We ran a $5k Lifetime Deal on AppSumo. It nearly killed our SaaS.

Six months ago, we were desperate for cash flow to keep the lights on. We decided to run a Lifetime Deal (LTD) campaign. We thought it was a win-win: we get a quick cash injection, and we get hundreds of users to give us feedback.

It worked... at first. We made $5,000 in a single week. I felt like a genius.

But the reality check hit us hard over the next 90 days:

• Our support tickets exploded by 400%. LTD buyers were incredibly demanding, asking for custom features and 1-on-1 onboarding calls for a product they paid $49 for once.

• Our server costs tripled. Many of these users were uploading massive files and using our API heavily. We were now paying AWS $300/month to host users who would never give us another dime in recurring revenue.

• Our real MRR stalled. We got so bogged down supporting the LTD crowd that we completely stopped our outbound marketing and sales efforts.

I realized we had traded our long-term recurring revenue for a short-term sugar high. We sold our product to the wrong audience (bargain hunters instead of businesses with real budgets), and now we are stuck with the infrastructure and support costs of these "lifetime" users forever.

For those who have run LTDs: How do you stop the LTD crowd from destroying your unit economics and your team's sanity?

Did you create a separate, stripped-down version of the product just for them? Or did you eventually just pull the plug on support for LTD users entirely?