
Ask HN: How would you tell that your app is going to require a subscription? - diegogcouto
TL;DR: We&#x27;ve started to promote our product and received a lot of attention, but without mentioning that it&#x27;s going to require a monthly subscription. How would you talk about the subscription without generating a lot of disappointment?<p>We&#x27;re currently working on a service to help speech therapists which is also have an app. We&#x27;re planning to start our beta next month, so we&#x27;ve started to spread the word about the product this week.<p>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.<p>Unexpectedly, we&#x27;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&#x27;m worried that a lot of people might get disappointed as soon as we start sharing more details with them, as we haven&#x27;t mentioned, yet, that the service is supposed to require a monthly subscription (+- US$9).<p>How would you manage their expectations in order to introduce the paid plan without a lot of disappointment?<p>Some background:<p>* We&#x27;re based in Brazil. I don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s something which only happens in here, but people seems to always assume that apps are free.
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mtmail
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
Thanks for your help, mtmail! They really know how to communicate. Maybe the
path really is through transparency.

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napsterbr
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
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. ;-)

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saluki
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](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
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
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.

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traskjd
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
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

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

~~~
diegogcouto
__crossed fingers __. hahahhah

