I'm not sure you get it. You're not paying for the custom domain. Try thinking of it this way: the "Free" account is actually a "Trial" account, with the key limitation that you can't use custom domains with it. The real account costs $99/mo.
You might be right about what the pricing communicates. As a bootstrapper, I do object to the notion that $1200/yr is an untenable expense. I expect that number is less than what Patrick "5 hours a week" McKenzie spent on hosting while still a Japanese salaryman.
But: you're probably right that this pricing says, "if you can't afford to cough up $1k for your hosting, we're not a good fit for you". And I think that's probably a very very smart move. This is a low margin, support-intensive sector. A startup entering it should probably not make things harder for themselves than they need to.
BCC started on $4 a month GoDaddy hosting (static web pages are cheap), but my Slicehost bill as a salaryman quickly exceeded my rent.
Total agreement regarding segmentation, by the way. This is why it costs nothing to have me write an email and five figures to copy that email into a PowerPoint. I do not do this because PPT is hard; I do it because if you need a PPT from me you're a Serious Business and I charge to match.
I wish I could "Show HN" the new Matasano offering, but, no f'ing way am I talking to HN about what appsec costs. It's annoying but there are simply two worlds: the world where people pay money for solutions to business problems, and HN, where code is valued in potential-Usenix-submissions-per-100kloc.
It's self-reinforcing, isn't it? I'm never going to have that conversation on HN, so all HN sees are the radically underpriced offerings and the hapless few people who stumble into quoting real prices here and getting slammed for it, which chases more people away from talking about what things cost, and on and on.
Yeah... I realize you'd have to battle a big vocal segment of HN, but it would be a favor to the many lurkers who just need to hear the other side of the story.
Discussing pricing is like debating the strategy of a sports team. We are all spectators with imperfect information on multiple levels. It's still educational and healthy to honestly debate pricing strategies.
No, I get it. As you said, the pricing probably says that this is not for startups on a tight budget. If I am looking to test an idea with little downsize risk, I probably choose something else over DotCloud simply because of the price. Later, when I want the supposed scalability, then DotCloud is the choice. Is the free "trial" account a time-limited account (as with Squarespace), or something more similar to Heroku?
See, Heroku is the elephant in the room. Initially, I saw DotCloud as the Heroku for Django (and other platforms), but the pricing, and how you describe it, says otherwise. There unfortunately appears to be some market confusion, as they seem to be targeting a different market segment than many people thought. The challenge is for DotCloud to educate the market that they aren't necessarily a Heroku-type service, but something else that justifies a $99/month price.
$99/mo sounds inexpensive for hosting. It's tricky to apples-apples this with Heroku because Heroku has fine-grained pricing, but it looks cheaper than e.g. EngineYard.
But sure, maybe $99 is too high for real hosting. My only argument is that there shouldn't be a super-cheap option for running the "Free" account with a custom domain.
@tptacek, maybe the free account should instead be a limited-time trial. I don't see the point in offering a free account if its not to up-sell them incrementally. IMO, those attracted to permanent free accounts are unlikely to move up to $99.
Presumably the sole purpose of the Free tier is for people to be able to take their own sweet time figuring out how the platform works and how to bring up their apps on it.
Comments
I'm not sure you get it. You're not paying for the custom domain. Try thinking of it this way: the "Free" account is actually a "Trial" account, with the key limitation that you can't use custom domains with it. The real account costs $99/mo.
You might be right about what the pricing communicates. As a bootstrapper, I do object to the notion that $1200/yr is an untenable expense. I expect that number is less than what Patrick "5 hours a week" McKenzie spent on hosting while still a Japanese salaryman.
But: you're probably right that this pricing says, "if you can't afford to cough up $1k for your hosting, we're not a good fit for you". And I think that's probably a very very smart move. This is a low margin, support-intensive sector. A startup entering it should probably not make things harder for themselves than they need to.
BCC started on $4 a month GoDaddy hosting (static web pages are cheap), but my Slicehost bill as a salaryman quickly exceeded my rent.
Total agreement regarding segmentation, by the way. This is why it costs nothing to have me write an email and five figures to copy that email into a PowerPoint. I do not do this because PPT is hard; I do it because if you need a PPT from me you're a Serious Business and I charge to match.
I wish I could "Show HN" the new Matasano offering, but, no f'ing way am I talking to HN about what appsec costs. It's annoying but there are simply two worlds: the world where people pay money for solutions to business problems, and HN, where code is valued in potential-Usenix-submissions-per-100kloc.
Please do anyway.
It's self-reinforcing, isn't it? I'm never going to have that conversation on HN, so all HN sees are the radically underpriced offerings and the hapless few people who stumble into quoting real prices here and getting slammed for it, which chases more people away from talking about what things cost, and on and on.
Just noted because it's interesting to me.
Yeah... I realize you'd have to battle a big vocal segment of HN, but it would be a favor to the many lurkers who just need to hear the other side of the story.
I need the first hit on Google for my product to be HN'ers complaining about its price like I need a something something in the something.
Discussing pricing is like debating the strategy of a sports team. We are all spectators with imperfect information on multiple levels. It's still educational and healthy to honestly debate pricing strategies.
No, I get it. As you said, the pricing probably says that this is not for startups on a tight budget. If I am looking to test an idea with little downsize risk, I probably choose something else over DotCloud simply because of the price. Later, when I want the supposed scalability, then DotCloud is the choice. Is the free "trial" account a time-limited account (as with Squarespace), or something more similar to Heroku?
See, Heroku is the elephant in the room. Initially, I saw DotCloud as the Heroku for Django (and other platforms), but the pricing, and how you describe it, says otherwise. There unfortunately appears to be some market confusion, as they seem to be targeting a different market segment than many people thought. The challenge is for DotCloud to educate the market that they aren't necessarily a Heroku-type service, but something else that justifies a $99/month price.
$99/mo sounds inexpensive for hosting. It's tricky to apples-apples this with Heroku because Heroku has fine-grained pricing, but it looks cheaper than e.g. EngineYard.
But sure, maybe $99 is too high for real hosting. My only argument is that there shouldn't be a super-cheap option for running the "Free" account with a custom domain.
@tptacek, maybe the free account should instead be a limited-time trial. I don't see the point in offering a free account if its not to up-sell them incrementally. IMO, those attracted to permanent free accounts are unlikely to move up to $99.
Presumably the sole purpose of the Free tier is for people to be able to take their own sweet time figuring out how the platform works and how to bring up their apps on it.