How do you figure out a pricing strategy for a plugin and prepare yourself for complaining users?
Yesterday, I announced that I'm getting ready to launch my MVP.
For now, it'll only be a beta version, but I'm already thinking about things like pricing, plans, and all that fun stuff.
Right now, these are the options on the table:
Freemium model (some features free, the rest behind a paywall)
Monthly plan (€7)
Annual plan (€59) with a discounted coupon
Multi-license packages
What would you criticise, change, or add to the pricing? If you know about a very good plugin I can inspire from and build my own according to it, please, drop them in the comments – I want to learn from the best.
My second question is about dealing with users who complain about pricing. From what I've seen while working with another app, people always seem to have something to say:
– "Make it free."
– "It's too expensive."
– "Do you have a discount?"
– And one thing I see a lot: people strongly prefer lifetime plans (should I consider one?)
If you have any tips on how to handle these kinds of comments from users, I'd love to mentally prepare myself in advance. :D
P.S. Here is my waitlist: https://tally.so/r/KYODRV
Replies
Lifetime deals are a trap ,you'll spend 3 years supporting people who paid once and feel entitled to everything.
"Make it free" complaints? Ignore. People who say that were never going to pay anyway. 😄
Freemium + annual is the sweet spot. Skip lifetime entirely.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@deepu_jee So no limited spots for the first-time users? E.g. first 50?
One thing I've learned is that you'll always have people saying it's too expensive, and you'll always have people saying it's worth every penny.
I'd focus less on avoiding complaints and more on making the value obvious. If your product genuinely saves people time or solves a painful problem, the right customers will pay.
As for lifetime deals, I'd be cautious. They can be great for getting early users, but they also create long-term support obligations. I'd only offer one if it fits your long-term business model, not because people ask for it.
Good luck with the beta! Excited to see how it goes.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@deebuilds Thank you so much, Dee! :) To be honest, there is a lot of work on it, but I wanna learn to code, it is one of my goals. :)
@busmark_w_nika That's a great goal! Learning to code gives you a whole new level of freedom as a founder. It can be frustrating at times, but every small step adds up.
Wishing you all the best with both the beta and your coding journey. I'm looking forward to seeing where you take it!
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@deebuilds Thank you so much! :)
One thing I'd avoid is changing your pricing every time someone says it's too expensive.
Price complaints are inevitable. They're not always a sign your pricing is wrong. Sometimes they're just a sign you've found the boundary between people who like your product and people who value it enough to pay.
I'd treat complaints as data, not instructions.
If lots of people say it's expensive but your target users keep buying, I'd keep the price exactly where it is.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@varun1jan what if nobody buys? :D
the freemium + monthly + annual structure makes sense as a starting point. one thing i'd think carefully about is lifetime deals early on. they feel good for initial traction but you're essentially capping your revenue from those users forever, and if the product improves significantly, you'll feel it.
on handling pricing complaints: most of it is noise and you'll learn to filter it quickly. the signal worth paying attention to is when someone tells you exactly what they'd pay and why. that's actual market research.
the best thing you can do is be clear about what the free tier does and doesn't include from day one. vague freemium creates more complaints than a well-defined one.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@riya_pariyar Maybe I should really create some landing page where people understand the product :)
on pricing: i'd kill the lifetime plan even though people will ask. the loudest lifetime askers usually churn after 3 months then resent paying for something they stopped using. annual at ~40% off monthly is the plugin sweet spot.
on complaints: most "too expensive" isn't about price. it's about not seeing the value yet. when someone says it's too expensive i ask what they were hoping to accomplish. half describe a use case the product already does and i can show them. the other half were never the customer. let them go.
the make-it-free crowd never converts no matter what you do. respond once, move on, build for the ones who pull out the wallet.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@thenameisarian Wouldn't you go into a lifetime plan at all? (e.g. for the first 50 users – limited offer)? :)
Pricing for tools where users don't fully understand the value before they try it is its own kind of hell. I'm building an AI tool for DTC brands and we went through 3 pricing iterations before landing on something that works.
A few honest things from that:
1. Lifetime plans sound great until you realize the people who buy them are usually the ones least likely to actually use the product long-term. Bargain hunters, not power users. Skip unless you genuinely don't care about LTV.
2. The "it's too expensive" complaint almost always means "I don't understand why it's worth this much yet." That's a positioning problem, not a pricing problem. Most of the time the fix is in your landing page, not your price.
3. Freemium works if your free tier produces a real "aha" moment. If the free version is too limited, people churn before getting it. If it's too generous, they never upgrade. We landed on 2 free generations because it's enough to see the output quality but not enough to actually run a campaign.
For €7/month vs €59/year, that's about 30% discount on annual which is standard. I'd test whether you can push the monthly higher (€9-10) since people anchoring on monthly tend to be less price-sensitive than annual buyers.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@elias_motionfy Is 11 €/month too much? Or?
1) Lifetime users – what about a limited offer? First 50 users or so?
Regarding quality of the product, can you recommend me any active LinkedIn users from your community who would be open to test the product?
@busmark_w_nika €11/month depends on what the plugin saves them. If it prevents one LinkedIn account restriction, that's worth way more than €11. Frame the cost of NOT using it, restriction = lost network access for weeks.
Limited lifetime for first 50 works better than open lifetime. Creates urgency and the people who grab it usually actually use the product.
On testers honestly can't help, my network is mostly DTC/ecom not LinkedIn power users. If someone fitting crosses my path later I'll send them your way. Best of luck.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@elias_motionfy Thank you so much, Elias :)
On the complaining-users half: the most useful shift for me was to stop hearing "it's too expensive" as a pricing problem and start hearing it as a trust problem. People rarely mean the number, they mean they can't yet see the value being worth it, so I try to answer the value rather than defend the price. On lifetime plans, I'd be careful. They pull cash forward, but you're signing up to support someone forever on a one-time payment, and the buyers most drawn to lifetime are often the most support-heavy. For the plugin itself, freemium plus one simple monthly usually beats a maze of tiers early on, since every extra option is another decision you're asking a stranger to make. Whatever you land on, state the price plainly and don't apologise for it. Good luck with the MVP.