Forgive me, but if the market responds to OP's subscription model (and $4k/mo is not trivial), no ads is a better user experience and there is less dependency on the ad network for revenue.
It's typically much harder to acquire new users than retain current users = subscription model allows you to monetize your userbase over a broader period of time (let's say $5/mo * 6 mo = $30) to a value that would likely be cost-prohibitive. Most users would not spend $30 for this app. But they might sign up for a free trial, and then the $5 subscription.
That’s the thing—I’d consider a limited version of a one-time $5 app, and very likely pay $30—once—to remove the limitations if I found the app useful. But when I see an app demanding subscriptions, I wouldn’t even try the free version. I’d never consider anything that didn’t offer a one-time payment.
the one time payment for a multi year support of software doesn't grow businesses. We just don't see the business of releasing a new version of the same software every two years with some new features and minor refresh, though it still done. It might support a small dev, but you need recurring revenue and subscriptions and ways to increase the ARPU to grow a real business.
Yes agreed. I used to have a one time purchase, but then I kept improving the app, adding more complex features, and the old price didn't reflect all the new work I had put in.
I don't get enough volume for ad support to be meaningful, and i didnt want to ruin the experience with ads. Before subscriptions, for a long time it was a one time purchase only. Then some VC's suggested i experiment with subscriptions, and I was very hesitant and semi grossed out. But I decided to give it a try, and I was seriously amazed that my conversion was barely impacted, and the same people buying one time purchases were also willing to purchase subscriptions. From there I did price experimentation, and was even more surprised to see the results there.
Ok, that's actually quite an interesting - and remarkably specific - customer segment.
If your core customer base pulls in 4 or 5 figures a month from their own hustle, they might be willing to pay up to $15/month for features tailor-made for their needs.
If you think someone's paying customers are "debasing themselves", it probably says more about you not being the target market than a negative critique of the customers themselves.
I disagree. Many users are simply whales or people with compulsive disorders. Not everyone genuinely "enjoys" the model more so than being stuck to it.
Not saying there aren't people who truly like it. There are. But not everyone who uses it does.
> Many users are simply whales or people with compulsive disorders.
Your comment might apply to addictive games, but you are being extremely dismissive towards a creative app that isn’t designed to be a slot machine. Who are you to tell others how to spend their time or money?
Anyone's perception is $5 is affected by their economic class. Globally, there are a significant number of people who would view $5 the same way others view .50.
For me, .15 a day is negligible. I can easily imagine someone who creates memes for social media choosing to pay that, especially if they feel there is value in supporting the creator. Memes aren't frivolity any more than other content - they're one of the most popular forms of communication on the internet.
A successful meme page with thousands of followers can generate substantial income. “Fake internet points” sometimes correlates directly with real cash.
Wait, what's the conversion rate of HN karma to ducks? I haven't received any ducks at this point. When should I start to expect them? I'm fond of mallards and mandarins. Do I get a choice?
A lot of big ig pages or whatever make decent money, even 'theme' pages that dont revolve around an 'influencer' personality.
This would be a pretty minor business expense if its even a little bit useful.
I'm embarrassed to say that I never used any formal a/b testing tools. I just fully converted to subscriptions, and ran it for a few weeks, and compared it to the previous few weeks (which were one time purchase.)
You don't need A/B testing tools. Most people don't like being tested on. Trust your gut, listen to your users, and just beware of vocal minorities. It seems like you're doing well already.
That’s a shame because it seems like you did the smart and effective solution without wasting your time. A/B testing isn’t needed if the signal is clear enough (¡parachute testing!), and it is hard to get enough samples for a weak signal. Good on you.
1. You charge what people are willing to pay, not how much your product is worth.
2. When it's a subscription as a customer you have more trust that it will continue working. When it's a one time purchase, who knows how long it will last.
> When it's a subscription as a customer you have more trust that it will continue working. When it's a one time purchase, who knows how long it will last.
Funny, for me this is the total opposite: subscription software may end any time and then you got nothing. One time purchased software you can just continue to use.
Well, I guess in the games of rent-seeking, cloud-only, security and updates the viability of this is fading...
It depends on the software. Is it an isolated thing? Then yes, you can continue to use it. But apps that read from APIs or scrape data are one version away from not functioning at all. Hence, regular updates. Hence, subscriptions to justify the ongoing modifications.
Total tangent, I used to have the Office 365 subscription but canceled it, yet I can still use word/excel - I've just lost access to the cloud features which I wasn't using to begin with - I would have thought they'd disable my version of word/excel but when I canceled it did not happen.
> I loathe apps that want a subscription for such a trivial concept. Why did you choose this route over ad support or one time payment?
Not OP but to counterpoint: I loathe apps that want to be supported by ads. Give me a one-time payment or a subscription. Let me choose if your service if worth paying for. If it's not worth paying for then it's also not worth ads. I'll use adblockers and use your service without ads anyway or else not use it at all.
Because I know personal ads were made possible by obtaining private information about me, whereas non-personalized ads likely weren’t. I’m not going to interact with either of them so I prefer the ones without privacy cost.
They're creepy as fuck. Same reason someone might not like being followed around everywhere, even if the person following them just writes down stuff about them but never does anything else. Spying ads are like that, but worse: it's like that person also occasionally runs in front of you to slap an ad-bearing sticker on some surface you're about to encounter, based on stuff they've written down.
Spyvertising is that, but at an industrial scale. If one's creepy and ought to warrant intervention by law enforcement, the other's much, much worse.
I am deeply annoyed by ads with bad context fit.
When I read about something I don't want my attention to be hijacked to other topics.
E.g. when I look at code I don't want ads for photography equipment, but ads for coding courses or books may be juuust acceptable. It also has the nice benefit of not needing personalization, so the sibling comments' points are also included.
I don't trust whatever company is holding their informational profile of me to hold it securely. Or what the extent of the information they've gathered can indicate, no one is going to stop at "just enough"
Well your employer probably doesn't want you to leak work to competitors.
You probably don't want your employer to know that you have cancer, are hiding a fling, and could soon have family problems requiring you to take a leave of absence.
Personally I'm not convinced by those arguments, because
- I think it should be my right to share the details of my work with anyone.
- It's already illegal to discriminate against people because they have cancer, and I don't think that imperfect enforcement of privacy on the internet is going to significantly affect anyone's chances of this happening to them.
- If someone does something and faces consequences for it, I don't think that's a bad thing.
Honestly seeing people's responses here and elsewhere on the internet is kind of a Kafkaesque experience for me because everyone seems so convinced that internet privacy is valuable yet no one seems to actually have thought through their position (no offense to you personally). I guess I can only conclude that my base values differ in this area.
> I think it should be my right to share the details of my work with anyone.
I agree! So why are you letting third parties get that information without you having any ability to provide or decline consent?
> It's already illegal to discriminate against people because they have cancer, and I don't think that imperfect enforcement of privacy on the internet is going to significantly affect anyone's chances of this happening to them.
You think people don't do things that are illegal?
> no one seems to actually have thought through their position
Can you explain that better?
> I guess I can only conclude that my base values differ in this area.
