5 ms·

It's great that the self hosted version is fully featured. On the other hand $90/year seems way overpriced.

by nebulous1 7y ago

ddevault 7y ago
$7.50/month? Seems pretty reasonable to me.
- nebulous1 7y ago
  Not to me, but it I guess it depends on your usage. However, for something like this I don't think you want to be competing with a Netflix subscription price-wise. I would have aimed for a dollar or two a month. Admittedly this was probably their initial idea too, but things don't always work out as planned.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    What’s your yearly income?
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    To be frank, if your monthly value comparison for something like this is Netflix, you aren't the target demo.
    - nebulous1 7y ago
      Okay, what do you want to compare it to?
      - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
        Shocking idea: Start by not using Netflix as a reference. They aren't even in the same industry. It looks logically sloppy.
        Multicomp 7y ago
        MS Office 365 gives you 1TB of cloud storage and access to web and desktop versions of the world's most popular office productivity suite for $6.99 a month. I don't find it unreasonable that the parent comment considers $9 / month for the value proposition of what is a relatively unique / untried / new (less than a decade old) software category (database for your interpersonal relationships) to be too high. Until one has time to use the software and have it help you remind yourself what the guy you've only met 4 times in the past likes for lunch, you are paying 'more than an MS Office subscription' for access to the data you entered previously, and unless you quickly become a power user for the software, will use the Monica product for less time per week than MS office, at least in many office jobs. EDIT: That value may be there once you have used the software, but someone is hardly being a cheapskate for not wanting to dole out $9 a month for something they don't yet see the full value prop of. Edit Edit: Hippo CRM costs $1.50 a month , with a reduced albeit same ballpark functionality.
      - sbarre 7y ago
        Instead of evaluation by comparison, why not evaluate it simply based on its merits and the value it provides you? You've been abundantly clear in this thread that this SaaS product wouldn't provide you with good value for the money they want. That's totally cool, you're not the target market for them (at their chosen price point). But other people do see value at that price. So what does that tell us? Nothing! Unless two things provide the same service, it's kind pointless to compare them because the relative value is tied to other subjective factors that aren't universally relevant.
    - criddell 7y ago
      Why do you say that? I subscribe to more and more things and every once in a while I re-evaluate what I'm spending vs what I'm getting.
    - Multicomp 7y ago
      Some people fall on the 'low margin, high volume' side of things, others on the 'high margin, low volume' side, and there's nothing wrong with either decision. With the former, you will lose customers who think 'wow, it must be cheap because it is bad' and the latter, you will lose customers who think 'I'm not paying that much to use hosted MonicaCRM'. I personally would be willing to pay for and use the hosted version for $1-2 a month, but I am not price flexible all the way up to $9. $9/ month is 'real' money, while 1/2 a month is 'patreon / burner' money that one doesn't have to think about in one's monthly budget. For something that I need to use over the course of 6-months/year to see if there are relationship benefits to all of the data entry, that means the first month trial is not quite enough to evaluate if there is value there. I heartily applaud the FOSS if you host it yourself version, that is a mark of a good person, there.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  Ideally there should be a full-feaured free version which would only ask for money if you use it actively for a prolonged period of time. Perhaps I could like it but having to invest (whatever a sum of money) immediately before I try it and find it useful I am hardly going to bother trying. Simple time-limited trials like sign-up and have one month free also don't work - I usually sign-up/install and forget and when I actually fell like let's try it it's already expired.
  - mrnope 7y ago
    Running a business requires paying customers. People who do what you're talking about, aren't paying customers. If you're running a business, you have to focus on people willing to pay you money, not tire kickers.
    - qwerty456127 7y ago
      People who do what I'm talking about, obviously aren't paying customers at this point, they are leads and the job here is to remove all the obstacles between their current status and them becoming paying customers.
  - pbourke 7y ago
    You can try it and cancel after 1 month, according to their docs. It seems like it’s a one-click cancel too. Seems like a reasonable approach, especially since it’s an open source project and thus "free" if you so choose. They even publish a docker image so a moderately technical person could "docker run" it and kick the tires before deciding to subscribe or run it themselves.
- mrnope 7y ago
  I agree, super reasonable.
mrnope 7y ago
I'm flabbergasted that you could post this. Self hosted option, hosted option, open source. Isn't this what HN is all about? You should be eager to support this project for such a small amount.
ken 7y ago
As someone now working in a different industry, let me just say that there are very few professional tools of any kind which cost less than $100. I don’t see how a $90 tool, if it provides any value at all, can be considered overpriced. There are hammers that cost several times more than that. Less than $7.50 per month and I think it would be hard to quantify the benefit.

