Notes On Work - by Caleb Porzio - Flux pricing is SETTLED (session #3)

Flux pricing is SETTLED (session #3)

Sep 3, 2024 - 19m 49s

Folks, I think we got it

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Folks, I think we got it

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New Pricing Structure for Flux

In this episode, the speaker outlines the new pricing tiers for Flux, which includes two solo developer tiers and one team tier. The first solo tier charges $149 per project, which includes unlimited updates for life, while the second solo tier offers unlimited projects and also unlimited updates for $279. For teams, the pricing is subscription-based and starts at $349 per year for 1-5 developers, scaling up for larger teams. The speaker emphasizes that this pricing structure aims to create a good experience for solo developers while ensuring sustainable revenue from businesses.

Feedback and Community Engagement

The speaker shares insights about receiving feedback from the community, noting that many people reached out with constructive thoughts on the pricing model. This engagement with users is crucial in shaping the final offerings, and he expresses appreciation for the inputs from notable community members like Ian Lansman and Adam Wadden, highlighting how their suggestions played a role in refining the pricing strategy.

Transitioning from Pre-Orders to Launch

The episode discusses the decision to take down the pre-order option for Flux. The speaker explains that maintaining clarity during the transition period would be more beneficial than muddying the waters with uncertain pricing. He opted to create a simple email capture page for interested users instead, ensuring that they would be notified upon the official launch of Flux.

Personal Insights and Experiences

Throughout the podcast, there are candid moments where the speaker shares personal challenges, including the cost of healthcare related to a family member's hospital stay. This adds a human touch to the discussion, illustrating the personal stakes underlying the pricing decisions as the speaker balances business with personal responsibilities.

Looking Ahead: Improvements and Features

The speaker expresses excitement about future improvements and additional features for Flux, including subscription management and team capabilities. The goal is to enhance user experience continuously while ensuring that the software remains a valuable tool for both solo developers and teams.

- The new Flux pricing structure offers flexibility for solo developers and sustainable options for teams.
- Community feedback was integral to refining the Flux pricing model.
- The pre-order for Flux has been replaced with an email notification system for the official launch.
- Personal experiences and challenges can influence business decisions, particularly in pricing strategies.
- Future enhancements for Flux are planned to improve user experience and functionality.

Transcription

Okay, so I think I got the pricing.

I think this is what it is.

So, all right, yeah, so I'm telling you this, but there's always a chance I'll change things, but whatever, you've been following along, you know, you need to know.

I'll just give it to you and then we'll about how we arrived there.

So flux, pricing, working on it.

Let me look at my pricing page that is in work and progress.

Okay, so there's gonna be three tiers.

Two are for a solo dev, one is for a team, okay?

The first two, the solo dev pricing.

The lowest tier is per project, just the way it is right now on the site, except it's gonna raise to 149, which you knew that because on the site, it says 99 and then it crossed out 149.

So it's going to be 149 per project.

However, it's going to be unlimited updates for life, I think.

I might put a restriction on there for this major version because, well, we'll talk about that later.

But let's just say for now, it's 149 per project updates for life.

So anybody who preordered good news, you didn't just pay $100 for the year.

You pay $100, so you save 50 bucks, but you also get it for life.

Second tier, the tier I want people to buy is 279 unlimited projects, unlimited updates for life.

This is like the all-access unlimited tier 279 bucks for a solo dev so that they can just use flux for however long they want in any project they want and never have to think about paying anything extra.

And then there's the team pricing, which is a subscription.

So the team pricing is still, you know, used forever, updates forever, except there's, you know, reassignable seats.

So the first tier is one to five developers is 349 bucks a year.

Then it goes up.

So there's like five to 10, which I have at 500 bucks a year, 10 to 20 is 700 bucks a year and 20 plus is a thousand bucks a year.

And I imagine most people will fall in the one to five and five to ten.

And actually the Laravel survey just came out and I glanced at the results Tobias Petri.

I think how do you say your last name Tobias?

I'm so sorry.

He just released the results so cool that somebody does this in the community, you know.

So yeah, Tobias Petri.

So thank you for that Tobias.

And go take a look at the results.

