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KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

jamie.ideasasylum.com

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#31
Here's something that I don't get.

Is funnel analysis even suitable for a monthly subscription service? Unless you're mucking around with your checkout funnel constantly (why?) this seems more like the kind of tool that I'd use once. Or at least very, very infrequently.

Discover what's wrong, fix it, the end.

The weird thing is, psychologically I would have no problem paying a couple of hundred bucks for a one-off experiment if it shows me results that I can make clear decisions from. But I balk at the idea of subscribing for $XXX per month to do experiments over and over.

Perhaps KISSMetrics needs a one-time experiment pricing option?

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#32
post #4

Seems really bizarre to me. What do they offer that, in your experience, is so much better than google analytics?

Retrospective, arbitrary construction of funnels. If you need it and you know you need it, their implementation is jawdropping.

If you are tracking a single funnel which doesn't change much, that probably isn't that spiffy for you. For example, you configure Opens Trial Page, Trial Signup, Opens Plan Page, Signs Up For Plan as a funnel once and you're done.

However, if you're doing more sophisticated things, it can be a lifesaver to not have to tell the engineering team "Yo, we're reconceptualizing our funnels: you guys now have to do annoying modifications all over the site." Lets say you have a Facebook game with a Valentine's Day promotion and you want to see whether people who sent their bonnie lass a cow to show their affection are better or worse customers two months later. No problem, with a few clicks on the interface you can whip up a funnel that tracks purchasing the pink cow as a stage and then watch conversions after that. You don't have to tell engineering about it, since they already fired the "bought a pink cow" event. You don't have to wait a few weeks after the experiment to collect data (most funnel analysis software I've used requires a do-over any time you create a new funnel or alter an existing one except by concatenation) -- you have the data, you're just slicing it a new way.

The notion of preventing a turf war between the analytics side and the engineering side is really popular with some companies. They also typically have lots and lots of money to spend.

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#33
post #7
post #3

The startup market is a relatively small market, the market for corporate websites, retailers, etc. is much bigger and for that audience the pricing seems perfectly viable.

But it seems strange that they are completely ignoring the small business market altogether. I'm pretty sure it would be easier to sell 15x$10 subscriptions rather than 1 $149 subscription, which is probably going to involve at least a phone call if not a face-to-face meeting.

$149 is still well below the phone call level. As a rule of thumb if it can be put on a corporate credit card without pre-approval it doesn't need a human contact to sell it.

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#34
post #7
post #3

The startup market is a relatively small market, the market for corporate websites, retailers, etc. is much bigger and for that audience the pricing seems perfectly viable.

But it seems strange that they are completely ignoring the small business market altogether. I'm pretty sure it would be easier to sell 15x$10 subscriptions rather than 1 $149 subscription, which is probably going to involve at least a phone call if not a face-to-face meeting.

I don't find it strange. $10 accounts won't have 1/10th the support burden as $149 accounts. Setting a high minimum pricing bar for customers vastly improves the support a company can provide.

$150/mo isn't that much, really, I doubt many of their customers require a face to face meeting. I suspect many never even call. I wouldn't.

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#35
Cindy here - if you were a beta user or ever asked a KISSmetrics question, you probably talked to me.

We at KISSmetrics did not come to our pricing decision lightly. After over 6 months in beta, we looked at the data and identified our happiest, most engaged customers - the people who were asking questions, making suggestions, and generally getting the most value out of the product, and priced it in accordance with the amount of value they were getting.

We did have some very dedicated early-stage startup customers in our beta, and we have worked with them to make sure they can continue to use us. (It's amazing what asking nicely will get you!) We will be publicly announcing startup programs in the future, but we wanted to focus on our existing beta customers first - the product wouldn't be here without them.

(We also have no problem with it if several startups want to split a KISSmetrics account - 1MM events could easily support a dozen early-stage startups.)

Feel free to email, ask questions, rant - calvarez at kissmetrics.com

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#36
post #19
post #4

Seems really bizarre to me. What do they offer that, in your experience, is so much better than google analytics?

Nothing. I looked at KISSMetrics ages ago when the private beta was first leaked. Similar to crazyegg it focuses on a single aspect of analytics, in this case conversion funnels. So it is simple to setup funnels for every possible conversion point (which if your website is effective should be almost every page). However, you can do this on GA too, which is also a hugely more powerful and integrated tool. Someone ment…

You should give it another look. It's come a long way-- for companies that have new/changing funnels (a LOT of web companies), this is a GREAT freakin' product.

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#37
post #30

If you look at one of their main competitors (MixPanel), the prices they decided are actually half. Here is the MixPanel page for comparison: http://mixpanel.com/pricing/ And here is KissMetrics: https://www.kissmetrics.com/signup Moreover, with service such as KISSMetrics the support load will be quite high (since there will be all kinds of integration issues, why don't numbers match with GA, etc). Anything below $1…

This is true however we offer much more then just funnel analysis =) We also do offer a "free" type plan: http://mixpanel.com/free

Yes, I realize the comparison is not a spot-on head-to-head comparison but you wouldn't disagree that Mixpanel's main feature is funnel analysis :) To be fair, many people _will_ compare Mixpanel with KISSMetrics (or it at least how I see the services).

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#38
post #7
post #3

The startup market is a relatively small market, the market for corporate websites, retailers, etc. is much bigger and for that audience the pricing seems perfectly viable.

But it seems strange that they are completely ignoring the small business market altogether. I'm pretty sure it would be easier to sell 15x$10 subscriptions rather than 1 $149 subscription, which is probably going to involve at least a phone call if not a face-to-face meeting.

There is SMALL business and NEW business.

SMALL (web-centric) businesses might have a staff of 5 and a $50,000 or more in monthly obligations (payroll, rent, etc).

NEW businesses have no payroll and hope someday to make meaningful revenue with a web site. 90%+ of them will die.

It's not oozing with charity, but I don't blame them for punting the new business sector, even though it might earn some wrath from neophytes on Hacker News.

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#39
post #32
post #4

Seems really bizarre to me. What do they offer that, in your experience, is so much better than google analytics?

Retrospective, arbitrary construction of funnels. If you need it and you know you need it, their implementation is jawdropping. If you are tracking a single funnel which doesn't change much, that probably isn't that spiffy for you. For example, you configure Opens Trial Page, Trial Signup, Opens Plan Page, Signs Up For Plan as a funnel once and you're done. However, if you're doing more sophisticated things, it can b…

They also claim to track people, not so called visitors (via cookies). In fact, I was reading that if a person visits your page from home and then from office (from completely different browsers), they still count him as 1 visitor.

Sounds a really exciting claim. Wish they prove/demonstrate it to be true.

Re: KISSmetrics' bizarre pricing decision

#40
post #24

I was in the KISSMetrics beta and will probably pay for it, without complaint. It is a pretty simple decision: am I likely to get 5% or more lift out of them? (Assuming a baseline of somewhere near $3,000 in sales a month.) Answer: yeah, based on my experience with funnel optimization, I think that is likely. I will also continue to recommend them to clients. I yield to no one in empathizing with cash-strapped startu…

I think the point of the guys blog post / rant is not so much the price in general, but that he felt the product targetted at the start-up community. Not that I have taken too much notice but I was under the impression that is where they were targetting it and I wouldn't be surprised if most of their beta testers were from that community and expecting the $10 per month pricing that they are more familiar with.

Personally I would never create a business that targetted other businesses that really have no money, it has never seemed a great business plan, but I would not do a beta marketing of "hey you, try this, you'll love it" to then offer a product they cannot afford.

I'm sure they will have no problems finding customers, but more of a problem finding beta testers for their next product.

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