The compounded cost of using SaaS's for startups & proposed solution
Hi indie hackers,
I recently read this post from @KareemC, who is running a successful Stripe partner program. A very inspiring story from a 17-year-old.
Anyways his stack caught my attention, where he lists some SaaS's he is using for his business. I added to the list the minimum prices of these services
- Support/engagement: Intercom $39/month
- Monitoring - New Relic/Statuspage: Free / Free
- Bug reporting - Sentry: Free
- Feedback - Canny: $50 / mo
- Reviews - Capterra: Free
Most are free but if you want to provide a good service from the start you gotta reach for your wallet, and costs can compound quite quickly.
I'm sure you're trying to keep costs to a minimum when building your revenue stream. I'm doing the same with my current beta firebase content management side project fireful. I'm either choosing free alternatives to these services or in the worst case building a quick solution myself. Who knows, if my project doesn't work out I don't want to end up having spent a lot of money.
In any case I noticed a lot of these services are using Stripe. We know from indie hackers that you can get the revenue from startups via stripes integration. That got me thinking, why not have a cross integration platform where SaaS platforms can offer credit to startups that verify their revenue via Stripe?
Think of a platform where vendors & startups can link their Stripe accounts, the subscription costs from the vendor would stack up but not be invoiced. Once the startup starts making a set amount of revenue, vendors can then start invoicing. If the startup doesn't work out, there is no invoice.
Obviously services already provide free and starter plans to tackle this issue. Also this kind of credit platform can be subject to abuse in many ways.
On the other hand this could be an alternative way for Stripe to allow startups credit in a way to help founders focus on their product and use the best services available. It could also be a good way to capture potentially lost revenue for vendors. Feels to me like a good use for the Stripe partners program and something Stripe could back if executed well.
Too far of a stretch? What do you think?
Interesting idea, but I think abuse and vendor risk could be a big challenge.
From what I’ve seen, startups usually manage costs better by choosing the right tools early and leveraging partnerships instead of stacking too many paid services.
Your model could work, but it would need strong validation to avoid misuse.
How would you handle that part?