So his Twitter handle is Tobias underscore Petri, kind of, it just spelled exactly how it sounds, and yeah, he's got the results there.

So anyway, I'm looking at the results, and there is like a team size result, and the most popular team size is basically, I think it's like a tie between 1 to 5 and 5 to 10.

So anyway, all that to say, that's probably where most people are going to go, then 10 to 20, 20 plus developers.

Okay.

And so the team is a subscription because like I really don't want to, here's kind of what it is.

I want to make it a good experience for everybody, you know?

And a good experience for a solo developer is pay once, get forever, you know?

At least unlimited projects is a good experience because a solo dev doesn't want to have to nitpick on which projects they use it for.

Or I just know it, I'm the same way.

It's like, if I have access to the thing, I'm going to use it freely.

If it costs me $100 per pop, I'm only going to use it on projects that really warrant it, you know.

Otherwise I'm going to, you know, maybe I would, I actually don't know that, but whatever.

It's so, and I've listened.

The number one thing people were mad about is not, is it being per project.

So, there is a per-project tier that's lower that makes it more affordable that I hope nobody buys.

It's more like a price-angering tier, but it is available because it is like half the cost.

So, if you do just want to test it out, you can just buy that small tier.

So, So yeah, and I'll probably do some discounting for I think I can make every I think this is about as happy as I can make everybody and still make money.

So you got the you got the tears is a two solo tears 150 280 and then there's the team pricing tier that starts at 350 and goes up the team the team pricing is a subscription again, because I want recurring revenue so that this thing stays afloat, so that it stays like a growing healthy business, you know.

And this type kind of seems like a best of both worlds because I can have the one-off stuff that makes the solos happy.

Then I can have a subscription that a business is more able to sustain.

And if you're a business, you're getting a good deal because you can hot swap these seats.

And, you know, obviously it's like a bulk discount.

You know, if you're a 50 person company and you're paying a thousand bucks a year, you're saving a lot of money.

Even if you're a five person company, where normally it would be 280 times five for the lifetime, which would be what like 1500 bucks or something.

You're getting a subscription, you know, for a quarter of that.

Maybe is that the math?

So anyway, I'm hoping that profitable businesses who have teams can, you know, deal with a subscription.

I'm just going to do it for now, unless enough people complain.

But from what I've talked to, I even had like a few people reach out, like companies reach out, and companies feel sort of the, at least these companies that I talked to, they feel the same way.

it's like they can sustain, you know, a $350 a year license, like that's not that big of a deal, or a $500 a year license, but a solo dev can't sustain that, and they don't they don't want to do yearly at all.

So anyway, I'm pretty pumped about this pricing.

I think it's the best of both worlds.

Again, the only thing that is a little bit like the only real sacrifice that I'm making is switching away from a per project or from a per year situation for most people.

So the solo devs are going to be the majority of the customers, and they are one time purchase now.

So that kind of stinks, but whatever, I'm collecting more money up front, and I really wanted to experiment with recurring revenue like that, like with a yearly thing like Nova, I think is 80 bucks per year for updates in future years, and a lot of projects have this kind of this model like herd pro and expose or expose or whatever like a lot of these things where you you know there's obviously sass like pay monthly but then there's this kind of like get a piece of software and pay for updates for a year and then you know in a year you pretty much always pay to get more updates I do I did it with sketch whatever so this is like oh I have value.

You heard that.

So yeah, I think this is good.

I think it's the best of both worlds.

I really want it to feel like a no-brainer for people.

And after talking to Ian Landsman, like his, one of his big points is like, all, you know, one time pricing is a no-brainer for somebody, but if it's subscription, like, I'm not going to take a flyer on it because it's a subscription.

So, if it's one time, it's a no-brainer, it's one time the values high, I know it's going to get better in the future than it's a no-brainer due one time.

Okay, so anyway, to make even more people happy, I'm going to do some sort of discount structure for existing subscribers to the liveware screencasts just to make it less painful, I guess.

So the really, really good news is there, oh, and I'll work it out so that pre-order people who did pre-order at the per-project $99 thing.

You could stay on the per-project and you just get lifetime updates now for free, so that's a bonus.

