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A lifetime option that only costs as much as a 6 month subscription honestly does nothing more than make me worry about how long your product will stick around.
by jaywalk 6y ago
A lifetime option that only costs as much as a 6 month subscription honestly does nothing more than make me worry about how long your product will stick around.
- kemyd 6y agoHey, we exist for two years right now and doing very well :) Our revenue is growing 13% month to month (bootstrapped). We are based in Poland, so different rates apply here (I'm guessing you're writing from the US)
- jaywalk 6y agoGlad you guys are doing well! I am in the US, so take that for what you will. Just figured I would give feedback on something that immediately jumped out at me.
- kemyd 6y agoThanks! :) I commented about the US because of the difference in salaries. It is much cheaper to run a SaaS start-up in Poland, which is why we are doing well. Probably for the team in the US, it would be too small revenue to build a four-person team in-house (without, e.g., VC funding).
- edoceo 6y agoI frequently see lifetime offerings at 3-5 times annual. Don't be shy about adjusting prices up if you've got a good demand curve going.
- kemyd 6y agoWe're going to experiment with pricing, that's for sure :)
- ravivyas 6y agoI suggest you drop lifetime pricing for a pure SaaS model. Both push different incentives and product paths. Recurring usage will give you more growth avenues than 1 time. Not to mention this is a product that actually needs constant updates, as well charge for it.
- hankchinaski 6y agoeither they have a sky high churn rate which brings down LTV and justifies the monthly price (in which case should be lowered to reduce churn) or they have just no idea what they are doing :) to me is more the former
- nulld3v 6y agoLooking at the roadmap, I have a feeling that their release of "Shuffle Marketplace" is their secret sauce. By allowing others to sell Shuffle components and them taking a cut out of each purchase, they can have a steady flow of cash into the future, as even if you purchase a lifetime sub, you can continue to spend money on their platform. It is quite a good idea but it makes me reluctant to purchase the lifetime sub. I think I'll wait until the marketplace releases and see their pricing model on that.
- kemyd 6y agoWe will introduce the marketplace this quarter, and what you're writing about our business is close to our reasoning. The lifetime license includes access to the editor and all content created by the Shuffle team. Content created by third-party creators will have its own pricing.
- senko 6y agoMy thoughts exactly. Kind of sends a negative signal, even tho financially might be fine for them. Hey @kemyd, any reason (that you could share) you decided to make that one a lifetime instead of annual? Always keen on learning others' approach to pricing such a product.
- kemyd 6y agoTL;DR Most of our customers never heard about churn or LTV. They don't care. You raised this issue probably because you work in the "start-up industry" :) Long version, from the beginning: When we started two years ago, the lifetime option cost $60. Why? Because we created an online editor for Bootstrap only, and Bootstrap Studio (similar software then) had a lifetime option, and it cost... $60 (I just checked, and it still costs $60 for a lifetime license). For proof, you can check the link in my first comment. It's about Bootstrap Shuffle (and that's why today our editor is called Shuffle :)). Please note that their software (Bootstrap Studio) is a desktop application; they don't have infrastructure cost, etc. But back then, I chose price by comparison. In the meantime, we added support for Tailwind CSS, Bulma CSS, and Material-UI. Today, the lifetime option price is related to our LTV and our funding (no VC funding). And that's why we prefer real revenue to imagined/estimated future revenue in excel. ;) And lifetime option converts a lot better than annual (a mean 2x better). I tested it a few times. We may remove this option in the future (for new customers only!), but today lifetime subscription is not something that worries us :)