On Pricing

"Why would I charge $2.99 for the app when I could make it free and just have this massive user..."

Tue, 19 May 2009 08:39:36 +0100

“Why would I charge $2.99 for the app when I could make it free and just have this massive user base?… The app store makes it as easy to buy an app as it is to download an app for free… People already have their credit card hooked up - it’s just magic. $2.99 is an impulse price.”

- Loren Brichter speaking at Stanford about his iPhone application, Tweetie

Day Rates Explained

Fri, 15 May 2009 13:49:41 +0100

Day Rates Explained: Andy from Human Traffic just send me this great link regarding agency day rates. Very open and honest of a company to break this down in such detail.

"There wasn’t much science behind [the pricing for Basecamp]. We asked ourselves a couple..."

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:24:50 +0100

“

There wasn’t much science behind [the pricing for Basecamp]. We asked ourselves a couple questions:

1. What would we pay?
2. What numbers feel right?

”

- 37signals

Decoy Marketing

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:09:06 +0100

Decoy Marketing: Roger Dooley explains a fascinating pricing phenomenon whereby adding an inferior product at the same price as another can increase sales.

Will Draw Anything

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:00:21 +0100

Will Draw Anything:

Artist offers to draw anything for $2. I’ve bought one myself just to see how the process works.

Via Dave

200 Nipples

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:59:06 +0100

200 Nipples:

Interesting model for pricing t-shirts - in a run of 100, the first costs $1, the second $2, etc. (Safe for work)

Via Dave

"Freelancers want to pay less, in general $10-30/month. Small company employees would pay the most:..."

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:57:21 +0100

“Freelancers want to pay less, in general $10-30/month. Small company employees would pay the most: 30% said $70+/month. Large company employees were surprising. Some would pay zero, a result mirrored in no other category.”

- Answers about pricing in our recent Litmus survey.

Spellr.us is a service still in private beta. They have a nice...

Fri, 16 May 2008 09:58:40 +0100

Spellr.us is a service still in private beta. They have a nice touch on their beta sign up form. In addition to the usual name and email fields, they ask you about your pricing preferences, and how much you’d be willing to pay.

37signals have changed their Basecamp pricing. They have removed...

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:09:26 +0100

37signals have changed their Basecamp pricing. They have removed the $12/month plan, simplifying it down to 3 choices, and made the free sign up much more difficult to find. Will be interesting to see if this works better for them - whether they keep it or revert back to the old pricing.

Steven Poole: Free your mind

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:07:07 +0100

Steven Poole: Free your mind: The results of author Steven Poole’s experiment in giving away one of his books for free. Explores the benefits and drawbacks of free content.

It Should Be Free?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:32:29 +0000

It Should Be Free?:

Interesting article from Daniel Jalkut (via Dave). Identifies five types of transaction:

Pure Payment
Subsidized Payment
Pure Charity
Subsidized Theft
Pure Theft

Which method are you using with your customers?

New pricing for Litmus

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:27:10 +0000

New pricing for Litmus: We launched our new price plan yesterday. The feedback has been good so far, so hopefully we made the right call.

Split testing your pricing

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:24:53 +0000

Another interesting discussion on the BoS board. Worth taking the time to read the thread, but the most interesting snippet for me was:

”Amazon has run A/B pricing experiments, and learned the hard way that customers *do* find out, and *are* upset about it. So their new policy is: if they run a price experiment, you’ll always get the lowest price in the experiment, when you get to the checkout. (So you might click on something with 5% off - when you get to the checkout, it’ll give it to you for 10% off, because that was the other offer that you didn’t see).” -AndrewMcG

"buying attention is a marketing expense, and one way to budget for that is to deduct it from the..."

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:28:05 +0000

“buying attention is a marketing expense, and one way to budget for that is to deduct it from the cost of your product”

- Seth Godin

New Litmus price plans page (launching very soon)

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:59:42 +0000

New Litmus price plans page (launching very soon)

Old Litmus price plans page

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Old Litmus price plans page

Wired: Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:52:38 +0000

Wired: Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business

Ask IttyBiz: How Do I Figure Out Pricing?

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:16:50 +0000

Ask IttyBiz: How Do I Figure Out Pricing?: Nice discussion of service pricing over on IttyBiz (via Dave)

8 ways to beat free

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:01:24 +0000

8 ways to beat free: Fantastic article from Kevin Kelly.

New community for web app developers

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:36:16 +0000

This week I launched a new site: seeed.org

It’s a place for people to a discuss the business of web applications - their pricing, development, marketing, financing, and so on. If you’re interested in this blog then you’ll likely find Seeed to be a useful resource.

And don’t worry if you’re short on time (aren’t we all!); for Seeed I’m collecting together each week’s best discussions into an email summary, so you’ll never miss the highlights.