This is only good news, but then it's better news because I'll give you like a code or something or a payment link to hit if you want to pay the difference, a discounted difference, heavily discounted difference to bump up to the all-time tier, which I imagine a lot of people who pre-ordered would want to spend an extra 100 bucks or whatever.

Yeah, I think I'll probably do that extra 100 bucks and then you get the unlimited.

So, so that's what's up.

I'm really pumped about it.

Biggest shout out to everybody.

So many people reached out with feedback and it was also helpful and constructive and clear and just just great.

But, you know, MVP's MVP awards go to Ian Lansman, of course, for writing me like a essay on pricing and his thoughts and hashing it out with me back and forth the day before his gallbladder surgery, which is today, so wish him luck.

And then Adam Wadden yesterday did say just like hung out on a call forever and helped me a ton.

And we just worked it out and he literally like pulled up the site and started modifying find the HTML, you know, in the DevTools to literally like make a new pricing page.

And I just like took a screenshot of it and it was like, okay, so this is, this is our new pricing page.

So yeah.

Thank you, Adam.

Thank you, Ian, to obvious legends in the, in the community, especially when it comes to this type of stuff.

So yeah, so that's what we're doing.

So now, so the other thing is, I took the pre-order down.

So, my talk is going to be released today, the mostly technical episode that me and Aaron recorded yesterday, that's going to release today.

So, there's going to be a lot of stuff releasing that is hyping flux, and guess what I did that might be dumb, but I just did it because I can do it whenever I want.

I took the pricing, I took the pre-order down, I took it down, yeah.

because at this point I would rather not have pre-order money and people be still weird like I don't have time.

I can't change it all right now for this liminal space between between now and launch.

I can't like silence everybody's probably like what am I gonna do I if I know this new pricing am I gonna like structure at all as pre-order and you know whatever I don't know it's just it's getting confusing.

And I don't want it to be confusing.

So I just said pre-order down.

I just put up a link or whatever.

I changed the pre-order page to be, give me your email, send you an email when we launch page.

And I think that's better for now.

I've already gotten some people who are like, hey, I missed the pre-order.

Ah, shoot.

You know, and it's like, yeah, I guess that's things.

But they'll put their email in and you'll get it, you know, when I launch it, which was supposed to be, you know, last week is now this week and who knows, that's a side story is like, I'm not going to drag the sun forever.

But it might be dragged on like a week.

Nox is actually in the hospital right now.

So that's, that's a thing.

He was just in the hospital like two weeks ago and that But that was a big reason I wasn't able to like launch, I thought I was going to launch at Lericon, but it's nothing big, it's the first time it was an infection, the second time it's an infection and an abscess on his tush.

If anybody has had a baby and had that, apparently it's like, it happens and they have to drain it and I'm sorry for making you feel disgusting, but you know, he's got to go through it, so you might as well bear some of that.

Yeah, so that's a whole thing.

Nox is in the hospital.

We should have to do a whole episode on hospitals and other thing is like we're paying out the wazoo for these hospital stays like out the wazoo So are you getting flux for free?

Hell no I have like his birth literally costs $10,000 $10,000 is what I have to pay for nox's birth Then he was in the hospital for three days two weeks ago and that's gonna who knows how many thousands that's gonna be and then this one He's in the hospital right now.

We're trying to get him home today, but you know, they just want to keep these babies forever and make sure that like there's nothing wrong and there's no infections that spread and blah, blah, blah.

But it just costs you so much money.

We didn't want to take him to the hospital so bad because hospitals are the worst in every single possible way, but especially your wallet.

So yeah, so we might be like out $20,000, $30,000 for these hospital stays with Knox, which is just crazy.

Thank you.

Thank you America.

Despite the fact that I pay $1,500 a month for health care, is crazy.

We just pay everything out of pocket up until like 20 grand or 25 grand or 18 grand or something.

I don't know.

It's just brutal.

Anyway, so all that to say, yeah, I'm going to charge for this thing especially like now because you know Papa needs Papa needs more hospital time.

Okay so I'm pumped about the new pricing.

I took pre-order down.

