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Comment by yblu | Hacker News Reader

In my case, I charge $4/month for a developer tool and every week or so I would receive a survey response (that people do after uninstalling it) calling me names for charging money. Apparently there are people who want the tool enough to complete the survey and curse the creator but not enough to pay $4/month for it. So for me, pricing is really hard.

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Just reflecting out loud here, as I struggle with this as well.

The way you said it makes me think that at $4/month, you might actually be competing with free, as the prices seem so close. If it's $20/month, they may not say "oh but why isn't it free" or even more so at $50/month.

At low prices, maybe it just seems too much of a hassle to sign up and pay, ie, "Ugh, just $4/month? And I have to go thru the burden of signing up and giving my credit card and all that?" Whereas at $50/month, the paying process pain may feel relatively smaller.

Just a theory: I suspect another factor is that developer tools is a market that attracts a lot of individuals who use them to do hobby or bootstrapped projects that don't actually bring in any revenue. They tend to be far stingier than businesses who typically have a budget and compare the price to their bottom line.

This is a good point. I never thought of that but it's quite probable. I wonder how to best deal with this. Maybe free forever for hobby projects and only charge when people use the software in their money-making business.

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