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Ask HN: How to manage costs for Twilio apps?
So, I'm running into a dilemma. I just wrote a Twilio App that I think is kinda cool.
The problem is that Twilio can be expensive, and I can't immediately think of any plug-and-play advertising solutions for use with audio / phone applications (such as Adsense for the web). I really want to show my friends this thing, but I'm afraid the costs will spiral out of control.
What are your suggestions on how to make money to offset the costs for web applications that are built on services such as Twilio?
- patio11 17y agoCharge people money!
- theli0nheart 17y agoSo is there no such thing as a freemium model for a Twilio-like web application?
- patio11 17y agoI don't see why you can't do freemium for applications which have non-zero per-user costs. You just have to either a) be careful with it or b) have a lot of other people's money to burn through prior to discovering your COCA and LTV. I spend rather substantially more than my rent on AdWords, to acquire users who don't have to pay me money. This is less risky than it sounds because I have a pretty good idea that a portion of them will indeed pay and that I'll come out profitable. There's also cash flow to consider. AdWords has post-pay, which is quite convenient for cash flow. Twilio, by my understanding, has you pay in advance. That is a bit less convenient. Basically, if you click on an ad today I owe Google money as of sometime in early March and then money actually leaves my physical possession to pay off my credit card sometime in early April, but I get physical possession of your money on Friday. This is pretty powerful -- it means, if Google were to offer me infinite advertising inventory, I could blow up my expenditures very quickly without needing any capital to do it. Prepaying is not nearly so fun, although since you're prepaying with a credit card you still get at least a few weeks to get the customer's money prior to effecting actual transfer of the money to pay for the services they used.