I am now hustling to get the team stuff working but again like I am gonna I'm gonna be dead to the world like I have to Tickle River all day No work will be done after After he is awake and that's that so Yeah, yeah, yeah, hope I'm like a trailing off here Caleb get your thoughts together So my focus is gonna be on getting this all the team pricing like now.

I need a team management portal thing, you know scope creep but I don't want to put myself in a scenario where I MVP it and it's just like you can pay for team and it's on it's like an honor system but then like later on I introduce you know seats and now you have to like log in and add people to your seats like that feels kind of lame so I'm just wiring up a little team system with a little bit of you know some member roles and a little portal for it, some subscription pricing, and what, of course, like this is forking all of the flows, you know, because like, now it's not just like the normal cashier checkout, it's like subscription checkout, and now it's not my normal orders table, I have to add like a column called type and that subscription and how many seats, and then I need some flow for you to upgrade, you know, to more seats and change that and new subscription and pro ration and checkout cancel crap and web hooks and whatever.

So it definitely is one of those things that blows up the scope a little bit But it's like from a business perspective.

I have to do this So that's kind of why like things are taking a little bit longer and I got Josh Handley on there's just like somebody some people reported Some drop-down bugs like popover was being weird.

I'm sure it's not popover.

I'm sure it's something I'm doing with popover But yeah, I really don't want to launch this thing.

I don't want to give anybody any excuse to say anything bad about this You know, I want people to just be like, oh crap, you know, this is sick, like why did I say anything bad about it?

I just want people to stop complaining, you know, but shout out to all of you because you guys have been so awesome, just like shout me out, encouraging me personally and publicly and that stuff means a lot and helps a lot and at this point is probably reversed any like angst I had about this whole situation.

It's just like, oh Yeah, and I started using, you know, I use flux for stuff and I'm using it on the flux site for everything And I just like rebuilding the the the checkout Experience and I'm just like oh my god, it's so good like I just love it so much.

There's so many little things That it's just it's just dream for me Just creating apps.

It just feels great and I love it and I have tons of ambition and visions for like like what we could do with deeper, like modal integrations, obviously data table stuff, command palette, like server side driven stuff, there's all that stuff that I can't wait to get to, but I have to get this thing out and rolling, you know?

Yeah.

So that's that.

I'm still lamenting the fact that this is not a free play.

I, you know, looking at, it's like fine and I need to just embrace it and stop winding about this, But but it's like looking at that survey, you know, the Laravel survey and that I just told you about and it like live Warrior adoption is growing like fast and like view adoption is declining fast.

And it's like this would add gasoline on that fire.

I don't think it's going to harm live wire adoption at all.

but it could help a lot with live.

And just the part of you that wants your thing to be like the thing is just like, oh yeah, and it's like Aaron said yesterday, he's like, what do you want?

Do you want to be rich or do you want to be king?

And it's like, well, I'd like both.

It would be nice to have both.

But yeah, it's obvious, it's like these are the things that a lot of times I make the decision, I make the longer play decision, you know?

it's like go for the thing that is more community oriented that gets more people involved in onboard and whatever and then monetize in some way you know because then you'll have like a giant adoring audience with tons of good will pent up and you can cash in on some of that good will.

But here at this point it's like I guess I'm considering this the cashing and on the good will and whatever.

I don't need to keep talking ad nauseam about charging for flux.

Yeah.

So that's that.

The talk comes out at 11 a.m. 10 a.m. Eastern 10 a.m. Central.

I don't know.

But the talk comes out and yeah, I wish at the end I think at the end of the talk I said And it'll be in your hands in like two days and pre-order 99 bucks and whatever 88 Caleb you're an idiot No, you're so smart.

You're enough Caleb.

You're enough Um, but I don't want to leave you, you know, I'm sitting here drinking tea just enjoying the morning before it all blows up um Yeah, I mean that's I guess I guess that's that What I mean?

Yeah, everything I do every is pretty funny how like Every product for me gets a little better You know, oh, you know what scrap that that doesn't matter.

I'm not gonna tell you that.

I'm gonna tell you this Yeah, maybe I'll record another episode.

Whatever.

I'll see you.

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