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From a tech side this is great, but your pricing model is all screwed up. "Unlimited forms and fields" at the free tier? You need to align your pricing to scale

From a tech side this is great, but your pricing model is all screwed up. "Unlimited forms and fields" at the free tier? You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs. Limit by users but also the number of rows in the DB. MailChimp is a good example of aligning pricing with costs

dkyc 11y ago
"You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs" I strongly disagree with that. You should align your pricing with the value the user receives. To do this optimally, you need to have a good grasp of who your user is, how much value he receives from the software and how the typical purchasing process looks like. For an early stage company, all these questions may not be answered yet, so it is best to wait and learn what the users do with the product before prematurely optimizing pricing at an early stage.
- billyhoffman 11y ago
  You are correct and I posted that prematurely. Your pricing should always reflect the value you provide your customer. Helping a small company save 3% is worth less than helping Walmart save 3% and your company should price accordingly. That said, if you have correctly priced your product, than the pricing should also align and scale with your costs, so you can use that as a quick short cut to evaluate a pricing model. When pricing doesn't scale with costs, it usually means your having properly valued your product. I would argue that seems to be the case with the pricing for this Show HN
krmmalik 11y ago
I would argue that only covers half the equation. Prices should be congruent with increase in value which in itself is dependent on what is meaningful to the user. Mailchimp is pricing for increase in value as well as users find more meaning in having larger mailing lists (which also happens to increase costs). Optimising purely for costs is not always the most effective and misses vital opportunities.

dkyc 11y ago

"You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs" I strongly disagree with that. You should align your pricing with the value the user receives. To do this optimally, you need to have a good grasp of who your user is, how much value he receives from the software and how the typical purchasing process looks like. For an early stage company, all these questions may not be answered yet, so it is best to wait and learn what the users do with the product before prematurely optimizing pricing at an early stage.

billyhoffman 11y ago
You are correct and I posted that prematurely. Your pricing should always reflect the value you provide your customer. Helping a small company save 3% is worth less than helping Walmart save 3% and your company should price accordingly. That said, if you have correctly priced your product, than the pricing should also align and scale with your costs, so you can use that as a quick short cut to evaluate a pricing model. When pricing doesn't scale with costs, it usually means your having properly valued your product. I would argue that seems to be the case with the pricing for this Show HN

krmmalik 11y ago

I would argue that only covers half the equation. Prices should be congruent with increase in value which in itself is dependent on what is meaningful to the user. Mailchimp is pricing for increase in value as well as users find more meaning in having larger mailing lists (which also happens to increase costs). Optimising purely for costs is not always the most effective and misses vital opportunities.