Ask HN: How would you tell that your app is going to require a subscription?

8 points by diegogcouto 9 years ago | 11 comments

TL;DR: We've started to promote our product and received a lot of attention, but without mentioning that it's going to require a monthly subscription. How would you talk about the subscription without generating a lot of disappointment?

We're currently working on a service to help speech therapists which is also have an app. We're planning to start our beta next month, so we've started to spread the word about the product this week.

Our strategy was to talk about some of the features of our product, together with useful content for our public to start generating some interest and nurture it until the launch date.

Unexpectedly, we've received a lot of attention (actually the amount expected for a month in a week) and a lot of people are sending us messages to ask about the product. This is great, but I'm worried that a lot of people might get disappointed as soon as we start sharing more details with them, as we haven't mentioned, yet, that the service is supposed to require a monthly subscription (+- US$9).

How would you manage their expectations in order to introduce the paid plan without a lot of disappointment?

Some background:

* We're based in Brazil. I don't know if it's something which only happens in here, but people seems to always assume that apps are free.

mtmail 9 years ago |

Here is an email I received from rollbar.com when they announced price increases. I was impressed enough how they chose their words to save the email.

    Your account is on a plan from prices that we set back in February 2015. Back then, we were 5 people in a San Francisco coworking
    space trying to figure out if what we were building was going to be useful to anyone other than our early adopters.
    
    Over the past year and a half, we've learned a ton about just how valuable Rollbar can be, how it fits into the modern
    software development lifecycle, and where it can go. Tangibly, we have:
    
      * Grown our full-time staff over 3x, from 5 people to 17
      * Hired dedicated support staff
      * Released and improved countless features, including SSO, 2-factor
        auth, and tons of integrations
    
    ... and we're extremely excited to keep working on our mission—to help developers build and maintain software, quickly and
    painlessly—for many years to come. To have the resources to do that, we need to adjust our prices to better reflect the
    value that Rollbar can provide, and we hope that you'll stick with us on this journey.

diegogcouto 9 years ago | |

Thanks for your help, mtmail! They really know how to communicate. Maybe the path really is through transparency.

napsterbr 9 years ago |

If most - or all - of your users are Brazilian, then I'm afraid you'll have a hard time. People here don't realize the value in software/apps.

Offer a full month trial to your existing userbase, and 1 week trial to new users. The Rollbar email is a great example on how transparency can go a long way. Consider offering different pricing plans with different set of features. Power users are more likely to pay more, and casual users can continue using limited features at a smaller price.

Also, as much as I agree with traskjd comment, I don't think it holds true to Brazil. You probably know what I'm talking about. I'm afraid the strategy here must be "price as cheap as you can", unless you are dealing with a very special audience (or with enterprises).

I'm happy to know how this turns out. Consider sharing a blog post with your experience :) Good luck / boa sorte.

diegogcouto 9 years ago | |

Yeah, unfortunately I have the same perception as you have about how they (although I'm a brazilian myself) value apps and online services here.

The income of my target audience seems to be around US$10100/year (or R$32500). That's fairly low to make me consider if, even if providing a lot of value, they'd be wiling to pay a premium fee for the service.

On the other hand, I have a niche audience (not more than 10k people in Brazil) so, pricing it too low could make the product unsustainable.

I really appreciate your help and be sure that I'm gonna share the results of all this thing.

Thank you very much, napsterbr! Brigadão. ;-)

saluki 9 years ago |

I would expect speech therapists to want to pay for the app, speech therapy apps and apps for doctors in the states are usually pretty pricey.

I wouldn't expect any medical office to balk at $9/mo . . . if anything you should raise the price, that seems too inexpensive. I'd do three plans $49, $99 and $199 depending on features/levels you can offer or maybe per doctor/staff/patient depending on your app.

Do you have Hipaa style privacy laws regarding electronic medical records in Brazil? That usually commands a premium here so same app for non-medical $99/mo for medical $199/mo.

https://www.appointmentreminder.org/pricing

I think you're pricing too low, if it provides value speech therapists are going to expect to pay for it.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

diegogcouto 9 years ago | |

Now I'm not sure whether I'm being too pessimistic or just if we're really very poor in here. hahaha

Actually, doctors usually make a lot of money (at least US$70k/year) here in Brazil if compared to other careers but, unfortunately, it doesn't seems to be the same for speech therapists (most of them won't make more than US$15k/year).

I really like your price anchoring and completely agree with you but, at the same time, I'm also afraid to scare my audience. hahahah

As soon as I have any results about this thing, I'm gonna blog about it and share here!

Thank you very, very much for you help and attention, saluki!

saluki 9 years ago | | |

y, if they are at a lower salary you would have to keep the price lower . . . maybe try an introductory price for those already interested at $9/mo and increase that to $19/mo after 30 days . . . and see if signups keep coming in. Or maybe you're on the mark and charge $9/speech therapist, not sure if they typically work one on one with a group of patients or if they work for a clinic where you'd have 10 therapists under one main speech therapist. maybe do individual plans at $9 and then office plans for up to 15 at $99 or up to 25 at $199/mo contact us for larger plans.

traskjd 9 years ago |

Hope it helps, but I wouldn't worry about it. Give a trial so they can test it out. If people are disappointed, then they weren't likely to be your target market anyway (especially if they assume the apps are free!)

I'd also suggest charging more than $9 a month. I appreciate there's a currency difference between the US & Brazil, however that's really not a lot of money. Consider the human support side alone. One question from each customer would likely take months to recover the cost of (and that's after you paid to acquire them, and provide the service).

Just my 2c, but hope it helps!

diegogcouto 9 years ago | |

It definitely helps, traskjd! You really got me thinking by mentioning the effort necessary to provide support. Initially I thought that the whole service is kind of self-explanatory but we're receiving a flood of questions about the product without even have launched it yet. Imagine when they all start using it.

I'm only afraid to scare them by pricing it too far from their expectations, but you really have a good point!

Your help was very important. Thank you very, very much! :-D

Cozumel 9 years ago |

Lead in with a free month, if you provide value they should hopefully convert.

diegogcouto 9 years ago | |

crossed fingers. hahahhah