4 ms·

CronAlarm - https://www.cronalarm.com https://www.cronalarm.com A platform for monitoring cron jobs and scheduled tasks. Nobody here is getting rich from it, b

CronAlarm - https://www.cronalarm.com https://www.cronalarm.com A platform for monitoring cron jobs and scheduled tasks. Nobody here is getting rich from it, but it is profitable and brings in some extra cash which is nice.

throwaway989111 10y ago
Do you find it hard to get users at the 50 USD level? Im about to launch a REST api monitoring service as a solo dev and wondering about pricing and user aquisition strategy. Thanks!
- kyriakos 10y ago
  I think you should price your service based on your estimated cost +a percentage of profit rather than artificially setting a price.
  - danpat 10y ago
    This approach, while good for setting a lower bounds for what's sustainable, is rarely how you should first price things. I run a small side business. My initial customers I priced like this. After the first year, I realized I was leaving a lot of money on the table - my business was niche and not commoditized, and my customers were willing to pay quite a lot more for the service. I grandfathered in the first year customers and re-structured my pricing to be more "value based" - how much were my customers actually willing to pay for the service, i.e. how much was it worth to them. It took a little while to figure out good price points, and there was a short period of time when I'm sure I lost some customers because prices were too high, but in general, my margins are significantly higher by charging customers based on their percieved value, as opposed to just covering my costs with a fixed margin. The customers don't even mind, because in their minds, the price is good value. It's important to do this not just for its money-making potential - it creates a better impression of "value" for your product, and people value things that they pay more money for. Underpricing can cheapen people's perspective of your product, and de-value your time. Minimum margins are for commodity businesses - where there are lots of competitors and customers can switch easily. For anything else, you can earn more money by considering "value pricing" based on talking to your customers and finding out their pricing tolerance.
    - kyriakos 10y ago
      Thanks this is a great explanation. You actually convinced me.
    - stevekemp 10y ago
      The same result here, I doubled my prices from £0.50 to £1.00 after users told me they would have paid more. That is hardly a huge increase, and I could probably go higher, but it was a good moment for me.
colinbartlett 10y ago
Looks great. I've used a similar service for a while called Dead Man's Snitch https://deadmanssnitch.com https://deadmanssnitch.com. Your product name is arguably more straight forward.
- pigpen34 10y ago
  Thanks! I built this for myself a while back, before I knew any alternatives existed. When I found out about dead mans snitch I figured I might as well build out CronAlarm for others to use as well. Especially since I thought mine was better ;-)

throwaway989111 10y ago

Do you find it hard to get users at the 50 USD level? Im about to launch a REST api monitoring service as a solo dev and wondering about pricing and user aquisition strategy. Thanks!

kyriakos 10y ago
I think you should price your service based on your estimated cost +a percentage of profit rather than artificially setting a price.
- danpat 10y ago
  This approach, while good for setting a lower bounds for what's sustainable, is rarely how you should first price things. I run a small side business. My initial customers I priced like this. After the first year, I realized I was leaving a lot of money on the table - my business was niche and not commoditized, and my customers were willing to pay quite a lot more for the service. I grandfathered in the first year customers and re-structured my pricing to be more "value based" - how much were my customers actually willing to pay for the service, i.e. how much was it worth to them. It took a little while to figure out good price points, and there was a short period of time when I'm sure I lost some customers because prices were too high, but in general, my margins are significantly higher by charging customers based on their percieved value, as opposed to just covering my costs with a fixed margin. The customers don't even mind, because in their minds, the price is good value. It's important to do this not just for its money-making potential - it creates a better impression of "value" for your product, and people value things that they pay more money for. Underpricing can cheapen people's perspective of your product, and de-value your time. Minimum margins are for commodity businesses - where there are lots of competitors and customers can switch easily. For anything else, you can earn more money by considering "value pricing" based on talking to your customers and finding out their pricing tolerance.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    Thanks this is a great explanation. You actually convinced me.
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    The same result here, I doubled my prices from £0.50 to £1.00 after users told me they would have paid more. That is hardly a huge increase, and I could probably go higher, but it was a good moment for me.

colinbartlett 10y ago

Looks great. I've used a similar service for a while called Dead Man's Snitch https://deadmanssnitch.com https://deadmanssnitch.com. Your product name is arguably more straight forward.

pigpen34 10y ago
Thanks! I built this for myself a while back, before I knew any alternatives existed. When I found out about dead mans snitch I figured I might as well build out CronAlarm for others to use as well. Especially since I thought mine was better ;-)