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A lot of these services get quite expensive very quickly once you go over the free threshold. The free plans are just a loss leader to encourage vendor lock-in.
by robjan 7y ago
A lot of these services get quite expensive very quickly once you go over the free threshold. The free plans are just a loss leader to encourage vendor lock-in.
For example, I used to use the MixPanel free plan in a project and went over the limit and suddenly the plan cost around a thousand dollars per year.
- lonelappde 7y agoDoesn't sound like a lot of money for a business.
- franciscop 7y agoIt's nothing for a VC-funded or mid-to-large company; it's significant money for a self-funded small business just for enhanced tracking in most countries. Really depends on what kind of business we are talking about.
- gumby 7y agoBut the question then is whether you need to do that level of tracking at all. Sometimes of course the answer is yes (“we’re small now and hyperattention to the user demographics will tell us which feature from the list we should implement next”). But often it’s just “well let’s see who’s using our product” without a lot of analysis. Wasted money and unnecessary intrusion into the users’ affairs.
- robjan 7y agoFor a bootstrapped business who is talking about their ~$250/month outgoings it is. The problem is that the expenditure doesn't grow linearly with growth so there will be a window of growth where the company starts achieving "diseconomies of scale". This may or may not be factored into their business plan.