It's great that the self hosted version is fully featured. On the other hand $90/year seems way overpriced.

ddevault 7y ago

$7.50/month? Seems pretty reasonable to me.

nebulous1 7y ago
Not to me, but it I guess it depends on your usage. However, for something like this I don't think you want to be competing with a Netflix subscription price-wise. I would have aimed for a dollar or two a month. Admittedly this was probably their initial idea too, but things don't always work out as planned.
- xwdv 7y ago
  What’s your yearly income?
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  To be frank, if your monthly value comparison for something like this is Netflix, you aren't the target demo.
  - nebulous1 7y ago
    Okay, what do you want to compare it to?
    - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      Shocking idea: Start by not using Netflix as a reference. They aren't even in the same industry. It looks logically sloppy.
      - Multicomp 7y ago
        MS Office 365 gives you 1TB of cloud storage and access to web and desktop versions of the world's most popular office productivity suite for $6.99 a month. I don't find it unreasonable that the parent comment considers $9 / month for the value proposition of what is a relatively unique / untried / new (less than a decade old) software category (database for your interpersonal relationships) to be too high. Until one has time to use the software and have it help you remind yourself what the guy you've only met 4 times in the past likes for lunch, you are paying 'more than an MS Office subscription' for access to the data you entered previously, and unless you quickly become a power user for the software, will use the Monica product for less time per week than MS office, at least in many office jobs. EDIT: That value may be there once you have used the software, but someone is hardly being a cheapskate for not wanting to dole out $9 a month for something they don't yet see the full value prop of. Edit Edit: Hippo CRM costs $1.50 a month , with a reduced albeit same ballpark functionality.
    - sbarre 7y ago
      Instead of evaluation by comparison, why not evaluate it simply based on its merits and the value it provides you? You've been abundantly clear in this thread that this SaaS product wouldn't provide you with good value for the money they want. That's totally cool, you're not the target market for them (at their chosen price point). But other people do see value at that price. So what does that tell us? Nothing! Unless two things provide the same service, it's kind pointless to compare them because the relative value is tied to other subjective factors that aren't universally relevant.
  - criddell 7y ago
    Why do you say that? I subscribe to more and more things and every once in a while I re-evaluate what I'm spending vs what I'm getting.
  - Multicomp 7y ago
    Some people fall on the 'low margin, high volume' side of things, others on the 'high margin, low volume' side, and there's nothing wrong with either decision. With the former, you will lose customers who think 'wow, it must be cheap because it is bad' and the latter, you will lose customers who think 'I'm not paying that much to use hosted MonicaCRM'. I personally would be willing to pay for and use the hosted version for $1-2 a month, but I am not price flexible all the way up to $9. $9/ month is 'real' money, while 1/2 a month is 'patreon / burner' money that one doesn't have to think about in one's monthly budget. For something that I need to use over the course of 6-months/year to see if there are relationship benefits to all of the data entry, that means the first month trial is not quite enough to evaluate if there is value there. I heartily applaud the FOSS if you host it yourself version, that is a mark of a good person, there.
qwerty456127 7y ago
Ideally there should be a full-feaured free version which would only ask for money if you use it actively for a prolonged period of time. Perhaps I could like it but having to invest (whatever a sum of money) immediately before I try it and find it useful I am hardly going to bother trying. Simple time-limited trials like sign-up and have one month free also don't work - I usually sign-up/install and forget and when I actually fell like let's try it it's already expired.
- mrnope 7y ago
  Running a business requires paying customers. People who do what you're talking about, aren't paying customers. If you're running a business, you have to focus on people willing to pay you money, not tire kickers.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    People who do what I'm talking about, obviously aren't paying customers at this point, they are leads and the job here is to remove all the obstacles between their current status and them becoming paying customers.
- pbourke 7y ago
  You can try it and cancel after 1 month, according to their docs. It seems like it’s a one-click cancel too. Seems like a reasonable approach, especially since it’s an open source project and thus "free" if you so choose. They even publish a docker image so a moderately technical person could "docker run" it and kick the tires before deciding to subscribe or run it themselves.
mrnope 7y ago
I agree, super reasonable.

mrnope 7y ago

I'm flabbergasted that you could post this. Self hosted option, hosted option, open source. Isn't this what HN is all about? You should be eager to support this project for such a small amount.

ken 7y ago

As someone now working in a different industry, let me just say that there are very few professional tools of any kind which cost less than $100. I don’t see how a $90 tool, if it provides any value at all, can be considered overpriced. There are hammers that cost several times more than that. Less than $7.50 per month and I think it would be hard to quantify the benefit.