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Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

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Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#31

Post by bflesch »

Congrats for getting from zero to one! It seems like you have some product market fit, that's really great.

As others have pointed out, I'd recommend:

- please rename "amateur" to something more positive. no customer wants to be called an amateur

- Increase prices for the pro tier

- Improve your "pricing plan" page, take a look at other (more successful) SaaS products and change button labels accordingly. Just take the best things from their landing pages!

- create a proper comparison matrix / table for all the plans

- visually de-emphasize the free tier, and focus on the 3 paid plans in your comparison table. people will always buy the middle option, so you can increase the price of the "best" option by a lot in order to anchor your value

- add features which are available only in "pro" and "pro plus", e.g. support, direct email to developer, etc!

- maybe build a mobile app for this? it seems like something that could be nicely integrated into a mobile-first experience. you could make it exclusive for pro users

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#32

Post by frits1993 »

bflesch wrote: post #31

Congrats for getting from zero to one! It seems like you have some product market fit, that's really great. As others have pointed out, I'd recommend: - please rename "amateur" to something more positive. no customer wants to be called an amateur - Increase prices for the pro tier - Improve your "pricing plan" page, take a look at other (more successful) SaaS products and change button labels accordingly. Just take t…

Awesome, great pointers. Thanks for that!

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#33

Post by yorwba »

OJFord wrote: post #28
vytautask wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please bear in mind that there is a regulation in EU that prices of the same product should not differ based on the country you are coming from (source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat... , "Price discrimination is not allowed" section).

Which presumably affects and references only EU country pricing, so you need one 'EU price', which can be different from non-EU countries? I also wonder what the implementation has been (but not for much longer) without a single currency. I wasn't aware of this rule, and as a consumer have certainly seen variation in EUR/GBP rates (across different things that have the same EUR price say but not GBP). Must be challen…

The rule is against discriminating based on country of origin, not currency. While an EU citizen from a non-Euro country might prefer paying in their local currency, they should be able to choose to pay in Euros and get the same price as everyone else.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#34

Post by natch »

lerchmo wrote: post #18
frits1993 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap indeed it is, but I guess that matches the target audience. IPTV is relatively cheap, and the service my tool offers is really a bonus and not a must. More importantly, I don't think I would pay more than I am currently charging my users, so I think it's just fair. Also, I prefer a whole lot of small payments than a couple of big ones, and for now that seems to be going in the right direction.

I would consider not trusting your intuition when it comes to pricing.

I think this is good advice, but then I also think the current pricing is fair for what it does. If it did a lot more, then it could be priced higher.

I mean compare to say Spotify. Up to six people in a household can listen in their cars and any phone and any computer to any music pretty much, in fantastic quality with lots of features, for what $15 a month. Now that is worth $15 a month, as it's delivering actual content. That is a lot more value than an (admittedly compelling) editor that I just use to edit some preferences essentially.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#35

Post by jwr »

Fellow solo SaaS founder here. Congratulations! This is a fantastic milestone to reach, and not an easy one, in spite what many people think.

I am doubly impressed, because your product is B2C. I honestly don't know how to make money on B2C, it always turns out to be a money-losing proposition unless you have a huge market. I hope you will be able to make it work!

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#36

Post by disiplus »

bflesch wrote: post #31

Congrats for getting from zero to one! It seems like you have some product market fit, that's really great. As others have pointed out, I'd recommend: - please rename "amateur" to something more positive. no customer wants to be called an amateur - Increase prices for the pro tier - Improve your "pricing plan" page, take a look at other (more successful) SaaS products and change button labels accordingly. Just take t…

im not sure the "amateur" needs changing, it could be used to point more users to middle tier, we have something like that, where we call our first tier something that like that, and the second "smart" and people take the second one. also there is a decoy effect. we push our middle tier like that without "fake" most popular tier badge. we don't have a free tier.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#37

Post by OJFord »

yorwba wrote: post #33
OJFord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which presumably affects and references only EU country pricing, so you need one 'EU price', which can be different from non-EU countries? I also wonder what the implementation has been (but not for much longer) without a single currency. I wasn't aware of this rule, and as a consumer have certainly seen variation in EUR/GBP rates (across different things that have the same EUR price say but not GBP). Must be challen…

The rule is against discriminating based on country of origin, not currency. While an EU citizen from a non-Euro country might prefer paying in their local currency, they should be able to choose to pay in Euros and get the same price as everyone else.

I don't understand, are you saying it only applies to Euros?

I assumed (and understood from the link) that it applies to all EU member states, which presently includes the UK. Since the exchange rate fluctuates, there must be some margin of error allowed, otherwise it's almost impossible (and certainly more expensive) to implement with more than one currency.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#38

Post by jjjensen90 »

disiplus wrote: post #36
bflesch wrote: post #31

Congrats for getting from zero to one! It seems like you have some product market fit, that's really great. As others have pointed out, I'd recommend: - please rename "amateur" to something more positive. no customer wants to be called an amateur - Increase prices for the pro tier - Improve your "pricing plan" page, take a look at other (more successful) SaaS products and change button labels accordingly. Just take t…

im not sure the "amateur" needs changing, it could be used to point more users to middle tier, we have something like that, where we call our first tier something that like that, and the second "smart" and people take the second one. also there is a decoy effect. we push our middle tier like that without "fake" most popular tier badge. we don't have a free tier.

Amateur, at least in common American English, is virtually never used in a positive or neutral sense. It should definitely be changed in anything marketing-related.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#39

Post by mritchie712 »

vytautask wrote: post #20
tgtweak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price elasticity experiments are the lowest hanging fruits for optimizing revenue! We found doing it per country had a huge impact on rest-of-world LTVs.

Please bear in mind that there is a regulation in EU that prices of the same product should not differ based on the country you are coming from (source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat... , "Price discrimination is not allowed" section).

does this apply to companies not based in the EU? I don't see how they could possibly enforce this.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#40

Post by stagas »

vytautask wrote: post #20
tgtweak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price elasticity experiments are the lowest hanging fruits for optimizing revenue! We found doing it per country had a huge impact on rest-of-world LTVs.

Please bear in mind that there is a regulation in EU that prices of the same product should not differ based on the country you are coming from (source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat... , "Price discrimination is not allowed" section).

In Poland almost everything is 1/3 of the price compared to the rest of the EU for the same "stuff", arguably most have Polish branding but there are common products(Nestle, Coca Cola, etc) that are significantly cheaper.
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