Tell me more ×
Answers OnStartups is a question and answer site for entrepreneurs looking to start or run a new business. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

Would it be more wise to add paid options to a startup later on or from the start? The paiad options would of course take extra time to develop since they would be an enhancment on the "free"version therefore taking more time and lengten the Time to market period left for a release.

I saw some big sites previoulsy adding the premium membership options on the sites like you have unlimited credits or you are full member without adding the full member features to the site, then at launch then added those features and removed the unlimited credits to say 20 or 50

  • what would be a good idea to handle this?

  • Making it free at first I think it will attract alot of users and free publicity but would cost me money for hosting costs.

  • And then at wich point would one add paid options?

share|improve this question

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

If you intend to have a paid plan(s) in place at some point then i feel thats it is best to add this from the beginning so that visitors to the site get used to the idea that even if you keep a free plan in place that you are expecting paying customers too.

By not showing anything to do with paid plans to start with it might have people expecting that its a free-for-all forever type of thing.

Even if you dont want to yet or cant yet add the premium options, at least having some information available that makes it clear that they will be introduced at some point might be less scary for the forever freebie types.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

You could spend a lot of time programming and then find not enough people want to use your product for it to be viable - or they are not that interested in the extra features.

Get a Minimum Viable Product out there first and get feedback from customers before adding more features. Or do some market research with a mock up and a survey. Your customers will tell you what they want including what price they are prepared to pay - or not.

This post by Eric Ries is really useful in explaining this concept more: Minimum Viable Product: a guide

share|improve this answer
Eric Reis lean startup seems a goood resource to apply to startup that minimum viable product is very good resource thanks! very valueable – Rubytastic Feb 26 '12 at 18:09
up vote 1 down vote

If the options are between "now" and "later", the answer is literally between now and later. Add the features at the time your users need them and your customers are willing to pay for them.

All you have to do is figure out how much user/customer demand you are prepared to wait for before you build the feature.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.