't invent it before then.
One thing to decide early: "your published changelog stays online if you stop paying" is a great trust signal, but put a number on how long, in writing, so you're not hosting abandoned pages forever.
Where are you looking for the first 10? Changelog buyers are usually the founder of a small SaaS, and they're easiest to find where they already post release notes.
with zero customers, i'd keep the one plan for now and treat the first 5–10 sales as interviews rather than optimizing tiers. the free-to-write/pay-to-publish split makes sense, but i'd spell out what happens to an unpublished draft during the trial so the boundary feels fair. have you tested whether people see the value more in the hosted changelog or the widget?
Love this angle. Building Xstream4K right now so this hits close to home — what made you look into it in the first place?