pricing too high

[MarchinBunny]

Honestly, I am going to echo what has already been said. I do think the pricing is a bit too steep if you are just using Cloudron for personal use. Plus, the lack of payment options is pretty frustrating since I lack a credit card and mainly use paypal.

But ya, $15 per month for the annual subscription is a ton of money since in my case I probably would only use one additional app, or two at most. It's one of the reasons I just have never bothered with the subscription. It would be nice to be able to use more than 2, but it's just not worth it.

I wouldn't even mind paying a lot of money up front one time (like $100 or so) if it meant permanently increasing the limit to 5, and anything above that would still require the subscription.

[privsec]

Sadly, cloudron has to adjust their pricing for the future.
The unlimited plan with support included is currently a freaking steal even for home server users.

As it stands, $15 a month is a no brainer if you are looking to regain your own privacy.

I know @staff are not in the business of accounting, but it is an aspect of all businesses that can not be overlooked.

From how I see it, there is several turnkey systems for which different payment models can change.

Cost per app
Charging for a specific amount of apps to be used
2, 5, 10, etcetra

Cost for support
Community based support vs company provided support with different levels of priority

Multi-cloudron support
Being able to support your cloudrons across multiple servers from one place

The simplest method would really be to charge by app.
Doing this would allow for larger profits from cloudron and allow the respective customer confirm that cloudron is the right platform for them.

The payment gateway used isn’t a concern, or shouldn’t be. Because unless you are paying in cash/crypto (which I wouldn’t advise for a cloudron as there is way too much overhead with that) your information will be used to pay.
But according to cloudrons privacy policy, that information isn’t gathered, stored, or collected.
So if you have a PayPal already or a CC or a DC, then you have already shared that information with the respective authorities.

In terms of how much to charge for each app collection, I’m not sure.
I do think that at $15/unlimited apps it’s a freaking steal.

I personally think raising the prices and altering the plans would allow for additional staff as well as even start paying for app maintainers from the community to help build apps and support them.

Lastly. I just want to say how much I have loved cloudron since starting to use them so many years ago.
Thank you!!

[scooke]

I bet if they start charging per app, like pikapods, they'd lose an entirely different set of currently paying customers. If I had to pay per app like some other services, personally, I'd be paying minimum $34 min a month, and you know... bye bye for me. Plus, those other services other these free open source apps on their own servers... bye bye to my data autonomy. And for businesses, that would just complicate their billing... bye bye ease.

For those who say they'd only run 3 or 4 apps or up to 7, on a homeserver, there are already options out there that will work out to less than Cloudron's $15 (Yunohost and Caprover are free). But you won't get Cloudron's quality nor reliability. And some of these, as a I mentioned, are not run on your server, but on theirs.

Suddenly, Cloudron's price should be looking really really good to you.

Not to mention that the crowd that was mentioned - the homeserver crowd - tends to come with all kinds of niche problems to this forum. At least that's my perspective. So imagine, Cloudron lowers their prices so that ppl can run 5 apps and then are overrun with scads of support requests... their income is going to drop, and quality of service, and time spent developing Cloudron, etc. Homeserver users used to be fairly knowledgeable techies, and they wouldn't even dream of using someone else's service... they'd spin up their own solution with the open source apps out there! Lately, they seem to be ppl trying to save a buck, and are more hobbyists (not trying to make a profit). That is perfectly fine! But that crowd ain't gonna pay the bills and salaries of top-notch ppl running Cloudron.

I just hope that Cloudron also has a good base of enterprise customers. Don't tell us though! I just hope you do because you deserve to be making bank with Cloudron. It is awesome. Don't listen to ppl asking for cheaper - they have options already. Stay true to your Cloudron course!

[privsec]

@scooke said in pricing too high:

I bet if they start charging per app, like pikapods, they'd lose an entirely different set of currently paying customers. If I had to pay per app like some other services, personally, I'd be paying minimum $34 min a month, and you know... bye bye for me. Plus, those other services other these free open source apps on their own servers... bye bye to my data autonomy. And for businesses, that would just complicate their billing... bye bye ease.

For those who say they'd only run 3 or 4 apps or up to 7, on a homeserver, there are already options out there that will work out to less than Cloudron's $15 (Yunohost and Caprover are free). But you won't get Cloudron's quality nor reliability. And some of these, as a I mentioned, are not run on your server, but on theirs.

