

Ask HN: Do you charge for proof of concept? - curiously

Say you are a SaaS, prospect says, we want to see a proof of concept before we become a customer but we are comparing with other vendors as well.<p>How would you respond? What if the proof of concept takes labor and extra configuration to meet their requirements as to what constitutes a PoC? Should you charge for that?
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mrcold
Window shoppers don't make good clients. If you need convincing, we don't want
your business. Please go to one of our competitors, preferably the biggest
one.

In general, doers do and talkers talk. If you really need the service, you're
going to buy it and figure out things yourself. Plus, paying customers always
get support and help no matter what. If you start talking hypothetical
scenarios and custom requirements, it's mostly bullshit you don't really care
about. And it will never amount to anything.

In the words of Ray Liotta: _" The place burned down? Fuck you, pay me.
Lightning struck? Fuck you, pay me. Slow business? Fuck you, pay me."_ We work
for money. Not to make your life easier out of the goodness of our hearts.
Money talks and bullshit walks. Anything else and you're just wasting both of
out times.

~~~
curiously
Yes!

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mtmail
We deal with worldwide geographical data. It's usual to request sample data.
If it's custom then often enough creating the sample data is 50% of the work
(especially if you do test-driven development). It doesn't lead to more sales.
One hour or two days of work didn't matter. Once we were even told that since
we have the feature now the customer doesn't understand why it would cost
extra. And more than once the sample data was used to find flaws and to
negotiate the price down.

My suggestion is to ask for $10 pre-payment. Or have them sign up to your
basic plan first. You will see a lot of prospects won't even reply to your
email.

I've seen web development agencies even charge for meetings for Skype calls
with prospective customers. I guess that's one way to filter out clients with
small pockets.

~~~
curiously
in a very similar position, dealing with a tool that produces data. they also
ask for the sample data. most of the time it is relatively quick but then of
course always something extra that needs to be configured and customer doesn't
like to pay extra for the labor.

I find it interesting that NONE of these people that have requested sample
data ended up as customers. It was almost always a wasted effort. In fact,
almost all the customers bought immediately and then worked with to figure out
what needed to be done and in most cases quite okay with waiting.

I will have to agree that filtering might be good here.

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mobiplayer
Charge a fair price for your work, discount that price from the final bill.

