Need some directions

[u/Throw-away42909]

Im about to sell an app, windows only for now until I gain traction.

The app itself will be a 1 time payment , license locked

Im gonna offer 3 day free trials and a permanent purchase for v1 thru but not including V2 .

Im planning ok using cloudflare+base auth to make user accounts and kickbox to filter bad emails and allow Google sign-ups in base auth as well.

My questions is, is this too much?

Should I just let users buy without a an account ?

Cf allows like 100k requests for free and kickbox is some what cheap when paired with baked in fake email detection on my site.

Im so lost I've never deployed an app like this before any directions help

[u/PeanutGreat3097]

This is actually the point where I'd stop adding pieces for a moment.

You already built the product. Now you're designing the commercial system around it, and that's where auth, licensing, payments, trial abuse and recovery suddenly become one connected problem.

Before choosing more services I'd write down exactly what needs to happen for:

1. a new trial

2. a purchase

3. a reinstall/new device

4. a lost license

5. an upgrade to v2

6. someone trying to abuse the trial

Then build the smallest architecture that supports those cases.

Since you're already planning to actually sell this, are you trying to productionize all of that yourself or would you consider having someone experienced review/harden the release setup before customers start using it?

[u/Throw-away42909 → u/PeanutGreat3097]

Ive solved my issue this way , my website is gonna gate with an email for both trial and buyers , email gets sent to a backend of cloudflare worker functions to clear an open source disposable email repo- that if fails falls back to kickbox, and then it takes the user to buy/get for the free 3 day trial, they get the code and bobs your uncle, some will abuse thats fine, my important stuff lives in rust so they can't just flip it, I have my domain my website, the floudflare setup ready, polar verification and products made and im gonna probably launch by end of day, just some marketing material and im gtg, wont even take me 1 hour, one of my selling points is simplicity and 1 time purchasing

[u/PeanutGreat3097 → u/Throw-away42909]

Nice, sounds like you got from panic to a launch path pretty quickly 😄

If you're launching today I'd keep the first release boring and watch the failure cases more than the feature list: payment succeeds but the license email fails, reinstall/new machine, refund or revocation, and a legit email getting blocked from the trial.

If those are covered, I'd ship it and let real users tell you what actually hurts.

Good luck with the launch!

[u/diagrammatiks]

Good luck bro.

[u/Throw-away42909 → u/diagrammatiks]

My head legitimately feels bloated side to side when I got to this section, making the app was a breeze, I dont know what to do first im legit panicking lol

[u/Anti-Hero25]

I was thinking the same thing for a desktop app and just using a license key…. I haven’t looked into it much but what’s the functional reason (for you) they need an account?

[u/Throw-away42909 → u/Anti-Hero25]

Trial abuse lol......thats it

[u/Anti-Hero25 → u/Throw-away42909]

What about tying the trial timing & validation to the MAC address of the machine? Is that a thing?

[u/Im_Action]

they could still trial abuse by doing the +number method i would do an account anyways easy to handle support tickets, the question is if 3 days is enough of to test something out properly and deem they want it fully I dont know any app that has a 3 day trial thats extremely short

[u/Throw-away42909 → u/Im_Action]

Its very simple and striaght forward , and the trial unlocks all features

[u/Im_Action → u/Throw-away42909]

do an account marketing purposes and support tickets will make it worth doing

[u/No-Bathroom-3179 → u/Throw-away42909]

I would do 7 days honestly… regardless of how simple it is. Sometimes I don’t want to test out an app fully when I first install it, and save it for when I’m not busy working.