[garysweaver]

Recurring pricing is more acceptable when:

* Larger amounts can be made monthly instead of annual with similarly short contract length. E.g. $39.95/mo not only seems less than $479.40/yr, but if they are unsure about dropping $479.40 on an unproven service, then being able to drop out after 1 month with a loss of only $39.95 is important.

* The value of the maintenance/support provided is something of obvious value to the customer and perceived to be commensurate to the recurring charge. E.g. if you are just hosting a free open-source platform that they could host themselves, choose from many others to host, some of which might be free, then even if you as the vendor are paying for the domain, bandwidth, storage, etc., all of that which has real cost to you may not be perceived to be as much value to the customer. But, if you wrote the product, it is awesome and multifaceted, no one else does anything like it, and the customer perceives your expertise in the product to be something necessary to their future success, then they may be happier making larger recurring payments.