Thanks @emieljanson for hunting Billy!
Hey everybody,
My name is Jeffrey (22) and I'm the maker of Billy. I'm really excited to share what we've been working on for the past couple of months.
Six months ago I moved out and started living on my own. Because of this, I suddenly had to take care of things I didn't know about. My parents used to take care of things like rent, electricity, gas, TV, Internet, but now I had to manage it myself. To manage all these things I thought about using an app for that, however, I just couldn't find a proper app that suited my needs and was really committed to do one thing right: keeping track of subscriptions. Most of those apps required an account, had too many features or where quite expensive.
Today we introduce Billy, the easiest way to get insights in your fixed costs. Billy helps you finding all your subscriptions and keeping track of them. Choose from hundreds of existing services or create and add custom subscriptions. Normally you won't know when a service is billed and you have to go to the app of your bank whether or not a subscription is billed. This makes it really cumbersome to track subscriptions, especially when you have lots of them. Billy solves this by reminding you about all your upcoming due dates. This way you'll never forget when a bill is due! We're using a freemium business model, that allows you to add up to 4 subscriptions. For just $0.99 users can get unlimited subscriptions. Forever.
At the moment, Billy is still learning and improving himself. We aim to make Billy super smart so he can auto detect all your subscriptions, view your due dates in a notification center widget and on your Apple Watch.
We've been in beta for three months and got some really great feedback and insights, thanks to everyone who participated in the beta and has been using Billy intensively.
Would love to hear what you guys think about Billy, I'm excited to answer all your questions!
Have a nice day! 🐿
See what Billy can do for you, download for free here:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/bil...
@bentossell Hey Ben! Thanks for the kind words.
You're totally right about the competition and there are indeed a lot of apps that allow you to manage your subscriptions. I think where Billy really sets itself apart is the simplicity and design. The main thing I missed in other apps is the ability to quickly get an overview of your monthly costs. Most of them felt too bloated and feature heavy, while we're focussing on one thing: get insights in your fixed costs.
Would love for you to give it a try and hear what your think!
@bentossell Haha, we're familiar with that problem yes... We really hope Billy can help you getting back the control over your fixed costs! As mentioned earlier, we really aim to make Billy smarter so it will be even easier to add / list subscriptions.
@jeffreydgroot@emieljanson Congrats on the launch! It looks great!
I like it because it's dead simple to get started with. It will definitely help me get a better idea on spendings.
A couple of thoughts:
1. I was thinking to enter some of my company subscriptions to get a better idea on monthly cost. It would also be cool to see personal subscriptions. For example the Creative Cloud sub is going on the company CC and Netflix to my personal CC. Maybe have a type somewhere.
2. I have subscriptions in multiple currencies. Some in USD others in EUR and maybe some other as well. This is usually not a huge deal, launching for the US market is OK, you definitely wanna keep it simple. It would be just a nice addition.
3. Now some thoughts for the future. Launching with $0.99 is ok, however I believe that in the long run this might not be enough. If you provide value continuously, then a subscription model makes sense, however doing subscriptions in the App Store is hard, if you think of all the other $0.99 apps. Everyone expects full-blown apps and services with that price point. I would suggest to explore getting leads through a website and frame it as "helping you manage expenses" then get to the app. That way people won't be comparing it to other apps. (If that makes sense...)
@jeffreydgroot@emieljanson I had this idea two years ago and never built it...nice to see that someone did this. Interesting choice of monetization model, not sure if this really works but we'll see. Any plans for Android?
based on the screenshots the overall UX seems to be extremely simple and intuitive let alone the neat design. Unfortunately can't enjoy it. Hope to see also an Android version.
@vschwid A comment like that, from a co-founder of the huntet product, does more harm than good for me.
If you want to increase traction of this hunt, it would be a lot more valuable for you, if you gave or added value to the discussion instead of writing 'I love my own product'.
@trovatten I'm really proud of my team (and external additional forces) and wanted to let them publicly see that. Do you feel the same during Apple keynotes?
@jbrooksuk@vschwid Guys. I love the idea of the product. I think it looks like unroll.me for payments, which is super-cool for a forgetful guy like me. If @vschwid wrote 'I'm really proud our hard-working team and the finished product' I would have no issue. I just felt the comment was kinda shallow and it didn't talk about the team or the fact that he is proud of the product.
Anywho - I might have been a bit cranky yesterday, and I just wrote down that I thought.
That said, I'm actually really excited to try the App!
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Curious @jeffreydgroot how'd you come up with the name? 🙃
@bsmartt13 Hahaha, good question! Our initial thought was that we needed a mascotte, something that was easily recognisable and adorable. Then we thought about 'billing' and spotted the connection with Billy. What's more cute than a squirrel called Billy? 🐿
a good start but it seems so...manual. in this age of integrations with banks, I'd expect something more than a list I could make on my reminders app. the only added value is the logos.
I'm interested in where this will go, because at the moment it's just not worth another platform for me to have to integrate with.
@thejeremycarson Hey Jeremy! We've launched Billy as an mvp and to get know our users and their behaviour. We really want Billy to become smart and to connect your bankaccounts, homescreen or inbox for recurring payments. We envision Billy to be your personal subscriptions manager and therefore it would be awesome to let Billy do all the work.
We're currently investigating the ability to connect you CC, though we had a lot of feedback from users that find it scary to 'give away the control' of their CC. But this is definitely something we're on and so I totally see your point. Thanks for your comment :)
@jeffreydgroot@thejeremycarson Connecting to gmail to ingest this data would be welcomed, search for subscription and currency signs and ask the user if it is recurring or one time charges.
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Beautiful design. I downloaded it and will set up my subscriptions. Are there plans to allow us to separate personal and business subscriptions?
@benbelser@stormlux Thanks guys! Being able to use multiple 'accounts' is on our list, I think this is a feature that goes hand in hand nicely with 'Shared subscriptions'.
Billy is awesome. Congrats on the launch, Jeffrey! I've been using the beta for quite a while now and I've been able to manage my subscriptions with it. I think the product, as small as it might seem, has a lot of potential.
Really like the simplicity of the app @jeffreydgroot and Team, congrats! Curious about your roadmap and plans. The terms button in the app is not working though...was curious about them ;)
@donfontijn Hey thanks Don! As mentioned in my first comment, we aiming to make Billy smart so he can do all the work for you (not having to enter subscriptions manually). And yes, the terms button slipped through our fingers, has been fixed now and we'll be included in the next update. In the meantime you can view the terms here http://www.billyapp.co/legal/
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