Pay $1.9/month or $24/lifetime? | Hacker News Reader

Pay $1.9/month or $24/lifetime?

4 pointsm-zakarya23 comments

Which one will you choose for a no-code landing page builder? https://www.the-bithub.com

Experience has shown a couple of things:

1. These offers are not for your lifetime, but for the lifetime of the company, which may not be that long.

2. If the company does live a long time and becomes successful, it often reneges on these lifetime offers.

What if they have a term in the purchase stating the user will be entitled to all the upcoming features as well with no extra cost?

Didn't ManyCam <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35538192>, Filmora <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34199153> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34177057>, and mIRC <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33864660> all have similar terms in the purchase, but then renege on it anyway?

Lawyers can always find a way out of it.

It's not a technical problem and it's not a contractual problem. It's a trust problem. Your business hasn't established a level of trust with your customers for them to believe you.

Until you have that trust, don't offer a "lifetime" anything.

I think that would be true for more expensive things or for B2E sales. At $24, I really don't care. If I get a year out of that it would be the same as paying the monthly fee. Of course others may feel differently.

Back when they used to charge a few dollars to download the app I bought the Ultimate Guitar App (https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/)

Honestly been pleasantly surprised now that they've had a subscription model for years and have honored my app purchase from probably over ten years ago

As a customer: lifetime.

As somebody who runs a SaaS business: don't offer lifetime. Generous 24 month plan maybe, anything with an expiry. https://www.indiehackers.com/post/dont-offer-lifetime-deals-...

Thanks for sharing that. It's really helpful

One tip and I know its not easy to think about this but don't make me create an account to test yet another page builder. Not when you are unknown in a crowded space and you need to show more value before asking for account creation. Just my 2 cents.

Speaking of "unknown", I would be more inclined to do $1.9/Month and then cancel if it doesn't work for me. Plus I am not interested in lifetime deals because that reduces my value as a customer and you don't want a customer who only paid you once.

Lifetime does not exist. I believed it once with pinboard, and a few years later, the error. Just for the record: https://www.prettyfwd.com/t/XiK8ArVIT6uVItPGeH3lzA/

If a lifetime price is under say $35, I’ll always pay it if I even kinda like the software — assuming something that’s anywhere from a few bucks a month to a few bucks a year. It’s not that much money to me and I don’t have to think about canceling a subscription in the future.

$50 is about the point where I won’t pay it if there’s a monthly/yearly option.

It’s not super logical but it is what it is.

I also know that lifetime doesn’t mean lifetime. APIs change, businesses change, shit happens. I do appreciate it when the developer does their best to give me something for that lifetime membership. But I don’t lose my mind and cry about being hoodwinked like so many people seem to do.

It’s spilt milk under the bridge and I’m happy to start paying a subscription if I have to for something I really like.

Bithub is actually offering for Individuals

> $1.9/mo | $17.0/yr | $299.9/lifetime

(Not sure if they are A/B testing prices since the OP says $24/lifetime)

It is a no-brainer. I'll go with the monthly pay-as-you-go.

If after 6 months, I am still satisfied, I would upgrade to the yearly. If after 6 months, I am not satisfied, I would cancel.

The entire experiment would have cost me $12 worst case (and hopefully there were some leads generated and the cost paid for itself). That is just me though.

None. The moment you make me choose, you already lost me.

Besides, who needs a "lifetime" subscription for anything tech-related? If any for my domain and email, but even for them I pay regularly every now and then.

At those price points, I’d pick lifetime, after a free trial.

So long as I expected to want it more than a year ... the lifetime license would be STUPID to not take

At $1.90/mo, by month 13 you've spent more than $24

I'd get the 1.9 deal anytime, if it's so good I end up using it more than a year I'll happily pay twice the lifetime price in the end.

If it's like 99% other products that offer bulk deals, I don't know such a long time ahead whether I'll end up using it that much. The expectation of savings by taking the "worse" short-term deal is higher than taking the supposed advantageous lifetime/bulk deal in my case.

I'd say well over 85% of the time, I "know" the bulk deal is the better one for me - I might do the 'cheaper' option once (in this case, the $1.90 for the first month), and then convert to the 'bulk' deal as soon as I know I like it

...but personal experience has shown that if I'm going to like something for a month, I'm going to like it a lot longer :)

I generally opt for a lifetime license for software I use, but this site looks like the lifetime license is $300

It's listed on Gumroad for $24 https://mohamedzakarya.gumroad.com/l/BITHUB-LTD

If they fail do you get a refund?

I haven't thought of that. What do you think should be done if that scenario happens?

I think you should be able to get a refund.

Monthly, but charging more.

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