5 ms·

Why does it cost 9 USD per month? (Unless you self host)

blitzar 3y ago
How much do you think it should cost? More or less per month? Or maybe annual? Multi currency support? It is a genuine question.
- zeteo 3y ago
  They should just do what everyone else does and finance themselves by selling your data to the highest bidder! There are lots of advertisers who would pay a fair amount to know this much about your social graph and what you think of them.
  - msla 3y ago
    > They should just do what everyone else does and finance themselves by selling your data to the highest bidder! You say that as if they won't anyway.
    - Doublon 3y ago
      Their privacy policy[1] states: >The site does not currently and will never show ads. It also does not, and don't intend to, sell data to a third party, with or without your consent. We are just against this. Fuck ads. [1] https://www.monicahq.com/privacy https://www.monicahq.com/privacy
  - robinhood 3y ago
    Why would we do that? This is not something we want to do. We don't even have tracking. And also, we advocate everywhere that users should host their own instance.
    - Mashimo 3y ago
      I think it was a joke.
- Mashimo 3y ago
  A bit less. It just seems like a service that is "easy" to host, as in does not need much maintenance or ressources, thus allowing you to host tens of instances on a cheap VPS. But maybe I'm overlooking something. Hence me asking.
  - q87b 3y ago
    I am sure part of the money goes towards development.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Cost of something just has to be higher than the cost to deliver. It should be much closer to the value provided than the cost to deliver, however, or your business will fail.
- startupsfail 3y ago
  Well, basic Google suite for a small business user costs around that much per month. It is not a bad alternative to your product, no? As the search over the documents, photos, contacts and emails works rather well there. And integrations with the 3rd party software and apps is great. I’m not sure Google sells the data of their business suite subscribers. I doubt they do. A comparable personal product would normally be freemium, but very limited in storage space and events number. And then, for US/European markets you’d have a $0.x per month subscription, to lift that limit. Asking early adopters to pitch in more (maybe for some token appreciation or special treatment/logo) also makes a lot of sense. (Take this with a lot of salt, I easily can be very wrong in any of the above).
cornfutes 3y ago
Why does Google and Facebook cost $0 USD per month?
- Mashimo 3y ago
  Because they sell your data. I'm not asking why this cost money, I understand that. I'm asking why it cost 9 USD per month.
  - ctvo 3y ago
    > I'm asking why it cost 9 USD per month. If you think it should cost less because of N reasons -- self host it. There's an option for that vs. other solutions. They don't need to justify their cost to you, ever, but especially when it's open sourced with an option to self host.
    - Mashimo 3y ago
      > They don't need to justify their cost to you, ever, Correct. I'm just *wondering* why they choose that price. I don't want them to change it and they have every right to not talk about it. I selfhost a lot of stuff. I don't understand why people think this is an attack.
unstatusthequo 3y ago
Perhaps the author wants to eat and have a beer sometime?
- Mashimo 3y ago
  Yes, I get that. It just seems to me that the people who know what a "Personal CSM" is, don't want to self host and have 90 USD/year for a contact management and journal are rather small. It was a genuine questions from me.
  - DandyDev 3y ago
    I assume they did some research, a/b testing etc. and found out that this is a price people are willing to pay. Also, this is 2 beers. 1 if you have to pay US service fees and a tip
    - Mashimo 3y ago
      Could be. My first idea was they want to encourage people to self host.
      - robinhood 3y ago
        The initial idea was for us to be able to work full time on it. Here was the rational. I'm in Montreal, Alexis is in Paris. The cost of living in these cities is pretty high. We have families. So let's say we need to bring in $100 000 CAD per year. 9$ per month ~= 8$ after Stripe taxes. Then 35% off from the government. If I'm extra generous and lucky from the taxes, we get 5$ per subscription. Then we need to substract the costs of hosting on a PAAS for 40 000 users. Let's say it's an extra $. So we have 4$ per subscription. If we need to bring 200 000 $ CAD at least to live decently with our families, we would need 50 000 paying users. That is without the churn, right, which is pretty high currently at 8%. 7 years later: we don't even have 500 paying users The dream of working full time on Monica is still there, but without VC money, I don't know how we could achieve this.
drooopy 3y ago
Could you BE any more parsimonious? (/s)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

