$3 donation is never going to get us rich, especially when the conversation rate for such apps are normally below 5% of the user base. The primary reason for asking donation is to measure and validate your idea. One of the way to check your market-fit is to who's freely willing to pay for it.
The other reason is to cover our Heroku cost ($7 per month) and any other costs (e.g. domain name, the time we put in making/maintaining it, etc.). Nevertheless, please can just ignore and continue using the app for free.
But thanks for the feedback, you are right about the message, we thought it's too long to describe it all, but we'll try to come up with a better and clearer message.
Just say you want money for your app. Put a pay-what-you-want or heck, bill for it monthly.
I really don't think it's the right idea to blatantly lie, it's quite obvious that server costs are negligible here. No one is denying your work or effort.
> "For us, in order to be able to cover our server costs, we ask our users to contribute a tiny amount if they find the app useful. Donate to see the detox counter again."
As far as this message goes, I'd just remove the word "server". We all know that's not the only cost associated, so pointing it out as the only cost seems... dishonest? Maybe you'd want to link the word "costs" to a web page that elaborates on the costs a bit. Not with concrete numbers, but more like percentages: 60% on the time maintaining it, 10% for the server and domain(s) etc.
As far as the funding model goes, I feel like pay-what-you-want would be a good strategy for this use case, but that's up to you to decide. I'm certainly bad at monetizing my projects, so I'm in no position to make suggestions.
This is a static site that tricks users into using it, then after several uses disables functionality and demands a "donation" to cover server costs, but the person asking how much the server actually costs is being a jerk?
You don't have to use it. It is a service, not a human right. The question about margins on this thing is a perfectly valid one however, but do we all think that when we buy something in a store that nobody makes a profit?
Let's change context. You go to a restaurant because it is advertising free meal opening night. You go, you eat, you have a good time. When you stand up to leave you are informed that in order to leave you have to pay the door tax.
A restaurant like that would be sued for false advertising. How is willfully gathering data about yourself only to be extorted money to access that data later on any different?
That would be a good analogy if OP told you that you had used $5 worth of resources and now have to pay, then calls the police on you when you close your tab.
It’s not about making a profit. Everyone wants to atleast cover their costs (including their own time). And personally I like money. I like having it and I like spending it. So I’m not going to bitch at anyone for seeking a profit.
My objection to the current wording is that it comes across as the server costs are though the roof. As a static site with a little thinking it can be heavily cached both online and on device, “New” apps could be generated offline and uploaded or auto generated using a server less (I still hate that term) back-end, knocking down that $7 per month to pennies per month. To the point where the domain name is the most expensive part of the site. Heck I can think of ways to use GitHub pages to run the site and get those server costs down to $0p/m.
But for me personally that can countered by simply remove the word server (Anyone who really knows the term “server” will have an idea of the cost). Removing the ref to their overheads removes that from you thought process when deciding on if dropping a few bucks is a good value. For me personally the message feels like they are struggling to cover their overheads when I know they will be small (To the point where personally I would run it for the shits and giggles of it). If they are even struggling to cover server costs the owners of the site won't be motivated to maintain the site.
Infact remove the word “costs”. When we walk into a supermarket we don’t think of the stores costs when we are purchasing things. By removing the wording I wouldn't be thinking about their server costs and thinking about it as more like dropping the creators a few bucks.
IMO being honest and a little bit cheeky can get you a long way. So personally I would word it like “Hey, want to see the number of times you have opened this app? Well for the low price of a cup of coffee instead of this Annoying message that is exactly what you see. Click here...”
The other reason is to cover our Heroku cost ($7 per month) and any other costs (e.g. domain name, the time we put in making/maintaining it, etc.). Nevertheless, please can just ignore and continue using the app for free.
But thanks for the feedback, you are right about the message, we thought it's too long to describe it all, but we'll try to come up with a better and clearer message.