Suddenly, Cloudron's price should be looking really really good to you.

Not to mention that the crowd that was mentioned - the homeserver crowd - tends to come with all kinds of niche problems to this forum. At least that's my perspective. So imagine, Cloudron lowers their prices so that ppl can run 5 apps and then are overrun with scads of support requests... their income is going to drop, and quality of service, and time spent developing Cloudron, etc. Homeserver users used to be fairly knowledgeable techies, and they wouldn't even dream of using someone else's service... they'd spin up their own solution with the open source apps out there! Lately, they seem to be ppl trying to save a buck, and are more hobbyists (not trying to make a profit). That is perfectly fine! But that crowd ain't gonna pay the bills and salaries of top-notch ppl running Cloudron.

I just hope that Cloudron also has a good base of enterprise customers. Don't tell us though! I just hope you do because you deserve to be making bank with Cloudron. It is awesome. Don't listen to ppl asking for cheaper - they have options already. Stay true to your Cloudron course!

I am not necessarily saying pay per app, but pay for number of apps active at a time.

For example - Free: 2 apps, 5 USD: 5 Apps, 10 USD: 15 apps, 15 USD unlimited.

[timconsidine]

@scooke said in pricing too high:

Don't listen to ppl asking for cheaper - they have options already. Stay true to your Cloudron course!

If they can't afford it, then they shouldn't buy it or try to ruin it for those who are happy to pay for it.

[marcusquinn]

I have made some suggestions privately on having 6 tiers of pricing, that would be relative to the value to each user-type.

The open forum here is great for gathering all those user stories.

I think then we just have to respect it also takes a significant amount of time and cost/benefit analysis to make any pricing changes in an established business, since all change affects different needs, differently.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in pricing too high:

I think then we just have to respect it also takes a significant amount of time and cost/benefit analysis to make any pricing changes in an established business, since all change affects different needs, differently.

Also coding time.

At present there is no Cloudron code that makes it possible for staff charge different amounts for different amounts of apps.

[MarchinBunny]

@timconsidine said in pricing too high:

@scooke said in pricing too high:

Don't listen to ppl asking for cheaper - they have options already. Stay true to your Cloudron course!

If they can't afford it, then they shouldn't buy it or try to ruin it for those who are happy to pay for it.

No one wants to ruin anything for those who are happy to pay for it. Asking for more options hurts no one.

[Antonis]

I use cloudron for less than a month and it already saves me money. More than that, allowing unilmited apps, gave me the chance to test if Superset is better than Redash for my use case, or self-hosted UptimeKuma could replace my paid HetrixTools. It is a perfect piece of software for a professional. Predictable, stable, observable, intuitive, I used it from day one without ever reading the f* manual!

For people like me, cloudron is beyond cheap. It is a steal.

On the other hand, I am a 50 year old, IT pro, european citizen. I understand that 180/y is a considerable budget for students, activists, hobbyists, or anyone whose currency is weak compared to dollar.

My opinion: There are features that professionals would pay for. For example, multi-cloudron HA setup for RabbitMQ, one-click database setup with automated backups. If cloudron offered the posibility to setup base infrastracture (databases, queues, webservers) as a premium service, I would easily pay much much more than I do now. Give us the oportunity to simplify our deployments, and give students or non-professional users more generous free tiers!

I repeat, I use cloudron for less than a month. Making a yearly contract was a no brainer, I would happily pay twice as much for what I already use. I safely gave cloudron a chance because of its free tier. A generous free tier is an important selling point and should not be reconsidered. What is already offered for the current price is already established and should stay fixed. Offer more premium features and ask for extra money for these features. Compensate for these higher prices with increased quotas for qualified free-tier users.

[marcusquinn]

I reckon Cloudron saves me something like 500 hours a year from having to do the same without it. It's what Plesk should have been!

[robi]

For those that cannot afford it for whatever reason, consider offering services in return, say packaging or marketing or referrals for which the team can respond in kind.

What else does @staff appreciate?

[marcusquinn]

@robi Excellent answer! Another great use of the Affiliate program, and value of building the community and social media awareness.

[marcusquinn]

I think @NoMan-0 is no more: https://forum.cloudron.io/user/noman-0

Hit n run post, but the Cloudron hive-mind evolves more answers from every question.

[girish]

@marcusquinn said in pricing too high:

Hit n run post

I am stealing this phrase