Don't Charge $9 a Month for Your SaaS
Published in 2019, this chronicle by @pvsukale3 details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing. Key verified financial milestone: $9 a Month.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 75 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 9 comments
Two things have changed here. The $ amount, and the TARGET AUDIENCE. While the title suggests the article is about pricing, the text is about finding the right audience.
This is the first time I've heard of "Votemojo". My first reaction was, that's cool! I'd like to use that for some side projects I'm working on, but a single tool isn't worth $50. As a consumer, I'd expect it to deliver more than services I'm paying for such as Google Mail ($10/m), Adobe Photoshop ($20/m) or Dropbox ($12/m). It's fine to price out the consumer in favor of enterprise sales, but I'd be curious what the user demo breakdown is for a single tool.
Read this book to learn about "willingness to pay" https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867/ref=sr_1_1?crid=AHTVQP3QZRV&keywords=monetizing+innovation&qid=1573608425&sprefix=monetizi%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-1
Sadly, I haven't seen anything literature on real value based pricing
Indie hackers may not be a sustainable market, but on the other hand, employees using your tool for hobby projects is a great way to backdoor yourself into the company. If you're going to start at a $49/mo plan, you may want to spend the effort to figure out what kind of basic cheap plan you can offer individual users such that only companies pay for the more expensive plan.
I wish him good luck. Who's going to pay 50 USD a month to get website previews or a forums with votes though ? It looks like doable by (non SaaS) plugins for CMS
On the other hand, "your margin is my opportunity". Cost-plus pricing probably dissuades others from replicating the service and becoming competitors