Lifetime deals (LTDs)... yes or no?

I think it's definitely worth considering, yes!

But it shouldn't be the "main" revenue model or growth engine (this is the pitfall many founders dump into).

I've sold two SaaS as lifetime deals in a limited period and I've had great experiences both times.

I covered both in detail here on Indie Hackers:

→ Made $75K in a few weeks selling LinkDrip as a pre-sold LTD

→ Generated +$300K on AppSumo offering FeedHive as an LTD

As of this moment what we can learn from this post ...

68% - say yes!
32% - say no..

• Lifetime deals (LTDs) can be a good way to make money, but they shouldn't be the main revenue model or growth engine.
• Offer limited amounts of lifetime accounts
• Communicate and enforce hard usage limits
• Price lifetime deals high enough to equal a reasonable Customer lifetime Value (LTV)
• Don't overpromise
• Consider annual pricing first
• Treat lifetime deals as a limited paid promotion
• LTDs are a type of sale where the customer pays a fixed price for lifetime access to the product
• LTDs are typically offered by platforms like AppSumo and PitchGround, and can be promoted through Facebook groups with large followings.
• The advantages of offering an LTD include growing an early userbase, getting feedback from users, and generating some revenue to reinvest in the product. However, LTDs can also be disadvantageous if the product is not yet mature, as this can damage future sales prospects. Additionally, managing support during an influx of sales can be difficult without adequate staff, and finally, having an LTD userbase may negatively affect attempts to sell the company later on.
• The LTD power users will find every bug; support lines will be hammered; difficult to say no to requests
• Startups considering an LTD should leave something in the tank
• LTDs can be offered to their early adopters as a form of repayment for their help in catching bugs and fine-tuning the product.
• Startups having difficulty converting free users to paid plans, and can consider implementing a one-time fee for the use of the free plan.
• AppSumo can help make enough sales to keep moving forward on their project
• Offering lifetime deals can bring in early users who may not otherwise use the product
• Established companies that know about customer lifetime value can offer these deals without worry
• There should be limits to the deal to avoid unfair use
• Offering lifetime deals can be a good idea, but it depends on the situation

Thank you to all of the hackers who have shared their valuable feedback here ..

@SimonHoiberg @arvidkahl @upenv @Devan @Faruk_durak @ManojRanaweera @eelcoj @Jajaygrow @fabform @daro_street @berny @thibpat @Gui @robinryden @satvikpendem @octocode @san0198

*really sorry if I've missed anyone .. please let me know and I'll edit the post :D

This post has been super helpful in trying to understand the right pricing strategy, when to actually introduce an LTD and how to manage the risks involved.

This has been super helpful and I will definetly keep this in mind launching our product UpEmbed, please do visit our website and leave your email address so that we can reach out to you giving you early access and special discount. We do plan on being ready for the beta launch by month end.

Also, to follow our journey as we build in public do follow our product page for UpEmbed on Indie Hacker.

I wrote about this a while ago, after chatting with a few founders who ran those kinds of deals.

The biggest issue is expectation management — which includes being VERY clear about what "lifetime" means. Most people consider lifetime to mean their own lifetime, not the products (or just a version of it.) This is what tends to explode and cause issues.

From the article, here are a few risk mitigation strategies I've seen founders employ:

• Offer limited amounts of Lifetime accounts. Limit the potential financial stress on your future business by capping the maximum number of one-time-payment customers. Make sure the majority of your revenue is recurring — eventually.
• Communicate and enforce hard usage limits. No “infinite usage.” Visibly track and display usage quotas and have a pricing strategy ready for over-usage. This might need some engineering, but it prevents users from abusing their deal.
• Price Lifetime Deals high enough to equal a reasonable Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). If you need a 12-month runway, price it at 14-16 times the monthly fee. Consider that a customer who doesn’t buy your product won’t incur maintenance costs, but a customer who buys your product for half its value will incur twice the maintenance costs.
• Don’t overpromise. If you intend to charge your Lifetimers eventually, make this clear. Tell them that they will have access to the version as-is (or include the subsequent few updates), but they will have to migrate over to a paid plan for significant changes. You can offer price-reduced subscription options available to Lifetime Deals owners only. - - The folks over at HeySummit did this, and they converted 35% of their Lifetimers into monthly paying customers. Give people options, and be clear about your limitations.
• Consider annual pricing first. Try selling an annual plan to people before you offer them lifetime access. Likely, this will create similar cash flow, but without incurring future costs.
• Treat Lifetime Deals as a limited paid promotion, particularly if you have a highly shareable product with a viral loop built-in. This way, the cost incurred from this deal is a growth spend, not lost revenue.

