March 12, 2019

Ask IH: Want your honest opinion on the pricing?

Hi everyone,

I've been asking a lot of questions lately and the support is great :)

I've made the MVP version of my project and in the situation on what fees shall, I charge?

Any advice?

The link:


  1. 3

    Hello. Just a side note, after reading whats on the homepage, I sort of understood that the customer does not receive an email or a paper receipt. After reading the API docs, the customer does actually receive an email. So essentially the service sends an email receipt on behalf of the service user. I think you sort of need to clarify that.

    1. 1

      The email in the docs is not for email sending, it's used to store the receipt to the right user in their account. I don't send an email to any buyer. I'll note that down in the webpage. Thanks.

      I understand where you coming from. So, I'll make sure that confusion is erased.

  2. 3

    Hi Rashid. Congrats on getting the MVP done!

    Looking at your pricing page, I have a few suggestions:

    • Most importantly I think your top tier pricing is too low. Any company that has over 10,000 receipts/month to store will likely have a bigger budget. In addition, there are some companies that will be happy to pay more without thinking twice, if the service solves their problem. Finally, I think a higher top tier price shows you’re capable of dealing with big accounts and that can instill trust. So I’d suggest testing higher levels such as 29.99, 49.99 or even more.

    • I’d drop the 24/7 support from at least the bottom tier. Anyone paying just 5.99 would not expect 24/7 support, and it would make your middle tier more appealing.

    • You could try highlighting the middle tier with a border or “best choice” or something.

    • The pay buttons could have a contrasting colour to encourage people to take action. If possible, test to see what the effect is (once you have enough traffic).

    • I think you could do more to reassure people when they’re wondering whether to click the buy button. One way to do this is say that “payments are securely processed through Stripe”. You could also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee in the same section.

    I hope that helps. A couple of good resources for pricing strategy are:

    1. 1

      Also, do you think I should set the prices based on another factor? For example, for each purchase a customer, the business get charged a 3 cents (per purchase)? What's your opinion?

      1. 1

        I’d say stick with a monthly subscription:

        • It’s a common strategy so it’s easy to find people with experience who can offer advice, e.g. on Indie Hackers!

        • Once you have subscribers, you can more easily predict your monthly income.

        • If you use a system with e.g. paid credits, there will inevitably be times when a customer runs out of credits and urgently needs more. This is annoying for them, especially if they have to get purchase approval each time, and potentially annoying for you if it requires support (“Please could I have temporary credits now and pay you later?”, etc.)

    2. 1

      Very useful information. Thanks.

  3. 1

    Just a few thoughts:

    From your landing page, I honestly can't figure out what your business does. You send receipts … somehow, but without email or paper? So … SMS? Or do they download the receipt directly via your API? You don't really expound on how you can "send" receipts without email or paper. You should clarify more about what you actually do to help businesses with receipts, because most users aren't going to spend the time digging into your docs to figure that out. Maybe I'm just not your target market, but it's very confusing.

    I'm also not sure how this "maintains sales" - that sounds like you're going to help retain customers, but that doesn't really make sense.

    Lastly, I agree with @tagawa: raise your prices. A lot. At the very least, raise the price of the large business "unlimited" tier or kill it altogether. Unlimited is usually not a good idea. You're targeting businesses, not individuals, so your pricing should reflect that.

    1. 2

      Ok, I'll talk more about that. It maintains sales for businesses as a way to track what is sold but at the same time, customers can view their recent purchases. It was an additional feature that required less time to develop because the same algorithm was doing two jobs (and I didn't realize until at the end of development).

      But the main point for this service is customers can view their purchases. I might need to exploit that more in my next version.

      What're your recommendations on the receipt amount (for pricing)?

      Thanks for the feedback :)

      The SMS was a good thought as well. Something worth thinking about in the future.

      1. 1

        Gotcha. So you offer an API that businesses can use to record customer purchases, which then allows customers to view and download their receipts of past purchases?

        1. 1

          Yes. That's correct. Very handy for those customers who need evidence when return products back and/or warranty (e.g repairs on a product like a T.V). It's more organized that way.

          1. 1

            In that case, it may be better to use the terms "view receipts" instead of "send receipts", and "record purchases" instead of "maintain sales". :)

            1. 1

              Good point.

  4. 1

    I would definitely change your pricing to USD. You're targeting customers outside of England as well so I would stray away from using the pound. People are so familiar with USD and it is so ubiquitous that it makes sense to charge in USD regardless of where you are based.

    1. 1

      That was something flying around my head. I'd definitely change it to USD.