[voxl]

$30 a month is too expensive for some of these tools (and perhaps too cheap for some of the others).

For instance, I run my own Nextcloud server for 10$/month, the amount of maintenance per month is 0 hours. Nextcloud has already provided a very simple installation setup using snap. It would be cheaper, in the long run, for someone to pay a contractor 300$ to setup a 10$/month droplet on Digital Ocean.

What I'm getting at is you may want to consider per app pricing as a customer is probably interested in a very specific app and thus will price check only for that app.

[driverdan]

$30/m seems quite reasonable. If a business can't afford $30/m you probably don't want them as a client. A single support ticket a month will kill your margins.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Many SBOs are recklessly frugal.

[tjbiddle]

Too true. As an SBO with many other entrepreneurial friends, I regularly have the conversation that they need to spend money if they want to scale at any reasonable rate. I generally don't blink at software <$50/mo, even up to $100/mo if it's solving a problem I need and gives me time back, and happily more if it will make me money. I don't really bother price shopping - it either works, or it doesn't, and it's "reasonable".

[gramakri]

I agree that the maintenance effort differs wildly per app. I don't actually agree that nextcloud is 0 effort post-setup. If you see our forums or the nextcloud forums, you will see how many questions are really just installation and update related.

We have so far not wanted to get into per-app pricing, because we see ourselves as app packagers and not providing support for the app itself. For example, we don't actually provide any support if Rocket.Chat's mobile app has some problem. Making it per-app pricing can mislead people into thinking we support the app. There is also the issue that we might be seen as competing with the app authors (if they have a SaaS model).

The 30 USD is essentially the price for automatic updates, backups, dns/tls management, deployment with security best practices etc. It is also a 'service' where you can contact us if something goes wrong. As you say, if you want to DIY/time is cheap, cloudron is expensive. That said, if you use the DO marketplace image, you get a 50% discount (you will see the discount coupon when setting up a subscription).

[thestepafter]

Just signed up for your service today and got OnlyOffice and NextCloud provisioned and working in under 10 minutes. This is after dozens of hours over the last couple weeks attempting to do the setup following guides and install docs online. $30 is a great price point and I will probably add this to my service offering to my customers. One question, any plans to offer installs on different servers all managed under one my.domain.com?

[thrownaway954]

I don't even think it's that... installing this thing would scare most people away:

https://cloudron.io/get.html

Anything involving the command line is considered advanced knowledge for most people, so targeting your product to the novice is a miss.

[gramakri]

Can you clarify what is scary about it :) ? Or are you saying using the command line by itself is scary? If that's the case, we do have Cloudron listed in the DO Marketplace (and in other providers like netcup, time4vps etc).

[thrownaway954]

"Anything involving the command line"

the command line. a beginner is not going to open the command line and start typing in commands.

"If that's the case, we do have Cloudron listed in the DO Marketplace"

I would suggest break this page (https://cloudron.io/get.html) into a beginner and advanced section and give a detailed instructional walk through (with pictures) for beginners.

[w1nst0nsm1th]

> with pictures

...and some animation of Mickey Mouse & cie congratulating the user with some school notation at every step of the tutorial. Like this :

"Great, you didn't forget to prefix your command with 'sudo' while avoiding the evil 'root' user. You deserve a A+. Now take a candy bar in the bag provided by Cloudron just for you."

[rgoulter]

The initial comment upthread is wondering about how to serve non-technical people.

Most people could probably understand the technical stuff if they had enough spare time/interest, but if you don't have the technical literacy for it, "How to install on Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 x64" is confusing.

Whereas, "I followed these steps on this page (and the screenshots are how it looked like)" is easier.