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PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

planetscale.com

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Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#41

Post by carlm42 »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #23
carlm42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Planetscale employee) This is very different though: it's not a free tier, it's an actual single node DB as a paid product. It's definitely not a good fit for every usecase, but if you have a hobby project it's a great way to start with plenty of room to scale if/when you get actual usage

It's very similar in that it's not a huge source of revenue for Planetscale, so easy to pull the rug without disrupting revenue too much

Similarly to other replies (but my own opinion): it's not a huge source of revenue today, on a single customer basis, compared to our biggest customers, sure. But our goal is to provide potential customers that can't justify larger scale, 3-nodes databases, something they can build on and grow on our platform. We would never want to pull the rug on paying customers: we want to enable them :-) sure it's not a huge part of our revenue, but that's not the goal. We just want to provide a great product, in a way that's affordable to everyone. You of course don't have to take my word, but I think it makes business sense to do this and not pull the rug. Compare to a free tier where you bleed money in the hopes that customers will end up paying you. Hope isn't a good business strategy right? :-)

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#42

Post by czl »

samlambert wrote: post #14
randomNumber7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a company squeeze customers after making them dependendent? Never heard of it. Also what was capitalism again?

the reason we make sure all our products are gross margin positive is so this doesn't have to happen.

Your $5 plan may be gross margin positive but incentives are to push users into higher margin plans and from this pov this new plan looks much like your previous free plan which was rug pulled. Offering a free service to buy users then imposing migration costs on these users when you rug pull damaged your reputation. Next time perhaps grandfather existing users instead. If you want this new plan to be taken seriously update your terms to promise you will not rug pull again.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#43

Post by czl »

samlambert wrote: post #36
CryptoBanker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to pull the rug out from under a group of customers who earn you 5% of your revenue than it is to do the same thing to a group of customers who make you 25% of your revenue. This small $5 plan is obviously not going to make Planetscale very much revenue.

but its entry level pricing for customers that grow. it will be great for us. there is no point hurting our reputation and slowing growth.

You were buying flow for your sales funnel with a free plan now you want to attract users with a low tier plan. Your reputation was hurt with the first rug pull so why be surprised that users expect another rug pull from you in the future?

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#44

Post by ok_dad »

aquariusDue wrote: post #34
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people only need a single database node and will only ever need a single database node. There are many LOB apps in the world that you could reasonably turn off from 5 pm to 9 am every day. Five 9’s is an incredibly expensive and often unnecessary feature. I think this is a great offering.

Funnily enough I've been contemplating the idea of websites open during business hours and such for "local" as in kinda national scales. But it breaks down quickly once you factor in a potentially global audience. So yeah, in the end available as much as possible (while sounding like "I needed it yesterday") might be the way to go even if you're not actually aiming for the extreme end of uptime.

B&h photo video closes their order system on Jewish holidays in the NYC time zone. I often find myself saving items to order the next day on there.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#45

Post by reducesuffering »

samlambert wrote: post #13
jszymborski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of unsolicited advice: This post is the first time I've heard of your company and your blog post interested me. When proprietors go to the mat in the comment section, I immediately lose any interest in patronizing them.

why is it going to the mat? i had to correct something that was untrue. 1.5 years is not very recently.

Case in point. Potential customers will see this dismissal as the equivalent of how long they expect this pricing to remain. You’re free to increase the price in a year and when customers are irked, “why isn’t it $5 anymore?” They’ll be met with “that’s not recent.” “That was so long ago”

If you want to rebuild reputation with hobby tier, you’ll probably want to put in a 3 year pricing guarantee, not 1 month like the notice last time.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#46

Post by otterley »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #28
samlambert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we? we make a (small) profit on these cheaper tiers. We are a sustainable and profitable company. Also the free tier wasnt cancelled very recently it was 1.5 years ago so you are reaching a bit here.

You currently make a small profit on cheaper tiers. Things change

Compute, storage, and network throughput are only getting cheaper over time. Assuming all other costs hold steady, it should only get more profitable.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#47

Post by khamidou »

timenotwasted wrote: post #33

This is actually a really interesting offering to have available as someone who needs DEV tier PG databases for a better testing pipeline on a shoestring budget.

btw I've used neon for that and it worked well. Disclaimer: I have no relationship with them, I just have a shoestring budget.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#48

Post by selcuka »

czl wrote: post #43
samlambert wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but its entry level pricing for customers that grow. it will be great for us. there is no point hurting our reputation and slowing growth.

You were buying flow for your sales funnel with a free plan now you want to attract users with a low tier plan. Your reputation was hurt with the first rug pull so why be surprised that users expect another rug pull from you in the future?

I think what Sam means is $5/mo is already profitable for them. Free plan wasn't.
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