Patrick, I'm sure you get lots of awful customers. You're targeting not-very-technical people, and when you do lots of SEO/AdWords to get as many people in the door as possible, you'll bring in a lot of good customers and a lot of bad customers.
But I don't think Chargify has that many. Of course they had a few, but for the most part, I doubt that those free customers suck; they just aren't making money yet.
But a lot of companies that don't know if they'll ever make $49/month when they start writing their payment code turn into valuable customers.
You need to look no farther than Bingo Card Creator. Would you have been comfortable locking yourself in to paying $49/month so that you could save time writing payment logic when you first started? I doubt it. But today, a billing system that enticed you with a free plan would be extremely happy that that got you to sign up.
The real issue I see for Chargify is that I don't know what their target market is now. They basically have to get new apps, since existing apps will already have something that works. But now they're limiting themselves to new apps with owners that are confident in their success. You're not going to pay $50/month for billing on something that you're just hoping will bring you a few hundred dollars a month, even though some of those apps turn into many thousands a month.
" But now they're limiting themselves to new apps with owners that are confident in their success. You're not going to pay $50/month for billing on something that you're just hoping will bring you a few hundred dollars a month"
I agree fully. And the first plan is actually $99 month, not $50. $99 as the cheapest option is really pushing it in my opinion.
They are offering existing customers are $39 plan, which I think is fair enough for a starting business for the support you need when you're getting setup. I don't understand why they don't just offer this plan to the public as well though.
I think chargify could get a long way with a $5-10/mo 10 customers max plan. Just enough for developers to get their feet wet, with a nice paywall to keep out the non-serious.
Patrick, I'm sure you get lots of awful customers. You're targeting not-very-technical people, and when you do lots of SEO/AdWords to get as many people in the door as possible, you'll bring in a lot of good customers and a lot of bad customers.
But I don't think Chargify has that many. Of course they had a few, but for the most part, I doubt that those free customers suck; they just aren't making money yet.
But a lot of companies that don't know if they'll ever make $49/month when they start writing their payment code turn into valuable customers.
You need to look no farther than Bingo Card Creator. Would you have been comfortable locking yourself in to paying $49/month so that you could save time writing payment logic when you first started? I doubt it. But today, a billing system that enticed you with a free plan would be extremely happy that that got you to sign up.
The real issue I see for Chargify is that I don't know what their target market is now. They basically have to get new apps, since existing apps will already have something that works. But now they're limiting themselves to new apps with owners that are confident in their success. You're not going to pay $50/month for billing on something that you're just hoping will bring you a few hundred dollars a month, even though some of those apps turn into many thousands a month.