How do you price and create prices for your software offers?

[srodrigo]

Say I'm building a piece of software to help developers jump into implementation and save weeks of setting up a new project by providing them with a code template builder. I'm struggling to think how to balance releasing an minimum version early and offering several pricing options at the same time. Some of the advanced features are trivial, but some others (integration with payments platforms, extra UI widgets, etc.) can take a while to build. I'm trying to come up with an MVP, but leaving stuff out is difficult, especially when offering extra features at a higher price. I can go check what other people are doing, but they are already established products and I don't know what they offered on v1 when they started.

One approach I was thinking about is to just keep it to the minimum: 2 packages, the higher tier one just includes the source code of the template builder so they can tweak what they need, or 1-2 advanced feature. Then, offer a third option later on if it takes off, with even more stuff.

I'm not sure how to handle the fact that some users would freak out if all the sudden a third package appears and new features go on there instead of on the basic one they purchased. Maybe just outline a list of missing features on the package options so people have a clue what they'll get eventually? Also offer an upgrade option (as some DAW makers do) so if they want to upgrade later they have some peace of mind?

 

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[Isaac Odongo]

Why don't you just put some cool services on basic for freemium and and the real deal elsewhere on payment?

Then you have two tiers only. One free. The other premium with one price for everyone.

Every real solid service you add to be paid for is to make the guys giving cash feel good and see you mean what you promise.

Then I guess you will something simple and easy to use financially.

 

[srodrigo]

Why don't you just put some cool services on basic for freemium and and the real deal elsewhere on payment?

Then you have two tiers only. One free. The other premium with one price for everyone.

Every real solid service you add to be paid for is to make the guys giving cash feel good and see you mean what you promise.

Then I guess you will something simple and easy to use financially.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I've actually seen that too. Some guy charging $800+ for his tool also offers a free sample if you give away your email address. Maybe that's the way, but making the Free tier more explicit. One that would bug me is "why would I buy this if I can't see a portion of the code". Code quality does matter in this case, so it's important to give some code away, which fits with the Free tier idea you shared.

I was going this morning through the list of features, and I couldn't see how it really fits into 3 tiers. So 2 should be enough. Fine if one is free.

 

[Isaac Odongo]

You may think about:

Innovators
Early adopters
Early majority
Late....

I don't remember all the stages in Crossing the Chasm

I will drop a summary I wrote up earlier.

But I think that's what ChatGPT used to get users.

First free with good service then money with some service higher.

 

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[srodrigo]

You may think about:

Innovators
Early adopters
Early majority
Late....

I don't remember all the stages in Crossing the Chasm

I will drop a summary I wrote up earlier.

But I think that's what ChatGPT used to get users.

First free with good service then money with some service higher.

Agree that first free tends to work out. Some people disagree though and recommend shipping paid too from the beginning, to avoid false expectations later.

I'll look Crossing the Chasm up

 

[Isaac Odongo]

I think of you say this app is in the testing stage. Your using it and giving feedback will help us develop it better.

Something of the kind.

Then when you get clients you make adjustments and release the premium version.

Something of the kind.

I am just talking what my head conjures up from my reading and seeing people do.

 

[srodrigo]

I think of you say this app is in the testing stage. Your using it and giving feedback will help us develop it better.

Something of the kind.

Then when you get clients you make adjustments and release the premium version.

Something of the kind.

I am just talking what my head conjures up from my reading and seeing people do.

Yep, early adopters could help improving and requesting the features that they actually want. Even being a developer myself and being able to guess features quite well, it's always better to listen to the final users.

 

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[Isaac Odongo]

Calling in @Andy Black ,@Fox , @BizyDad , @MJ DeMarco

Among others to weigh in their experience.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

@srodrigo what you're doing sounds similar to SaaS boilerplates, so I'd compare your features to theirs if you need a benchmark for pricing

GitHub - smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates

Contribute to smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[eramart]

Is there really a need for this? There are a lot of tools to help with boilerplate code already, and developers usually try to build their own tools anyway. Maybe if it is super niche, and helps with really complex stuff?

 

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[srodrigo]

@srodrigo what you're doing sounds similar to SaaS boilerplates, so I'd compare your features to theirs if you need a benchmark for pricing

GitHub - smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates

Contribute to smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It is the same idea but for a different technology, more focused on mobile.

Is there really a need for this? There are a lot of tools to help with boilerplate code already, and developers usually try to build their own tools anyway. Maybe if it is super niche, and helps with really complex stuff?

It's for Flutter. I've only seen one commercial boilerplate so far. There are a couple of open source ones, but you can't even make a great one between all of them. The closest is FlutterFlow, which gets more negative comments than any other thing.

When I used to be a mobile developer, I created a similar tool for internal use. It took down the bootstrap of new projects (and there were new projects pretty much every month) from a few hours or a day to one minute. And that day of work was by duplicating the latest project, which was the one with better quality.
It does save time. And I didn't have time to work on more advance features like code generation ("create a feature with this or that"), which saves even more time. I have some other features in mind that I've rarely seen out there (I'd poll users first though, to see whether they'd like to have them). For example, every boilerplate I've seen forces you into one "architectural" approach and that's it, take it or leave it. I can make it more configurable so it gives you more options to use different state managements and other things so it doesn't put off people who hate this or that, or people who need flexibility because one app is simple and needs A but another app is way more complex and needs B.

It's definitely a bit niche because Flutter is still growing, but this year it had a big bump in number of apps released, so I think this is the time to catch the wave. But there is a need for saving time, that's for sure. Whether people want to pay for it in this niche, that's a different story. But people do in other niches (SaaS).

 

[circleme]

but they are already established products and I don't know what they offered on v1 when they started.

Wayback Machine

archive.org

Reverse engineer it with that tool. That's my go to site for all things Landing Page reverse engineering. You can lookup who.is data as well, in order to get the registration date and work your way from there. This way you can find out v1, v2, v3, ... pricings and know how they have evolved with each value skew.

I'm not sure how to handle the fact that some users would freak out if all the sudden a third package appears and new features go on there instead of on the basic one they purchased.

Are you already live with your software? If not, it seems that you are thinking too far in advance – just like I do most of the time – even though you don't have to at this point.

 

[srodrigo]

nternet Archive: Wayback Machine
Reverse engineer it with that tool. That's my go to site for all things Landing Page reverse engineering. You can lookup who.is data as well, in order to get the registration date and work your way from there. This way you can find out v1, v2, v3, ... pricings and know how they have evolved with each value skew.

Very cool! I'll do some research. Thanks a lot for sharing

Are you already live with your software? If not, it seems that you are thinking too far in advance – just like I do most of the time – even though you don't have to at this point.

I'm definitely thinking too far, still trying to combat that. Sadly, it's in my nature.

The software is not live. I've been evaluating more in detail... still easily 3 months full-time. Hopefully I'm just bad at estimating. I don't know how else to trim without having to remove the things that would make it great. Unless I release a free version VERY early to start getting traction.
I'm giving it one good week of work this week and see where I get to, to get a better feeling. I've done this before but not to such complexity, and I had some ground work done as we were making apps with it, so the time invested got diluted.

 

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