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Running Costs of a SaaS app

cushionapp.com

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Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#11

Post by ezekg »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #8
destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Great stuff!destroytoday! Regarding Heap Analytics, their pricing model is quite confusing. I'd like to know how many users/visitors to your website are you getting that allows it to be free. To you, is the almost $5k you're spending on Intercom worth it? How much does it come to per user? You moved away from Baremetrics to Chartmogul, something with not as good a design. Why?

I'm also curious as to why you moved from Baremetrics to ChartMogul.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#12

Post by destroytoday »

altern8tif wrote: post #6
destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Any particular reason you moved away from Mailchimp? Do you do any form of email marketing now?

We switched to Intercom for sending our monthly email simply because its email editor is so good. I wish a proper email marketing service would come close to their simplicity, but I haven't seen anything yet. We might be moving back to Mailchimp soon because the per-user cost for Intercom has really skyrocketed since we've used them for email marketing. Granted, Intercom actually don't want people to use them for sending batch emails. I wish they'd come out with a standalone service for it—remain as dead-simple as their editor is now and they'd make a killing.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#13

Post by destroytoday »

marban wrote: post #9
destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Have you ever considered any Heroku alternatives? I've had quite disappointing cost experiences last time i used it.

We've thought about it, but Cushion is incredibly lightweight and doesn't need to be used constantly, so our load is very low. We've only needed 2 dynos since we launched and we're nowhere close to needing more than that. As much as I'd like to lower the cost, they truly take so much weight off our shoulders. I gladly pay what we're paying now, so it's not an issue for us.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#14

Post by destroytoday »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #8
destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Great stuff!destroytoday! Regarding Heap Analytics, their pricing model is quite confusing. I'd like to know how many users/visitors to your website are you getting that allows it to be free. To you, is the almost $5k you're spending on Intercom worth it? How much does it come to per user? You moved away from Baremetrics to Chartmogul, something with not as good a design. Why?

Thanks!

In all honesty, we're way over Heap's free limit, but they haven't throttled us or reached out, so shhhhhh.

Intercom is so worth it. We wouldn't be in the same position without it. The reason it's so high (as I mentioned in another answer) is that we also use it for sending our monthly newsletter. We could definitely get the cost much lower, and we're planning to, but I just need to sit down and do it. We've got our hands full with our current roadmap, so I haven't had the chance to move everyone to a more affordable email marketing service, but sooner than later.

When I used Baremetrics, they were changing their pricing a lot and experimenting so much with growth tactics that I don't agree with, like removing the ability to cancel on your own—you now need to contact them.

I tried ChartMogul and they've been absolutely wonderful. The team is so kind, helpful, and responsive. They also don't make drastic changes, which is refreshing since I only need them to track my Stripe metrics.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#15

Post by destroytoday »

Sujan wrote: post #3
destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Ha, that's what you get for finally posting to the journal (How it's made blog from Cushion [1]) again. That's why I still love my feed/RSS reader. [1] https://cushionapp.com/journal/

Heh. I was curious if anyone was still subscribed.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#18

Post by bkmartin »

nlivingstone wrote: post #17
rloc wrote: post #16

Why not switch to "let's encrypt" for SSL certificates. It's free !

I myself am curious as to why you're not using let's encrypt.

Read the whole article... they have started to use it and will migrate more of the app there... "

We use Let’s Encrypt for the SSL certificates for both the marketing website and in.vc. Eventually, we’ll migrate our other SSL certificates to Let’s Encrypt. It’s free and easy. "

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#20

Post by nlivingstone »

bkmartin wrote: post #18
nlivingstone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself am curious as to why you're not using let's encrypt.

Read the whole article... they have started to use it and will migrate more of the app there... " We use Let’s Encrypt for the SSL certificates for both the marketing website and in.vc. Eventually, we’ll migrate our other SSL certificates to Let’s Encrypt. It’s free and easy. "

Read entire article... multiple times. kind of arrogant of you to assume otherwise. no mention on the post what so ever about let's encrypt.
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