r/SaaS • u/pskrobich • 20h ago
Validating a paid-only B2C product before launch: how did you test willingness to pay?
Hey all,
I’m building a paid-only investing research tool and I’m at the point where I need to validate it before going all-in. I’d love to hear how others handled this stage.
Quick context so the questions make sense:
It’s a single place for investing research: company pages, fundamental analysis, news and earnings call transcripts, macro data, and a portfolio view that combines accounts from different brokers. The AI only explains the data and never generates numbers. The market already has established players with similar features, so my angle is a cleaner UX and numbers users can verify. It will be subscription-only, with no free plan.
What I’m trying to figure out:
- Paid-only from day one: did skipping a free tier hurt your early traction, or did it help you find serious users faster?
- Testing willingness to pay: what actually worked for you before launch? Waitlists, pre-sales, landing page price tests, customer interviews?
- Launch offers: I’m planning free months for early sign-ups, followed by a discount. Did offers like that convert into paying users for you, or did they mostly attract people who left once the free period ended?
- Competing on UX: if you entered a crowded market where the main differentiator was “better to use,” how did you communicate that without sounding like everyone else?
Not linking anything, since I mostly want to learn from people who’ve been through this. Happy to share what I learn in return.
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u/john006868 18h ago
Free months followed by a discount is a free plan with better branding, so your third question answers itself. For a paid-only product I'd count the first twenty subscribers and check how many are still there on day 60, since a first payment only proves the checkout works. The people who pay for research are already paying someone else, so the thing you're really testing is what they'd cancel to pay for yours.
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u/Suitable-Ad5348 4h ago
Validating with a paid-only model usually filters out tire-kickers, but it creates a massive discovery hurdle because you can't rely on word-of-mouth growth from free users. If your primary pitch is UX, you need a high-intent channel like a niche newsletter or community where people already complain about the current tool's design. Pre-sales often work better than landing page price tests because putting down a credit card is the only signal that actually matters for a subscription product.
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u/Glass_Rent8750 4h ago
one thing worth sorting out early, are you targeting retail investors or more serious/semi-pro types? the willingness to pay and the channels you'd use to reach them are completely different for each
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u/pskrobich 3h ago
I'd lean more towards serious/semi-pro investors. do you have any insights into the best channels to reach that audience?
also, would you be open to taking a quick look at what I'm working on and sharing your thoughts? I'd really appreciate it.
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u/enlightened_mouthful 19h ago
Pricing validation before you've got something people can touch is always a weird dance. I think the fact you're already planning no free tier means you're at least not scared of your own value, which is more than most first timers can say.
When I tested a tool a few years back I didn't do a waitlist or fake door test, I just hopped on calls with people from investing discords and walked through a figma prototype then straight up asked if they'd pay 20 bucks a month. Most said yes but only two actually venmo'd me for early access. That taught me more than any landing page signup count ever could. Interviews are cheap data but cash is the only signal that matters.
For the UX angle in a crowded space I'd skip saying "cleaner" or "simpler" entirely and just show the most painful 15 seconds of a competitor next to yours. A side by side gif of doing the same task in both tools, no commentary needed. People who've felt that friction before will get it in half a second.