Disclaimer: I am the co-founder
For instance, I run my own Nextcloud server for 10$/month, the amount of maintenance per month is 0 hours. Nextcloud has already provided a very simple installation setup using snap. It would be cheaper, in the long run, for someone to pay a contractor 300$ to setup a 10$/month droplet on Digital Ocean.
What I'm getting at is you may want to consider per app pricing as a customer is probably interested in a very specific app and thus will price check only for that app.
We have so far not wanted to get into per-app pricing, because we see ourselves as app packagers and not providing support for the app itself. For example, we don't actually provide any support if Rocket.Chat's mobile app has some problem. Making it per-app pricing can mislead people into thinking we support the app. There is also the issue that we might be seen as competing with the app authors (if they have a SaaS model).
The 30 USD is essentially the price for automatic updates, backups, dns/tls management, deployment with security best practices etc. It is also a 'service' where you can contact us if something goes wrong. As you say, if you want to DIY/time is cheap, cloudron is expensive. That said, if you use the DO marketplace image, you get a 50% discount (you will see the discount coupon when setting up a subscription).
Anything involving the command line is considered advanced knowledge for most people, so targeting your product to the novice is a miss.
the command line. a beginner is not going to open the command line and start typing in commands.
"If that's the case, we do have Cloudron listed in the DO Marketplace"
I would suggest break this page (https://cloudron.io/get.html) into a beginner and advanced section and give a detailed instructional walk through (with pictures) for beginners.
...and some animation of Mickey Mouse & cie congratulating the user with some school notation at every step of the tutorial. Like this :
"Great, you didn't forget to prefix your command with 'sudo' while avoiding the evil 'root' user. You deserve a A+. Now take a candy bar in the bag provided by Cloudron just for you."
Most people could probably understand the technical stuff if they had enough spare time/interest, but if you don't have the technical literacy for it, "How to install on Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 x64" is confusing.
Whereas, "I followed these steps on this page (and the screenshots are how it looked like)" is easier.
The thing I haven't figured out is what happens to it if/when Cloudron goes away. Do I have/get the passwords somehow so I can hire someone else to take it over (or, heaven forbid, dive in there myself)?
Let me know if you’re interested in onboarding it into Cloudron :)