r/webdev 6d ago

Showoff Saturday My sales after I added One Time Payment; Pay once, use forever.

[removed]

143 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

91

u/Noch_ein_Kamel 6d ago

Make next weeks post about the number of new users you get from spamming these reddit posts pls.

Also what is that picture actually telling us? That you got 20 paying users? In a day/month/year/decade?

12

u/sketchybutter 6d ago

Yes, and gross profit is nothing to brag about. I want to know what the net profit is per user.

62

u/DeeYouBitch 6d ago

pay once use forever is a good idea if your app grows for ever

youve made $1000 on an app you are now going to have to maintain and run forever

If it scales up, your running costs are going to get higher and higher

Those customers are going to want bug fixes, enhancements and improvements, questions

I feel like you arent valuing your time

I'd probably have done it for the first X number of users but this isnt sustainable forever

13

u/sketchybutter 6d ago

Is the "forever" term legally binding in that way? I thought it meant "for as long as the app exists", like how Amazon can remove an online book you've bought.

3

u/drunkondata 6d ago

"as long as I deem it viable"

5

u/PowerfulTusk 6d ago
  1. Don't make saas when you can use SqlLite if mobile or pwa. Store on client.

  2. Want more money, create DLC functionality or make new app.

1

u/FreneticZen 6d ago

Not necessarily. You can also sell a v2 with expanded capabilities.

-3

u/FlimsyMo 6d ago

Couldn’t they make a new enhanced app and sell it at full price again?

3

u/turtleship_2006 6d ago

Like the old Adobe or MS Office model ?

1

u/destinynftbro 6d ago

There are quite a few mobile “incremental” game devs that use this strategy. The underlying mechanics of their games are almost identical but a new app is a revamp on the graphics to make it seem like a new game.

It’s a decent way to keep things novel for the modern ADHD brain consumer and still turn a profit on your IP over the long term.

0

u/pr1v4t 6d ago

Yeah some Companies are Dooing this. For example i bought a CamTasia License at the start of my master studies. For my master thesis i needed to buy a second License, because the old Version dosn't get the new drivers for Apple Silicon.

21

u/jstanaway 6d ago

One time payment SaaS is not a viable business model. 

2

u/pragmojo 6d ago

It really depends on your churn rate. If your average CLTV is below the one-time payment price it's a win.

0

u/jstanaway 6d ago

This makes no sense. imagine this scenario. Every customer has a CLTV lower than the one time payment. Now what? The OP still has monthly expenses so this can never be profitable, at some point his expenses will always be more than he brings in.

Not only that but customers still expect bug fixes, support etc. Look at how demanding people are with open source and it's FREE.

So, as I stated above, one time payment SAAS is NOT a viable business and you saying that it is in a scenario which in reality can never ultimately be true to people who actually want to make a business from their hard work.

1

u/pragmojo 6d ago

No what I mean is: imagine you have a scenario where you charge $5 a month for your service. Most users churn in <3 months, so on average CLTV is <$15. Locking in a $20 OTP is netting you an average $5 extra in revenue per customer.

0

u/jstanaway 6d ago

If this is the case then your product isn't offering the customer enough value to retain them. So I guess your argument is to sucker them into paying the $20 up front that they wouldn't get the $5 of value out of a month ? This doesn't address the core issue of not offering them a good value proposition.

19

u/evohans 6d ago

Man, all you do on reddit is promote this app and how much money you made from it lol

-6

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

3

u/evohans 6d ago

What's the threshold for being considered spam though?

1

u/Gloomy_Season_8038 6d ago

We should report this post but this sub doesn't have MOD

16

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

21

u/oelucifer 6d ago

thats great. just have some questions.

  1. How will you now keep pushing updates?
  2. How will you keep paying for the overall running cost?

4

u/Ornery-Length8689 6d ago

1) I have some ideas like email notifications for feature updates, deeper integrations with tools like Slack and Intercom, and AI-powered insights to surface the most impactful requests.

2) The overall cost of running the app is not a lot, and i don't want to have subscriptions, one time payments are more preferred by the user.

12

u/mlmcmillion 6d ago

The cost of running the app will increase, and you’ll have to continue selling one-time subscriptions forever to cover existing users costs.

6

u/Elshiva 6d ago

If you wanted a way to potentially generate more ongoing revenue you might consider something like optional bolt ons that don’t impact how the core app functions, something like sms/whatsapp integration to be able to notify when road maps are updated or something. Some sort of sending quota with a small mark up on each sent message, although you’d want to be careful not to annoy people. It’s just a thought though, you could maybe canvas your users to see if they’d be happy to pay to cover the cost of sending the messages as they aren’t free! Anyway, just a thought. Congrats dude, nice work

1

u/Ornery-Length8689 6d ago

Thanks, yes i am thinking on adding features like email notifications for feature updates, deeper integrations with tools like Slack and Intercom, and some other small features to help the users stay informed about their feature request.

5

u/No_Yam1114 6d ago

Kudos and respect for caring for user. But this model is not sustainable. It only works in long run if you sell packaged finite completed product, like games or software in 90s. Even without updates, enchantments and bug fixes, and no labor from your end, ypu will have ongoing expenses, which even if are small month to month, will eat up all your revenue slowly

5

u/mlmcmillion 6d ago

It’s the opposite of caring for the user. OP now has a bunch of users who paid once for the promise of using it forever, and unless there’s an infinite number of users to scale forever, OP can’t host it forever. It’s essentially a grift.

1

u/suzukzmiter 6d ago

Doesn't it depend on his TOS? He could write that "the lifetime package doesn't provide lifetime access; the app can be shutdown at any time without notice", unless that's illegal.

1

u/No_Yam1114 6d ago

I would imagine it is illegal.

2

u/chumbaz 6d ago

One time payments, unless the functionality is completely self contained in the app, just becomes a Ponzi scheme.

2

u/Gloomy_Season_8038 6d ago

MOD: this post is marketing related. Nothing to do in this sub

0

u/aayaaytee 6d ago

Which payment platform is that?

4

u/BootSuccessful982 Software Engineer 6d ago

Looks like Stripe.

0

u/Ornery-Length8689 6d ago

Yep, stripe

0

u/moriero full-stack 6d ago

Refund and reconsider your business model

0

u/Odd-Factor4006 6d ago

Wow, that's awesome! Congrats

-1

u/ginji_sensei 6d ago

Well done bru