User versus customer. A customer pays you, a user uses your application. Customers can be users, but users aren't necessarily customers. Finally, many people (e

User versus customer. A customer pays you, a user uses your application. Customers can be users, but users aren't necessarily customers. Finally, many people (entrepreneurs and VCs alike) will confuse these two simply to make it sound like you have more people paying for your service than the general populous understands.