This is the part of the post where you give out a few free beta accounts to hacker news readers and ask them politely to judge your product/ask for recommendations about pricing and business model.
Although if the niche isn't "people who read Hacker News", then giving out beta accounts isn't going to get you much feedback from your target market.
I think the OP is asking for general advice re. running a subscription-based web app, which Hacker Newsians are very well p[laced to do. Since he's light on specifics, I'll throw out some questions here which have occurred to me:
- How do you determine your feature/price plan(s). And if using multiple price plans, do you release all plans at the start? the most basic plan first? the middle plan first so you can introduce a higher or lower one?
- How do you manage subscriptions? Which provider? Is Paypal as good as place as anywhere to start? Can any of them handle voucher codes (e.g. 50% off for first 6 months subscription, etc)
- Do you offer a 30 day free trial? If so, do you require credit cards at signup for the trial? If you don't require credit cards, do you just lock the account until they upgrade? I guess the conversion rates have been discussed to death but you're probably looking at <5% conversion from free trial to subscription. Right?
- How do you handle cancellations? Pro-rate the monthly charge or not?
These are just a few thing off the top of my head which would be useful/interesting for others to share
Comments
This is the part of the post where you give out a few free beta accounts to hacker news readers and ask them politely to judge your product/ask for recommendations about pricing and business model.
Although if the niche isn't "people who read Hacker News", then giving out beta accounts isn't going to get you much feedback from your target market.
I think the OP is asking for general advice re. running a subscription-based web app, which Hacker Newsians are very well p[laced to do. Since he's light on specifics, I'll throw out some questions here which have occurred to me:
- How do you determine your feature/price plan(s). And if using multiple price plans, do you release all plans at the start? the most basic plan first? the middle plan first so you can introduce a higher or lower one?
- How do you manage subscriptions? Which provider? Is Paypal as good as place as anywhere to start? Can any of them handle voucher codes (e.g. 50% off for first 6 months subscription, etc)
- Do you offer a 30 day free trial? If so, do you require credit cards at signup for the trial? If you don't require credit cards, do you just lock the account until they upgrade? I guess the conversion rates have been discussed to death but you're probably looking at <5% conversion from free trial to subscription. Right?
- How do you handle cancellations? Pro-rate the monthly charge or not?
These are just a few thing off the top of my head which would be useful/interesting for others to share