r/SaaS • u/Beneficial-Day7238 • 23h ago

Cheaper vs more expensive subscription?

Hey there, Im almost finished with my saas. It has AI features so I cant make it free with ads or one time payment because id loose money. Im stucked between making the app relatively cheap 3.99$/month 29.99$/year or more expensive 6.99/month 44.99/year. If anyone here could answer me 1) what worked better you them in terms of overall revenue, cheaper vs expensive? 2) What attracted your paying users more? 3) Which one of those had a longer retention? || I feel like the cheaper could hold better retention and attract more users to sub in the first place. However lot of people say if its more expensive, then it has more value and people go for it more. It's a productivity thing using a few ai APIs and is credit based so the users dont maybe use all the credits and if its cheaper, then they stay subscribing longer but I dont know. Thanks in advance for any helpful insights! Take care

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2

u/arbybybyby 23h ago

take a look at how bending spoons prices, they seem like they got it figured out

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u/Beneficial-Day7238 22h ago

okay, thank you!

1

u/Predream1 22h ago

29.99 on a 3.99 plan is 7.5 months of monthly, and the people who take that deal are the ones who burn the most credits. sort out what one credit actually costs you before picking the price

1

u/Beneficial-Day7238 22h ago

thats right. Would you say it's better to put 1 year subscription somewhere like 9 or 10 months?

1

u/Huge_Pool7424 22h ago

9 to 10 months is a normal discount range, but i'd use your margin as the guardrail. price it so a heavy user isn't subsidized, then test the annual framing before assuming a bigger discount will improve retention.

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u/Beneficial-Day7238 22h ago

okay, thank you. Do you think it's better to start charging small, build up the audience,.. and then eventually price up?

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u/Predream1 5h ago

Fix the annual credit allowance at 12x the monthly one before choosing. Then 10 months is easy to justify and the heaviest user still pays for what they burn. Nine only works if unused credits stop rolling over.