How much do you think it should cost? More or less per month? Or maybe annual? Multi currency support? It is a genuine question.

zeteo 3y ago
They should just do what everyone else does and finance themselves by selling your data to the highest bidder! There are lots of advertisers who would pay a fair amount to know this much about your social graph and what you think of them.
- msla 3y ago
  > They should just do what everyone else does and finance themselves by selling your data to the highest bidder! You say that as if they won't anyway.
  - Doublon 3y ago
    Their privacy policy[1] states: >The site does not currently and will never show ads. It also does not, and don't intend to, sell data to a third party, with or without your consent. We are just against this. Fuck ads. [1] https://www.monicahq.com/privacy https://www.monicahq.com/privacy
- robinhood 3y ago
  Why would we do that? This is not something we want to do. We don't even have tracking. And also, we advocate everywhere that users should host their own instance.
  - Mashimo 3y ago
    I think it was a joke.
Mashimo 3y ago
A bit less. It just seems like a service that is "easy" to host, as in does not need much maintenance or ressources, thus allowing you to host tens of instances on a cheap VPS. But maybe I'm overlooking something. Hence me asking.
- q87b 3y ago
  I am sure part of the money goes towards development.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Cost of something just has to be higher than the cost to deliver. It should be much closer to the value provided than the cost to deliver, however, or your business will fail.
startupsfail 3y ago
Well, basic Google suite for a small business user costs around that much per month. It is not a bad alternative to your product, no? As the search over the documents, photos, contacts and emails works rather well there. And integrations with the 3rd party software and apps is great. I’m not sure Google sells the data of their business suite subscribers. I doubt they do. A comparable personal product would normally be freemium, but very limited in storage space and events number. And then, for US/European markets you’d have a $0.x per month subscription, to lift that limit. Asking early adopters to pitch in more (maybe for some token appreciation or special treatment/logo) also makes a lot of sense. (Take this with a lot of salt, I easily can be very wrong in any of the above).

cornfutes 3y ago

Why does Google and Facebook cost $0 USD per month?

Mashimo 3y ago
Because they sell your data. I'm not asking why this cost money, I understand that. I'm asking why it cost 9 USD per month.
- ctvo 3y ago
  > I'm asking why it cost 9 USD per month. If you think it should cost less because of N reasons -- self host it. There's an option for that vs. other solutions. They don't need to justify their cost to you, ever, but especially when it's open sourced with an option to self host.
  - Mashimo 3y ago
    > They don't need to justify their cost to you, ever, Correct. I'm just *wondering* why they choose that price. I don't want them to change it and they have every right to not talk about it. I selfhost a lot of stuff. I don't understand why people think this is an attack.

unstatusthequo 3y ago

Perhaps the author wants to eat and have a beer sometime?

Mashimo 3y ago
Yes, I get that. It just seems to me that the people who know what a "Personal CSM" is, don't want to self host and have 90 USD/year for a contact management and journal are rather small. It was a genuine questions from me.
- DandyDev 3y ago
  I assume they did some research, a/b testing etc. and found out that this is a price people are willing to pay. Also, this is 2 beers. 1 if you have to pay US service fees and a tip
  - Mashimo 3y ago
    Could be. My first idea was they want to encourage people to self host.
    - robinhood 3y ago
      The initial idea was for us to be able to work full time on it. Here was the rational. I'm in Montreal, Alexis is in Paris. The cost of living in these cities is pretty high. We have families. So let's say we need to bring in $100 000 CAD per year. 9$ per month ~= 8$ after Stripe taxes. Then 35% off from the government. If I'm extra generous and lucky from the taxes, we get 5$ per subscription. Then we need to substract the costs of hosting on a PAAS for 40 000 users. Let's say it's an extra $. So we have 4$ per subscription. If we need to bring 200 000 $ CAD at least to live decently with our families, we would need 50 000 paying users. That is without the churn, right, which is pretty high currently at 8%. 7 years later: we don't even have 500 paying users The dream of working full time on Monica is still there, but without VC money, I don't know how we could achieve this.

drooopy 3y ago

Could you BE any more parsimonious? (/s)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]