Hey Beanies! 👋

First of all, thank you so much for your help testing Bean, ironing out bugs, suggesting features, and encouraging me to work on this app. It’s been a blast so far and I look forward to working on Bean for a long time.

I’m happy with where Bean is and I’ll be pushing it to the App Store this week. There are just a couple of things I need to finalise first, like the ability to block users and editing Groups.

I’ve also decided to go down the “Pro” plan route for monetisation. Bean will be free to download and use, and the paid plan will unlock additional themes, icons, and some premium features (like push notifications).

Pricing will include monthly, annual, and lifetime options.

Expect to see Bean Pro pop up in a build in the coming days and I hope you’ll all support this decision. I’ve put a lot of time into Bean and have taken time away from my day job to work on it. Hopefully this monetisation route will enable me to continue to dedicate a lot of time each month as there is so much more I want to do.

— Steve ❤️

  • sethadam1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    I’ve been on the TestFlight for a bit and I’m a for-sure day one subscriber. I was an Apollo Ultra ifetime’r - Pro since 2017, and Ultra since 2019.

    Although I know I’m going to get some shit for this, I think the pricing is a bit high for early adopters. To be clear, I’m going to do it anyway, but Lemmy is still unproven as the next big platform - there’s still Kbin, Tildes, Lobsters, and more. I think I recall Apollo lifetime was $24.99, a platform that had a hundred million users. I don’t know if I can sell my friends on $17.99 for a year, or $50 lifetime, just yet.

    My thought would be to cut that for a month or two - early-bird the price to $1.99/mo, $12 for a year, or $29.99 lifetime. Build up a user base. Then once it’s got that install base, move to the prices advertised, as a proven app.

    And just to prove this isn’t inspired by me being cheap, check my comment history, I’ve been trying to give /u/steve228uk money for awhile now! :)

    • steve228uk@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      Thank you for the feedback!

      Pricing is really tricky, and I don’t know if I’ve got it right or not but I think I’m happy where I’ve settled at the moment.

      The standard functionality that everyone expects (including posting, which wasn’t a part of Apollo’s free tier) is completely free and Pro is really targeted towards power users, those who use Lemmy daily already, or those who just want to support the development of Bean.

      And this is just the beginning! Additional features such as moderator tools, widgets, and more are planned for Bean Pro.

      Apollo Ultra Lifetime ended up being around $50 when Reddit pulled the plug, which equated to around 4 years of the annual subscription fee. Of course Christian also did discounts, sales, and the price fluctuated.

      I don’t plan on having a Pro and Ultra tier like Apollo, just Pro which is totally optional and is designed to cover costs of push notification servers, Apple dev licence, and hopefully continue to allow me to afford dedicating time to Bean’s development.

      I may revisit pricing in the future, but I think $1.99 a month with a 25% discount if you buy annually feels right. I likely will do some kind of introductory price or trial, I need to figure that out though.

      In any case, I really appreciate everyone’s support and I hope nobody feels obligated to pay for Pro if they can’t afford it. I know people have subscription fatigue so I totally get if people can’t or don’t want to add another one into the mix.

    • AFreeLarryHoover@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      11 months ago

      I’ve beta tested 6 Lemmy apps for iOS. This is undoubtedly the one with the most polish & promise.

      Even with that being said, the current proposed pricing is laughable.

      I’d scrap the Year & Lifetime options, and reduce the monthly cost down to $1.29