Partykit is a nice open source tool that is trying to make this stuff easier around creating multiplayer applications https://github.com/partykit/partykit - built by ex core react team / cloudflare engineer

There seem to be MANY companies in this space.

One I am aware of is https://www.restack.io/

At the risk of sounding stupid: How is it different from autoGPT or baby agi

Non paywall link: https://archive.is/iefuV

Hey Manoj, creator of the project here.

Both transactional and usage-based subscription are usage based models because the metric you are billed on is tied to usage. In one, there's no minimum cost (think twilio) and in another there's tiers of usage (hence subscription) - like Zapier where you can only buy Zaps in specified blocks. So if you want to use 433 zaps, you will still be billed for 500. So it's kinda like a subscription.

I will try to make this more explicit.

Got it

Here's the frontend of this repo: www.usagebased.org

Hey Scott, Rishabh from Appsmith.

Absolutely agree with you. I do think it also depends on the kinds of companies you are seeing. In our case, we realized we have 1 member devs, but also 1000 member teams. And didn't want to drive all the larger teams towards a "contact us" button unless they were really large. So a standard user based pricing (which most of the players in our space have) didn't work for us. That's what led to the cap.

I agree communicating this is a challenge. We're spending multiple iterations on trying to have a good calculator (we're on your 10th iteration now ha!) on our pricing page to try to explain this. Coz once obviously it makes more sense from a budget perspective, but it's not necessarily intuitive. So end up getting questions around how we calculate usage etc etc. So trying to also beef up the FAQ section more.

btw, congrats on Text Blaze!

I didn't quite understand this. Why would the vendor have a problem with this - you mean rising cloud costs?

For the customer the value is ofcourse apparent. They aren't locked into a monthly fixed price. Plus the cap helps drive predictability incase of spikes of usage.

The problem for the vendor is that their customers are encouraged to avoid using their product.

That's interesting. Because that's exactly the behavior we're trying to prevent.

Think of the alternative: - A user uses the product for one hour and they pay the same amount as they would if you use it for the entire month.

I think that's where the cap becomes important. Think of the cap as a traditional user based pricing. Now only in the case where EVERY single user ends up using it VERY actively will they ever pay that amount.

In every other case, they end up paying less, because they're only paying for the value.

So if Slack is today charging $8/user, but instead they change their model to max $8/user, but users who message lesser pay lesser than $8, then it's a fantastic decision commercially. Esp as an org scales.

I think the real issue is that, when you add a new user, you're not really sure if they're going to use the software fully, so you're hesitant adding them (think about buying a salesforce license for a solution engineer). But if someone said "hey, you don't pay the full amount, till they end up using very actively", then you're more likely to invite more people because the risk of racking up costs is lower.

So the hope is also that a pricing like this leads to more experimentation and wider adoption by a customer.

What’s Slack’s incentive to charge strictly no more for any individual user? I can see them going to $x per activity, capped at $15/user/mo and $10 * (total number of users)/mo, but if they’re getting $8/user/mo now, there’s little incentive to make that $0.01-$8.

Ok, slack & notion are bad examples because often the entire team is on it by default.

But imagine tools, where there is high aversion to adding more seats unless you're 100% sure. Like CRM & CMS systems, or like Support tools (Zendesk), or shared inbox tools (like Front) or project management tools (Asana) and so many others.

The vendor would have a problem with disincentivized usage becaused in the model, it earns the money purely by usage. It is a commercial problem, not a technical one. The company wishes to earn money, yet puts in place a model that decreases its only revenue driver.

I understand it to mean, if you're the type of customer that is a high volume user your costs go up, therefore your then incentivised to reduce your usage.

So is your "actual" ads spend in addition to the $5K that goes to the agency as their fees? Or does $5K include ad spend (money paid to google etc)

the former - we've gone anywhere from $0 to about $40k/month, averaging somewhere in the middle

Hey, congrats on the growth guys! Drop me an email, happy to share some advice around this. I've run small acquisitions for companies and have some specific ideas that can help you guys (ofcourse, its all free advice).

The best case scenario is where you have inbound offers.

But typically all these ideas will revolve around a couple of things: - Figuring out the right mix of companies of companies that will value this - Figuring out the right people to connect with (it's not always corp-dev) and tactical advice around how to reach them - Other creative stuff (like using influencers to your advantage)

rishabhkaul at gmail dot com I am based in London, so similar timezone to you.