Hi! Founder here. See my comment above on the reasons why we haven't published a pricing page yet. We just started charging, and will add a pricing page soon. BTW we could charge 10X what we do. The reason for the $5 price is that we're more interested in learning about who pays and why, than revenue-maximizing. That price also allows us to be inclusive of our student customers and international customers, for whom a US-centric price would be prohibitive. Note, we also have a scholarship program for those who cannot afford $5/month.
So we can expect that the price will eventually increase to $50 a month when your company is transitioning out of its growth phase and into generating revenue.
Yes, you could charge 10x more. You could charge N more (why stop at 10x, 1000x!), but would anyone pay?
You started at 5 USD and you're not publishing it because as you indicated earlier in the thread, you're price testing. I assume that means finding the price point the most people are willing to pay for the product. For a product with low marginal costs, getting data on what users want so you can keep expanding that pool is revenue maximizing.
You're free to not use the product, but to character assassinate a small, indie Dev house because you disagree with the price point, is just not OK. BTW - this rant you went on, is the quintessential indicator of you not being there target customer, you will generally be ignored by makers.
Where's all that negativity coming from? The founder is being transparent about his budding business and you're at him harder than hn was on Apple's stance on Hong Kong.
A business that looks at what users want and can pay, and adjusts accordingly? Sounds like a competently run business!
Thank you Taylor for sharing your comments here as a founder. Some of us at HN still love hearing about actual new startups, business models, pricing strategies etc.
