[pingananth]

I sell a niche educational tool for technical leads($19 one-time access).

I get decent traffic from India/Southeast Asia, but 0 sales.

I’ve read conflicting advice:

The "SaaS" View: Don't lower prices; filter for high-value customers.

The "Game/Ebook" View: Lower prices significantly (60%+) to match local purchasing power, because zero marginal cost = free money.

Since my product has no server upkeep (it's just a Next.js app), I just enabled aggressive PPP.

Has anyone here successfully monetized a one-time purchase dev tool in India? Or is the "Free or Nothing" culture too strong?

[Brajeshwar]

This is going to be very personal opinion but I’ve bought many digital products when I’m either not thinking too much about the price or find that it has a much cheaper Indian version. Many times, have I done it just so I could help out another founder.

The most recent one I remember was some tool (Show HN) that searches the Mac with a local AI. I’m yet to start using it. I like the idea, and I might use it someday. It was beta-discounted

I’m from India.

[pingananth]

Appreciate the honest perspective! As a founder from India myself, I’ve definitely bought tools just to support the maker. I’ve set the PPP price to ₹999 to make it a 'no-brainer' for folks here. Glad to know I'm on the right track.

[cjbgkagh]

I have had numerous enquirers from India but no sales, it was such a waste of time that I geoblocked the whole region.

[pingananth]

Oh, was it subscription and high ticket value?

[cjbgkagh]

Optionally perpetual or subscription, niche software, B2B, more expensive than mass market / commodity software. Nonstop lying / scamming behavior.

You get funny things that happen like when a rep from a company will call you and warn you not to do a deal with another rep from the same company, then 2 hours later we get a call from the other rep.

I’m eventually going to go subscription only, people from Asia tend to really hate that and refuse to pay for subscriptions but we make so little money from them that it’s not worth catering to them, we’re better off dropping that entire region.

[pingananth]

That sounds very draining.

Since I'm selling a low-ticket ($19) self-serve product with zero sales calls, I'm hoping i don't face this.

But I hear you loud and clear - if I ever move upmarket to enterprise contracts, I'll consider this!