This is a bad idea. Any customer who really likes & uses your app as-is will eventually become unprofitable for you. Your "best" customers will use resources you have to pay for every month, but you only collected N months of revenue up front. You'll eventually have to decide to pull the plug and screw your users (like Joyent/Textdrive's forever hosting). Even before that, your financial incentives will be at opposites to the people who like your app the most, which is a bad place to be.
Ideally, you want your customers' usage to align with more money to you over time, not less.
If you need money now, offer your customers a discount for quarterly/annual prepayments. You're more able to predict your costs out 12 months, so you're less likely to make a fatal mistake here.
Comments
This is a bad idea. Any customer who really likes & uses your app as-is will eventually become unprofitable for you. Your "best" customers will use resources you have to pay for every month, but you only collected N months of revenue up front. You'll eventually have to decide to pull the plug and screw your users (like Joyent/Textdrive's forever hosting). Even before that, your financial incentives will be at opposites to the people who like your app the most, which is a bad place to be.
Ideally, you want your customers' usage to align with more money to you over time, not less.
If you need money now, offer your customers a discount for quarterly/annual prepayments. You're more able to predict your costs out 12 months, so you're less likely to make a fatal mistake here.