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> As a fellow subscription revenue biz... I think it's hard to group all "subscription services" into the same bucket. Selling proprietary data in the financia

> As a fellow subscription revenue biz... I think it's hard to group all "subscription services" into the same bucket. Selling proprietary data in the financial services market (like CB Insights) is very different from selling a simple tool (like iDoneThis). Also, it should be noted that price is just one component of a pricing model. If you don't look at how you charge, and only consider how much you charge, chances are you're not going to maximize revenue. $5/user/month looks good on paper, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that the perceived value scales with a flat-fee-per-user (no tiers) model. Example: 1. If my company has 10 people, sending iDoneThis $50 each month probably isn't a big deal. 2. If my company has 10 teams of 10 people, iDoneThis is now a $500/month expense. That's $6,000/year. I might not dispute that there's value to the service, but my perception and consideration of its value is likely to change as the total cost increases.

asanwal 13y ago
Great points all around. I do agree that for larger company/enterprise type deals, the current iDoneThis pricing may not work and IMO, that's a large opportunity.
richardw 13y ago
If your company has 10 teams of 10 people, your most important action is not saving $500 a month. You're (hopefully) earning a proportionally higher amount for your 100 people and you should continue to focus on that. If the software stack helps, don't fiddle with it to save a few bucks. The challenge for iDoneThis is not to make it cheaper per user, it's to re-invest the highish costs in order to beat the competitor who is charging 50c per user. Make iDoneThis better at managing the ever-growing complexities of syncing information when you have 100/1000/10k staff members and you have no damned idea what they're doing. Especially because quite a few hackers are thinking "you know, I could make that app and sell it for a few bucks less." Don't race them to the bottom, because Twitter is at the bottom at $0p/m.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  > If your company has 10 teams of 10 people, your most important action is not saving $500 a month. You're (hopefully) earning a proportionally higher amount for your 100 people and you should continue to focus on that. If the software stack helps, don't fiddle with it to save a few bucks. This type of thinking is prevalent on HN, but it's not always realistic. Most companies of a certain size have financial controls, and even if $500/month is not a lot of money in a relative sense, the number of $500/month line items for nice-to-have, this-helps-a-little products and services is reasonably limited. Getting a budget for something that isn't in a "checklist cost" category can be a real headache, every vendor relationship has overhead, and instituting a new SaaS for 100 people (and getting them to actually use it) may have its own costs (staff time, etc.). > Make iDoneThis better at managing the ever-growing complexities of syncing information when you have 100/1000/10k staff members and you have no damned idea what they're doing. That's a fundamentally different product than what iDoneThis has today. To support development of that product, it will need substantially more than $1,000/month in recurring revenue, or it will need additional funding. > Especially because quite a few hackers are thinking "you know, I could make that app and sell it for a few bucks less." Don't race them to the bottom, because Twitter is at the bottom at $0p/m. If you build a business around a simple concept that requires limited functionality, you can refuse to engage in a race to the bottom, but it doesn't change the fact that you will almost certainly be undercut if others see a worthwhile opportunity. In other words, iDoneThis can keep its $5/user/month price point, but if this is an appealing enough concept, it will have competition, and cheaper competition, before it ever obtains enough revenue to "re-invest the highish costs" as you have suggested.

asanwal 13y ago

Great points all around. I do agree that for larger company/enterprise type deals, the current iDoneThis pricing may not work and IMO, that's a large opportunity.

richardw 13y ago

If your company has 10 teams of 10 people, your most important action is not saving $500 a month. You're (hopefully) earning a proportionally higher amount for your 100 people and you should continue to focus on that. If the software stack helps, don't fiddle with it to save a few bucks. The challenge for iDoneThis is not to make it cheaper per user, it's to re-invest the highish costs in order to beat the competitor who is charging 50c per user. Make iDoneThis better at managing the ever-growing complexities of syncing information when you have 100/1000/10k staff members and you have no damned idea what they're doing. Especially because quite a few hackers are thinking "you know, I could make that app and sell it for a few bucks less." Don't race them to the bottom, because Twitter is at the bottom at $0p/m.

7Figures2Commas 13y ago
> If your company has 10 teams of 10 people, your most important action is not saving $500 a month. You're (hopefully) earning a proportionally higher amount for your 100 people and you should continue to focus on that. If the software stack helps, don't fiddle with it to save a few bucks. This type of thinking is prevalent on HN, but it's not always realistic. Most companies of a certain size have financial controls, and even if $500/month is not a lot of money in a relative sense, the number of $500/month line items for nice-to-have, this-helps-a-little products and services is reasonably limited. Getting a budget for something that isn't in a "checklist cost" category can be a real headache, every vendor relationship has overhead, and instituting a new SaaS for 100 people (and getting them to actually use it) may have its own costs (staff time, etc.). > Make iDoneThis better at managing the ever-growing complexities of syncing information when you have 100/1000/10k staff members and you have no damned idea what they're doing. That's a fundamentally different product than what iDoneThis has today. To support development of that product, it will need substantially more than $1,000/month in recurring revenue, or it will need additional funding. > Especially because quite a few hackers are thinking "you know, I could make that app and sell it for a few bucks less." Don't race them to the bottom, because Twitter is at the bottom at $0p/m. If you build a business around a simple concept that requires limited functionality, you can refuse to engage in a race to the bottom, but it doesn't change the fact that you will almost certainly be undercut if others see a worthwhile opportunity. In other words, iDoneThis can keep its $5/user/month price point, but if this is an appealing enough concept, it will have competition, and cheaper competition, before it ever obtains enough revenue to "re-invest the highish costs" as you have suggested.