

Ask HN: Costing cloud backend for mobile apps? - bobthemaster

I&#x27;m about to release a cross-platform app (iPhone&#x2F;iPad&#x2F;Android) and one of the main features is cross-device sync. I&#x27;m building this up with Parse at the moment and the free tier is pretty generous, but... I worry slightly that after a while it&#x27;s going to start costing me serious money.<p>The app will be paid but only around 0.99 - and that&#x27;s a one time payment (so, 0.66 to me after app store cut). If I get a lot of heavy use then a distant 0.66&#x2F;user isn&#x27;t going to be much help.<p>Just to be clear, the app alone is the product - it can&#x27;t make a loss to help promote some other entity.<p>As far as I can see my options run to:<p>1. Increase the initial price (still chance of this not covering later operational costs)<p>2. Charge annual subscription for sync (would anyone pay for this?!)<p>3. Worry about this later - I&#x27;d need pretty good traction I know, but my earnings are pitiful and come the day it <i>may</i> happen, it&#x27;d wipe me out.<p>What have other devs done to mitigate this?
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dvdand
You have a few other options as well \- You could run ads \- you could build
premium options that help you recoup your investment, \- you could absorb the
costs with the idea that future payoff might be larger than your costs (risky
assumption).

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bobthemaster
Yeah, those are possibilities. I don't really want ads in there if I can avoid
it though (especially with it being a paid app) - and a future payoff is
exceedingly unlikely. It's the kind of app that could grow to the point where
it costs me, but not where it would blow up to even a milli-Instagram.

I think some kind of premium option, whatever that may be, would be the best
bet.

