Ask HN: Should I have a free tier while starting out?

1 points by Vishal19111999 2y ago ↗ HN

Hey HN ,

I currently have 0 users

I am building an AI SaaS, Cheatsheet (https://cheatsheet.to)

Currently, I have planned to onboard only paid users at a small price of $2/month/user

And avoid free users from the fear of them diverting my feedback loop in the wrong direction

But yesterday, a user said that he wanted the product a lot, but is broke and can't pay

As I have 0 users, and no one for any feedback, should I onboard him? Or avoid?

7 comments

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PaulHoule 2y ago ↗

Can't pay $2, really? How does he eat? Where does he live? What kind of computer is he using?

That said, if you have 0 users and want feedback you may need to take what you can get.

Vishal19111999 2y ago ↗

I had similar questions in my mind too

tombert 2y ago ↗

I don't know anything about business, but it seems like the only way that business survive with a "free" price is to either gather and sell lots of customer data or to play into a Ponzi scheme with investor money (or both).

If this is AI, presumably you're farming out to OpenAI or Anthropic or something, which would cost you some money right? $2/month really isn't much money, and I think giving unrestricted free access sets a bad precedent and will make it harder to make money in the future.

I think it might make sense to have a generally-available one month free trial though. That way, you can get some users to give you feedback without making special exceptions for individuals.

beardyw 2y ago ↗

Without knowing your business, a free tier can be a good way to gain business if you put limitations on it which are at the Goldilocks level - not too much and not too little.

noashavit 2y ago ↗

Who is your audience? If they are developers or technical users I would highly recommend a fee tier. If they aren’t but the product can lead them to an aha moment fairly quickly I would recommend a free trial

Vishal19111999 2y ago ↗

I'm afraid that the direction of product could move more towards free users, how should I handle this?

noashavit 2y ago ↗

Implement a time based free trial (e.g. 14 day trial) / usage based free tier (up to x users/ y API requests), etc.

These are ways to gate your product while still being able to provide users with a way to experience and validate it for free. I hope this helps