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NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

blog.neeto.com

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Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#51

Post by timvdalen »

djbusby wrote: post #26
xnx wrote: post #17

Google Calendar recently improved appointment scheduling (including through a public page): https://workspace.google.com/resources/appointment-schedulin... Rough reminder for Calendly (and similar) that it's a feature, not a company.

You have to have tier 2 price (12/mo) or better at Google, feature wasn't in Tier1.

We were on the lowest tier and recently forcibly moved to a higher one (from 5.20 EUR a month to now 7.80 EUR a month to 15.60 EUR a month starting 2024), and it looks like I have access to the feature.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#52

Post by Brajeshwar »

FYI, Cal[1] is an Open Source[2] with a SaaS generous offering whose free version is adequate for most use case. No affiliation but a happy customer since its early days. It was, once, not able to compare with Calendly but has come a long way in a good way.

1. https://cal.com

2. https://github.com/calcom/cal.com

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#53

Post by KMnO4 »

kwanbix wrote: post #34

I use TidyCal. It costs 29 one time. More than fair. 4 dollars per month seems still pretty excessive for the very low resource intensive work of such an app. In relation to the prices of Office365/Google Workspace, I don't think this should cost more than 1 euro/dollar per user per month. Even if you compare it to much more resources intensive app like Disney Plus, which costs 8 euros per month, how can this cost 4?

If we only paid for resources, Google Search would be a lot, lot more and hosting a website on Squarespace would be a lot, lot less.

You’re paying for the value it adds.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#54

Post by smcleod »

nearting wrote: post #49
smcleod wrote: post #40

Started reading then got presented with a huge popup overlay / ad telling me to subscribe to their blog. Closed the site. I did like what I started reading about not taking VC funding though - that is very refreshing.

You can use uBlock Origin to filter those out, though for a site that you'll only visit once, it probably isn't worth it. These types of subscribe overlays, especially for a company blog with a product that aims to compete on features/pricing, are really unnecessary and annoying.

Unlock origin isn’t available on iOS unfortunately, I do use it extensively on Firefox on my laptops though and it is fantastic.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#55

Post by kwanbix »

KMnO4 wrote: post #53
kwanbix wrote: post #34

I use TidyCal. It costs 29 one time. More than fair. 4 dollars per month seems still pretty excessive for the very low resource intensive work of such an app. In relation to the prices of Office365/Google Workspace, I don't think this should cost more than 1 euro/dollar per user per month. Even if you compare it to much more resources intensive app like Disney Plus, which costs 8 euros per month, how can this cost 4?

If we only paid for resources, Google Search would be a lot, lot more and hosting a website on Squarespace would be a lot, lot less. You’re paying for the value it adds.

But the value is in relation to everything else.

A Google Suite account costs 6 dollars per month, do you think this is 80% of that value?

Microsof Office 365 family includes 6 accounts 1TB of spacce, 60 minutes of free call in skype, word, excel, powerpoint, etc, and costs 10 per month.

A calendar application like this has 1/1000 the complexity and I would add 1/1000 the value. And even more, this functionality can easily be added by MS (google already did).

The price makes no sense.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#56

Post by efficax »

smcleod wrote: post #40

Started reading then got presented with a huge popup overlay / ad telling me to subscribe to their blog. Closed the site. I did like what I started reading about not taking VC funding though - that is very refreshing.

it's kind of amazing how there's a post like this on every single substack link. Just click continue reading people. It's right there.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#57

Post by carlosjobim »

kwanbix wrote: post #34

I use TidyCal. It costs 29 one time. More than fair. 4 dollars per month seems still pretty excessive for the very low resource intensive work of such an app. In relation to the prices of Office365/Google Workspace, I don't think this should cost more than 1 euro/dollar per user per month. Even if you compare it to much more resources intensive app like Disney Plus, which costs 8 euros per month, how can this cost 4?

People who won't pay 4 dollars per month will never ever pay 1 dollar per month or even 50 cents per month. They will however argue for weeks online about how it's too expensive.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#58

Post by grhac »

Its incredibly hard to build a "product" and also run a services business. Ultimately the services business will take priority, simply because each deal represents significant $$.

I predict this product will become a sideshow, generate $50-100k/yr over a few years and be sold off, of course unless you start to focus on the product and get rid of the consulting gigs.

If you do turn into a product business you will quickly realize $4/mth is not even remotely sustainable when you add ANY kind of marketing spend (or sales/success people). Just too low. You cannot make it work. Your customer acquisition costs will cost 12-24+ months MRR, and SMB churn is brutal. typical 30%+/yr. Even at $10/mth/user its a slog. Which is why you see other calendly alternatives charging $10-30/mth/usr at min.

Good luck.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#59

Post by mxstbr »

grhac wrote: post #58

Its incredibly hard to build a "product" and also run a services business. Ultimately the services business will take priority, simply because each deal represents significant $$. I predict this product will become a sideshow, generate $50-100k/yr over a few years and be sold off, of course unless you start to focus on the product and get rid of the consulting gigs. If you do turn into a product business you will qui…

This person businesses.

Re: NeetoCal, a calendly alternative, is a commodity and is priced accordingly

#60

Post by TravelTechGuy »

I do not understand why people keep building in that space. Not only is it a niche market, but it can be completely decimated by Google/MS adding a feature to their interface.

Add to that the non-existing costs of switching between these offerings. I was using the Calendly free tier, and when a feature I wanted was moved off the free tier, it took me all of 30 minutes to move to zcal (most time spent fixing web site, and email signatures).

Perhaps there's something I'm missing here. Maybe there's a social aspect that escapes me, but I would love to hear from someone building in this space about their motivation and long term goals.

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