Comment by lionheart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lionheart | Hacker News Reader

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Awesome suggestions. Thanks!

- For pricing: sorry about the confusion, I have a pricing section of the home page in progress but didn't want to wait to post this.

- I'm using Twilio and the WebRTC connection is cheap but calling to an outgoing phone line is not. It's a few cents per minute, depending on where I'm calling. I might play with pricing some more but even at $0.25 a call I'm worried about breaking even depending on how long the calls last.

- Social media marketing w/ call credits is a great idea. That goes on the immediate to do list.

- Same with affiliate link and CNAME. Someone has mentioned the CNAME concept before but I somehow didn't understand what they were talking about until you spelled it out that way.

- Status indicator - cool idea. You don't think it will deter people from making the call if they know the person is not available? Or is it better to know beforehand that you're going to voicemail?

Thanks again for the great ideas.

Re: Status Indicator

I think people would like to know if the user is in DND mode or if their call will go straight to voicemail. In fact, having an option to leave a voicemail instead of calling the user in realtime might even be something that some users want.

I don't like being disturbed while coding, but I wouldn't mind checking my virtual voicemail now and then.

Re: Pricing

Also, I do really enjoy the up-front per-call pricing model. It's easier than a flat monthly rate and per-minute charge typically associated with the VoIP industry.

I can understand how it'll make your finances risky though. It's likely just a matter of time until some premium rate scammers start knocking on your service to see if they can make 12-hour-long calls.

If Twilio supports it, maybe you can put a time restriction in place? Or make it so a call that consumes a call credit every 5 minutes.

Also, Local US rates with Twilio are pretty much 1.5 cents a minute. The international calls get more expensive, but maybe you could do it so more expensive calls use more call credits.

Some things you might want to put in a FAQ or on the pricing page:

1. If leaving a voicemail counts towards the call credits.

2. What happens when a user runs out of call credits (does every contact just go to voicemail?)

3. If there are any restrictions on voicemails (auto delete after X days, for instance - Something you should consider. 1/4th of a cent per minute and 1/20th of a cent per month for storage can add up if you get big)

- Interesting point about the voicemail option. I'll think about that, maybe run some tests.

- Thanks for the feedback on the up-front per-call pricing model. I struggled with making the decision on that just because it does introduce some risk to me and the industry standard is per-minute. However, I really do believe this simplifies the experience for my users and I appreciate hearing that others agree.

- Thanks for those suggestions too. I'll add those to the FAQs.

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