[brudgers]

If the problem is important, then "ultra low cost" is not a requirement. If you build something that solves the problem, don't be afraid to charge meaningful money. 10 customers at $10,000 per month is better than 10,000 customers at $10 per month. Less support, fewer transaction fees, easier to talk to and get feedback...and a business model viable in a smaller market.

In general, customers who want to pay $0 tend not to be good for business.

Good luck.

[eb0la]

"Ultra low cost" can be also a sub-$1000 monthly bill sent to a huge corporation ;-).

If you can sell them something in that range, they won't stop paying you (even if they don't use the service).

10 customers @$999 / month that don't make you work at all....

[brudgers]

I don't disagree. I'd probably describe such pricing as "directly expensable pricing" and try to get it on a credit card subscription to avoid an invoicing process. With enterprise, or even small and medium businesses, invoice processes often involve discounts for timely payments and 90 day cycle times if the company thinks they can get away with it.

In terms of presentation for B2B, I think "high value" in the elevator pitch is better than "low cost." Low cost tends not to distinguish between value and price. And low price is a risk factor because low priced services tend to make the service provider less financially stable...and service provider stability is valuable for an enterprise.

[eb0la]

I'm not sure about using a credit card for this. Simply put, credit cards are usually issued to (high-level?) employees that leave, change contact details, etc... so your customer lifetime value is capped by the credit card expiration date.

I've seen bills coming for backup ISDN lines located in offices dismantled several years ago. Why? because the cost was small and it was already pre-aproved in the budget.

Only after a huge review we found out cases like this. But, that kind of reviews are unusual and expensive.

If you can afford to invoice a company and make them pay the bills for small quantities, you've got a business.

I do agree that low cost is a bad idea to start with, unless you can own all the market and start raising prices... BUT in that case you open easily the door to new competition and since your customers are price sensitive, you're asking them to churn as soon as possible.

[codegeek]

"10 customers at $10,000 per month is better than 10,000 customers at $10 per month"

In general, I agree with you but this particular statement can go both ways. If you only have 10 customers, losing 2 customers means losing 20% of your revenue which could be huge. Also, sometimes it may not be bad to sell something at $10/Month to a huge number of customers if the support needs are minimal. So it depends.

[brudgers]

Getting a huge number of customers is a non-trivial problem.