Why You Should Not Charge for Your Webapp From Day One | Hacker News Reader

Why You Should Not Charge for Your Webapp From Day One

justinvincent.com

26 pointsjv222229 comments

The author has not charged money for his app yet so while we know some users like the application, it doesn't tell if they are willing to pay for it.

But my real point is that it depends on the type of users you have. I sell my web apps to towns and city administrations and also to some small businesses. At first we had a few clients for free, their employees didn't use the application much and we did get some feedback but not that much. The year after, we found clients (including one from our original free clients) who were willing to pay for the service (incomplete, buggy and all) and things changed a lot. These clients had much more users day to day using the system, they also provided much more frequent feedback.

If your client is an organization, the importance something has for them is very often tied to how much of their budget they dedicated to that something.

The author has not charged money for his app yet so while we know some users like the application, it doesn't tell if they are willing to pay for it.

I agree that it depends on the customer whether you should charge right off the bat or not, but the article does indicate its a paid site now:

"Then after two months of free – I turned the site paid."

"Subsequently Pluggio retention rates of paid users are thorugh the roof – with the average paid user sticking around for six to nine months."

You're right, how embarrassing. I read too quickly while doing something else and understood he had just turned the site to paid after two months.

I think OP is confusing not charging for your app from day one with good testing with your customers. If the ultimate plan is to charge for the app, and you warn your users that you'll be doing that yes, you'll be getting some free feedback. You should have been doing this way earlier anyway, and probably could've saved yourself some time by releasing smaller bits earlier and often...er.

Not only that, as igrekel already pointed out, all the feedback you DO get has to be taken with a grain of salt.

This may have worked well for Justin, but I would be wary in using anecdotal evidence to disprove an entire concept.

"Charge From Day 1" isn't just a meme, it is a method of validating cash flow channels and delineating between paying and nonpaying customer segments. Perhaps Justin got lucky, or perhaps he'll get bit in the ass by it in the coming months, but I doubt that he just disproved an entire school of thought.

Hence the disclaimer at the bottom of the post "As always there is no one truth, so if you have any counter (or supporting) examples please feel free to comment below." :)

I made the lucky mistake with Pluggio of not charging from day one. Not because I didn’t want to – but because I didn’t have the payment stuff setup and I was too lazy to do it before launch.

Sorry, but laziness isn't a compelling enough reason not to charge for your application.

justin is way too modest. He grew his plugio to a passive $1000 a month revenue which is actually more than most here I suppose. It is certainly more than me.

I don't know him personally but he is the host/cohost of http://techzinglive.com/ my favorite podcast where plugio developpement is actually a recurring subject. He actually turned to a paypall paywall first in the recent days, so he is taking the monetising subject seriously.

everything was great about the article except for the statement of bug free software, there's no such thing.

i think really what he's talking about is the alpha/beta lifecycle of a product except he uses the term free for a limited time. in reality, lots of applications get released when they're truly only alpha quality so it makes sense to have an alpha, beta, or both cycles for launching apps that you want to eventually charge (or not charge) for.

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