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by runako 3298 days ago
Congratulations on your launch!

Other folks have provided a bunch of commentary on the validity of your idea, so I won't address that.

BUT: if this is a good idea, your pricing is far too low for a niche product like this. $10 (or 10 quid) is too low a monthly fee for pretty much any product marketed as a business product. 10 per seat per month is probably also too low, but would be a better starting point.

Likely objection: "But Spotify is only $10/mo!!!" Spotify has the much larger addressable market of people with hearing and an Internet connection. Even Dropbox has a higher price point for business users, and it also has a far larger addressable market.

If you're building something that's useful for people, charge more.

Good luck!

3 comments

Plugging these patio11 posts because a)they might be helpful if OP hasn't read them and b)even if OP has, somebody else here might not and they're pretty much evergreen:

The Black Art of SaaS Pricing: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pric...

Doubling Saas Revenue by Changing the Pricing Model: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/08/13/doubling-saas-revenue/

Selling To The Fortune 500, Government, And Other Lovecraftian Horrors: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/enterpris...

Patrick's default pricing model: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/479095257284345857

Just to echo Patrick's default pricing model. If it's too cheap (and you currently are), I would not trust the developer having resources to make the product stable enough for me to trust it with my data. Also, it costs money to go through certification (without which you will not penetrate the market where this pain point is clearest).
As someone who evaluates and purchases business software on a regular basis, I agree with this. Business users will pay more for something that's useful.

And you don't want to lock too many customers into low pricing early on - it's a real challenge to start charging customers more when they're used to paying a ridiculously low rate.

I would be careful with raising pricing. It is a very specialized product that requires changing the way people work with their documents today - meaning you need to educate the users on a) why they need this over the regular document version control in something like Sharepoint b) educate them on how to actually use it and c) define how this product fits into existing document management systems and workflows.

It's hard enough to train people to use existing baseline document management systems and not simply email these things around.

Also, the fact that you need to use your cloud service is a red-flag for certain clients.

Then do a promo pricing period or something. But don't lock users that would pay higher rates into a low subscription fee structure.