

Ask HN: Launch without paid plans or wait until payment is integrated? - Jim_Neath

I've been working on my startup (SaaS) for 6 months or so. My original plan was to have all the payment and plans integrated and tested before launch, but I've started to lose motivation as people aren't using it.<p>Should I get the app to a state where I can launch without any paid plans (just a single free plan) and just launch? Or should I stick to my guns, and wait until I have the paid plans sorted?
======
cperciva
With Tarsnap, I got the basic functionality working and started inviting
people into private beta testing while I wrote the money side of things. Once
I had the money side of things written, I told my beta testers that it was
time to start paying (I had warned them from the start that at some point the
free beta would turn into a paid beta), and about a month after that I opened
up the beta to anyone who wanted to sign up.

This worked pretty well for me; I can't say if it will work for anyone else,
of course.

------
bradleyjoyce
Jim... I just wrote a post about this very issue:
[http://squeejee.com/blog/2009/10/29/charging-from-
day-1-geni...](http://squeejee.com/blog/2009/10/29/charging-from-day-1-genius-
or-deathknell/)

Are you writing all your own payment code? If so, why? I would recommend using
something like Spreedly or Chargify (we use spreedly with TweetSaver). Getting
payment integrated using Spreedly went very quickly for us. You should be able
to get it up and running within a day or two.

I always vote in favor of launch early and iterate... but with tools like
spreedly it's only an extra couple days at most to get payment plans in there.

~~~
Jim_Neath
Funnily enough, I was just in the middle of reading your post.

I'm probably going to go down the Spreedly route. While I agree that it
probably won't take me long to integrate, I need to make sure everything is
solid. Also, I'm currently working a 9-5 job as well as working on my startup,
so it might take a while.

------
MrMatt
I'd release free accounts now, and put the paid accounts on hold until you've
had chance to see how your site runs under normal usage. If you get people
using it now, then

* They will uncover bugs that have been missed

* They will show you where usability is poor in your app

* You will build an audience of people that actually use your app, giving you an crowd to sell to

* You'll get the opportunity to see how the app performs under working conditions

If you wait until your app has the paid stuff in, then the first paying
customers may have to put up with problems that could have been ironed out
during the free-only period.

