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Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

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Re: Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

#21

Post by JohnBooty »

traceroute66 wrote: post #11
glacials wrote: post #4

Where are your customers in the world? Many non-US countries have little/no credit card presence, so if you don't have an international-friendly payment option like PayPal your customers may be using "gift card credit cards" purchased from a store. It's easier to do this once a year than once a month. Ultimately though, talk to your users! That's how you'll find out.

> Many non-US countries have little/no credit card presence Was that statement accidental horrible wording or did you actually mean it ? If the latter, then you must be one of those many Americans that needs to travel more. The rest of the world are not neanderthals who've never heard of credit cards. Go to Kenya (Africa) and the only reason you might struggle to pay by credit card is if the merchant has decided to p…

We should always be on guard against such things, but is parent's statement really bad?

It didn't imply that other countries are backwards, or that their people are "neanderthals who've never heard of credit cards."

It's a fact that credit cards simply aren't equally popular in all parts of the world and naturally this is something that must be taken into account.

This includes places that are arguably more advanced than the US. Of which there are many many many many.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

#22

Post by littlevache »

My 2 cents: I was once in your customer shoes, and I choose the annual plan because it meant encouraging the product, helping it not to go bankrupt. If your product/company is quite new, and provide something that people love and want to make sure stays available, they will help making sure it does. In your case, pay for the annual plan means pay more money to you in the short term, helping your balance sheet

Re: Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

#23

Post by NikolaNovak »

Depends on your product.

If service is something that seems superfluous, temporary, a lark - such as Reface or the myriad AI-repainters etc - most people will do the shortest period of time.

If it's a business / utility tool that people find reliable/useful, most don't want the hassle of constant billing. Two months off is a great incentive for something you KNOW you'll use. And believe it or not, some people want to support scrappy startups with useful tools - I've personally gone through so many useful things that have disappeared, that I'll actively support new ones so I can use them for a long time :)

As to what you should do, again, depends. Are you happy with your income, are your customers satisfied, is your growth what you expect? Don't feel like you have to change anything :).

Also, asking your customers may be a useful way to proceed to0 ;-)

Re: Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

#26

Post by NikolaNovak »

traceroute66 wrote: post #11
glacials wrote: post #4

Where are your customers in the world? Many non-US countries have little/no credit card presence, so if you don't have an international-friendly payment option like PayPal your customers may be using "gift card credit cards" purchased from a store. It's easier to do this once a year than once a month. Ultimately though, talk to your users! That's how you'll find out.

> Many non-US countries have little/no credit card presence Was that statement accidental horrible wording or did you actually mean it ? If the latter, then you must be one of those many Americans that needs to travel more. The rest of the world are not neanderthals who've never heard of credit cards. Go to Kenya (Africa) and the only reason you might struggle to pay by credit card is if the merchant has decided to p…

Dunno, in a lot of europe, though credit cards are readily available, most of my family (I have relatives in Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia) doesn't have or want them. They have forms of payment which are strange to me but basically are some form of bank debit card, accepted everywhere. Or fancy phone / app payment methods we can only dream of here.

I didn't read the OP as necessarily implying technical or cultural superiority; credit cards are big in US and may or may not be big somewhere else, as you point out as well, so I felt the quoted statement is quite plainly factual rather than layered with hidden or interpreted meanings...

Re: Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

#27

Post by marto1 »

1. This is really good. Your niche/customers/market is oriented towards the long-term. Might be time to go to some of these customers and try to find out if they are. Long-termness indicates more enterprise clients which means it's time to offer some sort of a "Business plan". These tend to sell for much much more at the price of some special support, exclusive access, etc.

2. You're too cheap and people don't want to do monthly penny pinching. You can do some A/B and experiment with rising prices. Depending on how you execute on this you might end up in a situation where you raise 2-3x for the exact same product without losing customers.

Both can be true at the same time...or none. Knowing your customers is half the battle.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has more annual subscribers than monthly. What to make of it?

#30

Post by polote »

Nothing. Your price has probably nothing to do with the split.

It just means people are with you for the long term and they like your product.

Your price should be linked to the value you are offering. If you think your value is more than the price people pay today, then increase your price to a value you are comfortable with.

What is your objective ? is it growth ? is it profitability ? is i number of customers ? do you have competitors ? are you selling to b2c or b2b ? I'm not sure we can give you any relevant advice without a lot more information

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