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Running Costs of a SaaS app

cushionapp.com

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Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#81

Post by aidos »

nickfzx wrote: post #63
destroytoday wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! In all honesty, we're way over Heap's free limit, but they haven't throttled us or reached out, so shhhhhh. Intercom is so worth it. We wouldn't be in the same position without it. The reason it's so high (as I mentioned in another answer) is that we also use it for sending our monthly newsletter. We could definitely get the cost much lower, and we're planning to, but I just need to sit down and do it. We've…

"The team is so kind, helpful, and responsive." Founder of ChartMogul here...thank you for the nice comments, you made our success team's day! <3

Just to second that - Nick and the team at ChartMogul have been awesome to work with. The product has evolved in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years.

We tried Baremetrics originally but when we dug into the nitty gritty of the numbers, there was a lot missing. To be fair, this was 2 years ago so I'm sure it's changed a lot.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#82

Post by paulgb »

tmaly wrote: post #78
marban wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The trademark must be registered and exist at the time the domain was registered and that the domain owner knowingly and intentionally registered the trademarked domain name.

how sure are you of this? I have owned a domain since 2003. a few years back a new startup named inc tried to buy it from me. they ended up getting domain.org but I checked recently and they registered the trademark. I was reading that I have only a few years to appeal it showing I am harmed by them. I did not read anywhere that they could not sue me

Not legal advice, but fun reading: http://nissan.com/

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#83

Post by aidos »

Rezo wrote: post #75
destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Hi fellow NY SaaS developer :) I ran a similar report for our year end books, and it's amazing the amount of SaaS it takes to run a SaaS. Or put another way, the incredible ecosystem now available that allows you to focus on your core business. I don't see any third party Stripe dunning service, did you build something similar yourself? Otherwise it might be worth looking into, it's one of those things that pays itse…

For anyone else looking into recurring billing I'd highly recommend Chargebee (not affiliated at all).

We've tried a few different solutions and were a little apprehensive at first because it looked a bit clunky but it's actually one of the best bits of software I've used. You don't realise the number of features a subscription billing platform needs until you use something like chargebee and discover how wonderful it is to have someone do it all for you. What's really great is before changing anything they give you a pop up showing what's going to be billed now, what will happen in the future etc. We used stripe before switching and I was a nervous wreck before ever pushing any buttons.

My co-founder and I were saying just the other day that we think it's one of the best investments we've made as a company.

https://www.chargebee.com

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#84

Post by Lalabadie »

uladzislau wrote: post #56

Definitely not lean. From the first look - too many tools and expenses for unknown no name startup. I'm wondering how much of these can be painlessly cut off?

If fame is your measure for success, sure.

Cushion took no funding to reach profitability, and is growing at a rate that Jonnie seems to enjoy.

Here's his portfolio site, in case you wonder what no-name unknown companies worked with him before:

http://destroytoday.com/

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#86

Post by fredgrott »

destroytoday wrote: post #2

:waves: Hi, I'm the founder of Cushion. I'd be happy to answer any questions about our running costs or transparency. (Thanks for posting, @Sujan!)

Thank you for the info as it helps me formulate how to do a small non unicorn start-up in a smaller fashion..very helpfull

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#87

Post by marban »

cobookman wrote: post #79
destroytoday wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've thought about it, but Cushion is incredibly lightweight and doesn't need to be used constantly, so our load is very low. We've only needed 2 dynos since we launched and we're nowhere close to needing more than that. As much as I'd like to lower the cost, they truly take so much weight off our shoulders. I gladly pay what we're paying now, so it's not an issue for us.

Have you looked into Appengine Flex. Appengine flex is a PaaS like heroku, and will scale up any docker container. Its a great solution for your early days, and when you do need to move to a 1000+ node cluster its easy to switch from Appengine Flex to kubernetes. You also might get a lot of free startup credits https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/ (Disclaimer, I work for Google). [1] https://cloud.google.com…

You should mention Python 3 support specifically.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#88

Post by AznHisoka »

destroytoday wrote: post #14
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great stuff!destroytoday! Regarding Heap Analytics, their pricing model is quite confusing. I'd like to know how many users/visitors to your website are you getting that allows it to be free. To you, is the almost $5k you're spending on Intercom worth it? How much does it come to per user? You moved away from Baremetrics to Chartmogul, something with not as good a design. Why?

Thanks! In all honesty, we're way over Heap's free limit, but they haven't throttled us or reached out, so shhhhhh. Intercom is so worth it. We wouldn't be in the same position without it. The reason it's so high (as I mentioned in another answer) is that we also use it for sending our monthly newsletter. We could definitely get the cost much lower, and we're planning to, but I just need to sit down and do it. We've…

Baremetrics has been notoriously slow for the past 2 years - it should not take 10 seconds to load up static graphs (cache them and recalculate them on the backend every x hrs)

i know they have a small team but their inexperienced tech/backend team has costed them dearly (again i know they probably have worked hard but you can tell them they are inexperienced)

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#89

Post by welder »

destroytoday wrote: post #54
m3kw9 wrote: post #52

What do you guys actually do?

Cushion is a tool for freelancers to manage their schedule, forecast their income, and track invoices. Time tracking is also dropping soon.

You should check out https://wakatime.com. The API could be used for your time tracking.

Re: Running Costs of a SaaS app

#90

Post by stevrodr »

aidos wrote: post #83
Rezo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi fellow NY SaaS developer :) I ran a similar report for our year end books, and it's amazing the amount of SaaS it takes to run a SaaS. Or put another way, the incredible ecosystem now available that allows you to focus on your core business. I don't see any third party Stripe dunning service, did you build something similar yourself? Otherwise it might be worth looking into, it's one of those things that pays itse…

For anyone else looking into recurring billing I'd highly recommend Chargebee (not affiliated at all). We've tried a few different solutions and were a little apprehensive at first because it looked a bit clunky but it's actually one of the best bits of software I've used. You don't realise the number of features a subscription billing platform needs until you use something like chargebee and discover how wonderful i…

Oh wow, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for sharing!
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