Ask HN: How do you price things?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2019 where @julienreszka convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 4 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
It depends on your product, the market you are in etc. There is no silver bullet. A very generic answer would be: prices are relative. Start by finding things on the market that are similar to your solution. Analyse their value proposition and price. Compare their solution with what you offer.
The best approach will depend upon your goals, market, and the nature of your product. There is no "one size fits all" in pricing.
If you want some ideas, check the site in my profile.
I’d go check out the content that the folks at profitwell put out. They do a ton of analysis on how to price products.