pricing too high
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@timconsidine oh.. if only I would have known
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@Stardenver Yep I get your point also
Maybe bear in mind that for many self-hosters (and Cloudron is all about self-hosting) PayPal is one of the "Big Evils"
Not sure if Cloudron already uses Paypal; if they do, then my point is invalid.Paypal is unregulated and their decisions defy logic or inspection or appeal.
Personally I refuse to use them, even if they are convenient to the consumer. -
@timconsidine From what I read here in the forums they do, but you have to ask support and they will send you a manual paypal payment request.
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The staff have mentioned in other posts that anything lower than $15/30 per month would cause them to lose money if the customer sends in ONE support ticket and that monthly subs cause a major accounting hassle for them.
I propose eliminating, or at the very least offer a single app limit for the free tier (for testing purposes; aka demo) and then offer a lower priced plan for homeservers that has a higher app/user limit (5, 7, 10, wtv) but can only be purchased yearly. It's how ultra-cheap shared hosting is sold (ex: $3/mo but paid yearly). That's less accounting for the staff and more money in their pockets. Bunny(.)net has a $1/mo minimum charge until you exceed certain limits regardless of how many of their services you are using. It's a genius price plan that's pulling in profits. Meanwhile, you have Cloudflare reporting "[losses] (https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/cloudflare-net-reports-q4-loss-tops-revenue-estimates-2021-02-11)" for Q4 2021.
The real brain teaser is that service providers using Cloudron for profit pay the same price as those that don't make any money off of Cloudron.
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@timconsidine said in pricing too high:
Maybe bear in mind that for many self-hosters (and Cloudron is all about self-hosting)
In spirit, maybe. In reality, Cloudron (and in extension, the CR community) caters to "developers" more than it does to the average Joe. Also, I've noticed many open source projects and developers continue to use big-tech and closed source software (Cloudflare, Google, Discord, Github, etc.). Screw big tech but is Paypal where we draw the line?
It just feels like cherry picking since the essence of self-hosting is to break away from big-tech and to preserve our data privacy and control.
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@humptydumpty said in pricing too high:
@timconsidine said in pricing too high:
Maybe bear in mind that for many self-hosters (and Cloudron is all about self-hosting)
In spirit, maybe. In reality, Cloudron (and in extension, the CR community) caters to "developers" more than it does to the average Joe. Also, I've noticed many open source projects and developers continue to use big-tech and closed source software (Cloudflare, Google, Discord, Github, etc.). Screw big tech but is Paypal where we draw the line?
It just feels like cherry picking since the essence of self-hosting is to break away from big-tech and to preserve our data privacy and control.
Well, while you are right with what you said I don't see any big difference between PayPal and your cc provider except the fact that with PP its just one company getting your data while cc payments involve 3 parties. So from that pov PP may even be more privacy friendly (just in comparison. PP isn't privacy friendly in general). Cloudron is using a payment solution and they will - of course - get all your data. Your card is from VISA or Mastercard and therefor they will also receive a lot of your data. Last but not least your bank which handed the card to you and fulfills the payment. Don't know about your country but here in Germany a lot of people use debit cards instead of credit cards and therefor every payment requires a back-check with your bank-account and even though you may be using a real cc, a lot of data will be shared and saved from every of those 3 parties.
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As was already said here to some extent, the goal for us is not to spend much time on accounting and invoicing, but rather work on the product. This mostly means that we keep payment options limited to something which may not be preferred by all people, but is somewhat ok for most. We have basic PayPal option as a fallback if a customer does not have a credit card, but this is not the default. Again this is mostly to keep the time spent on accounting as low as possible. This is also the main reason why we do not want to offer smaller amounts per month at the moment, as any transaction for a start adds extra cost (stripe, cc, tax accounting, ... ) and is prone to failure where we then need to manually follow up.
Generally I guess one can put it as: our business is in enabling self-hosting, not working in accounting. Already choosing stripe is not ideal but a somewhat okish tradeoff so far to not having to reinvent the wheel in an area which is not the product.
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@nebulon said in pricing too high:
the goal for us is not to spend much time on accounting and invoicing, but rather work on the product.
our business is in enabling self-hosting, not working in accounting
Even if you (Cloudron) would become much more attractive by lowering the barrier for small groups and (single) private users? The field were small self hosting has a real impact because business users have much more options and ressources. 17$ for Cloudron, 8$ for a VPS, 4$ for backup = ~30$/month....not reasonable for single users and also a hurdle for smaller teams/non profits. If you are doing business and involve Cloudron, the price is ridiculously low because support is already included.
The free plan is good for evaluation, development and understanding the product but for productive use limited to two apps, it is not reasonable (in most cases) to run a whole server with it.
For a smaller plan you could:
- cut direct support
- only offer yearly plans
- limit app use (obvious) to....I would say 5-7
- lower referral credits to a price that equals 1 month (for both)
- price something between 7-11$ which equals to 84-132$/year...how about 99$?
To end my point: I know I asked this already but if accounting is a pain and you (both) have to focus on development AND support....why not hire someone (part time) to do all the accounting/billing/contracting and maybe communications too? It's not that hard of a job and even if it costs more then you would earn from it, you would save yourself the stress/pain which is, in the end, much more beneficial to yourself AND the product.
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I'm very lucky because Cloudron is basically free for me.
How?
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a special half-price for life deal was offered in New Year 2020. I used that deal to get $15/mo price paid monthly.
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I've referred over 40 paying customers, so I have loads of credits.
For ages now, those credits and paid for my Cloudron(s) and I still have $249 of credit left
I'm a happy bunny
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To no-one in particular, I think we should stop telling Cloudron how to run their business.
Cloudron is astoundingly good value on the annual plan and still good value on the monthly plan.
Hosting costs don't come under the same scrutiny, nor (probably) any form of 'why don't change your pricing model'.
If anyone is going to use the product for >6 months, just take the annual plan and get resourceful about how to fund it.
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@timconsidine said in pricing too high:
If anyone is going to use the product for >6 months, just take the annual plan and get resourceful about how to fund it.
well said, for all the services one can offer with cloudron, or even just a single web page for affilliate marketing, it pays for itself.
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Are you guys seriously suggesting home server owners rent out services from HOME just to pay for a premium license?
We're asking for a home server license pricing. No one's arguing that Cloudron is too expensive for business use.
I'll echo what I said before..
@humptydumpty said in pricing too high:
Cloudron (and in extension,the CR community) caters to "developers" more than it does to the average Joe.
but I can see I'm beating a dead horse.
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@humptydumpty I don't. But I think that 15 per month is a very very fair price. Like I said before, I just wish there would be more flexibility in payment options.
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@humptydumpty said in pricing too high:
Are you guys seriously suggesting home server owners rent out services from HOME just to pay for a premium license?
I wasn't suggesting that.
Min price annually is $15 p/m and monthly $30 p/m.
So difference is $15 p/m which is $3.50 p/week.
All I was saying is that if paying monthly is important to someone, be resourceful and e.g. sacrifice a latte per week. Either to fund the monthly tier or build up a fund for the annual.But it may be me who is beating a dead horse so I will shut up now.
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Won't be long before you can't buy a latte for $15. Cloudron's been getting cheaper, in real terms, for years now.
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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.
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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, etcetraCost for support
Community based support vs company provided support with different levels of priorityMulti-cloudron support
Being able to support your cloudrons across multiple servers from one placeThe 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!!
