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Just tried your product. 1. You have no way of previewing your entered data - if you mess up, you just wasted 0.05 - 0.12 USD. Does it really cost that much to

Just tried your product. 1. You have no way of previewing your entered data - if you mess up, you just wasted 0.05 - 0.12 USD. Does it really cost that much to render a PDF once? With Overleaf, you get essentially unlimited previews. Consider providing a watermarked preview, or a lowly-res png render. 2. Why do the credits expire? As a casual user, I'd need to buy credits either again and again, or pay more than double the price so I can just use my credits. I think that's really unfair, and coupled with your pricing model above is limiting my interaction severely. 3. However, as a technically adept customer I like how it's done now. I can create as many free accounts as I like, each with about 7 USD worth of credits. I just need to set up a spam account every time I run out. ## Alternative model: ## - Unlock templates by paying for them. All generation is then free (up to a certain high limit for your enterprise customers and limit abuse). - Provide packages of templates to buy together (the finance department package, the communication package, ...) - For an even higher licensing fee, the templates can be downloaded as well and integrated into products. I think this would suit your existing business of providing custom LaTeX templates well. ## Alternative model 2: ## 1. Bog standard subscription (pay x per month to do y pdfs) ## Security: ## The rendered LaTeX may include files such as /etc/passwd. I did not try to get an RCE on your rendering server, but I'd spend some time isolating it as much as possible. Consider getting a pentest done, especially given your high privacy claims.

VelNZ 6y ago
I really appreciate you trying it out and giving your feedback, thanks! The lack of a preview and wasted credits on mistakes is something I'd like to improve in the medium term. The way it is now, content is completely separated from presentation, and I consider that a defining feature of the product. Of course, producing each document costs essentially nothing, and the lack of a preview may be very frustrating, so perhaps meeting somewhere in the middle in terms of a preview may be the way to go. Your alternative models are excellent ideas and I will consider them as part of an overhaul of the pricing model, thanks! The rendering happens in Docker on worker instances, but a pentest is something I will look to get as well. Disallowing things like including arbitrary files from the operating system in the LaTeX code is important, I agree.

VelNZ 6y ago

I really appreciate you trying it out and giving your feedback, thanks! The lack of a preview and wasted credits on mistakes is something I'd like to improve in the medium term. The way it is now, content is completely separated from presentation, and I consider that a defining feature of the product. Of course, producing each document costs essentially nothing, and the lack of a preview may be very frustrating, so perhaps meeting somewhere in the middle in terms of a preview may be the way to go. Your alternative models are excellent ideas and I will consider them as part of an overhaul of the pricing model, thanks! The rendering happens in Docker on worker instances, but a pentest is something I will look to get as well. Disallowing things like including arbitrary files from the operating system in the LaTeX code is important, I agree.