It's not about SaaS vs one-time payments or anything like that. It's about how much value you provide.
Mail.app is free, Outlook is free. How much better is Sparrow? Is the improvement worth $60 a year? Cause if it's not worth even $5 a month to your users (2 cups of coffee) - then it's probably not worth doing.
No matter how much people say they love your product, if they aren't willing to pay $5 per month, $60 per year or $200 one-off - they are kidding themselves. Think everyone loves Facebook? How many of those folks love Facebook enough to pay $5 per month to use it?
People aren't stupid. They will pay for stuff that translates into the bottom line - just like businesses. They may pay for Photoshop - if that's their work tool. They'll pay for a Mac - cause it helps them be more productive and earn more money.
My personal benchmark is dating sites. When most guys in the world are prepared to pay north of $20 per month to access a dating site, and if you are charging less you have to ask yourself - if people don't value my product more than a dating site, should I be working on something else? It's kinda sad but true.
Mail.app is free, Outlook is free. How much better is Sparrow? Is the improvement worth $60 a year? Cause if it's not worth even $5 a month to your users (2 cups of coffee) - then it's probably not worth doing.
No matter how much people say they love your product, if they aren't willing to pay $5 per month, $60 per year or $200 one-off - they are kidding themselves. Think everyone loves Facebook? How many of those folks love Facebook enough to pay $5 per month to use it?
People aren't stupid. They will pay for stuff that translates into the bottom line - just like businesses. They may pay for Photoshop - if that's their work tool. They'll pay for a Mac - cause it helps them be more productive and earn more money.
My personal benchmark is dating sites. When most guys in the world are prepared to pay north of $20 per month to access a dating site, and if you are charging less you have to ask yourself - if people don't value my product more than a dating site, should I be working on something else? It's kinda sad but true.