Incidentally, I watched two YouTube videos yesterday about a video editing software company "canceling" the lifetime licenses of their long-term customers. The outcry was loud, and they had to. eventually steer back and re-validated these accounts. If you have half an hour to watch the story unfold, here are:

• the video exposing the issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm90xW40c3A
• the video explaining the company's response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy1HiWGchMg

Lifetime deals are hard and can cause a lot of damage if handled without care. More here: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/lifetime-deals-and-saas-businesses/

I recently launched ZeroToFounder.

More pointers here from

LTD stands for Life Time Deals. Selling your product for a fixed price, and the user can use it lifetime (lifetime of the company). The prices for SaaS LTDs stay around $49 to $149 based on the product type and deal terms.

Some of the platforms that bring LTDs are AppSumo, PitchGround, etc. Also, note that many Facebook groups help launch LTDs for you for their followers, and some of these Facebook groups have more than 100K followers. So, overall it can drive some good revenue for you if your product solves a good problem that the audience is interested in.

But the only catch here is - Most of these platforms charge 70% of the sales and give you only 30% of the revenue. Let’s say you make $100K sales, you get only $30K. It's still a good deal as these platforms do the heavy lifting for you, and you get some early users for your product.

But there are some disadvantages also with this approach.

• If your product is still not mature, you will see people reporting all over the place, which may damage your product sales later.
• You will see a heavy influx of sales during the LTD promotion time, and if you have no support staff, this might get too overwhelming with a lot of time going into support and answering queries.
• If you ever need to sell your company, the LTD userbase could still be a liability as there is no new revenue coming from this userbase.

The plus side of LTDs:

• You can grow an early userbase
• You get a lot of feedback from early users
• You get traction (assuming the product/feedback is good)
• You get some money that you can reinvest back into the product

If you are wondering if you cannot give your product for a Life Time Access, just note that in most cases, 70% of the users who buy LTDs would actually never use it. That's the type of audience who buy LTDs. But again, this is only an observation from usual LTD discussions.

PS for any aspiring entrepreneurs: don't offer lifetime plans, and definitely not for $19, lol
-- Preceden's Matt Mazur on Hacker News today.

Here is what I am thinking about LTDs at the moment:

• It is a tool for generating (probably critical) funds,
• But they carry a (possibly) significant cost over time,
• And has negative effects on founders' exit,
• If you try to back away from the deal in the future, there is the possibility of substantial backlash and reputational damage.

With the above in mind, it might be wise to implement something else, like, a “founding member plan” with free 5 year access which after 5 years maps to one of your premium plans with a significant (70%, maybe) discount or provides a less-significant discount (33%, maybe) all your premium plans.

Even Kickstarter warns against offering “lifetime” plans or projects that are offering “lifetime” plans.

If it's a simple SaaS product with no service component, then you have a good chance of benefiting from life time deals through Appsumo and similar.

But if it has a service component such as in the case of my latest tech startup, https://skilledup.life (free talent for tech startups), you really want to stay away from lifetime deals.

@MuneebAwan

I would say "Yes", and "No"... :)

Let me explain - we did an LTD on AppSumo about 3 years ago and it was the best thing that ever happened to us, and it was the worst thing that happened to us. Let me break it down:

THE GOOD BITS

• Instant product market fit feedback - You will get a ton of users poking around every corner of your app, and they will give you feedback. Brutal feedback. But useful. AppSumo customers in particular are 'power users' and won't hold back if something is not working as it should.

• Seed capital - Our AppSumo deal got us about $200K in cash that we pumped straight back into the business to grow our team and improve our servers.

• Market validation - We went from around 50 customers to around 1500 customers almost overnight, and that was great when talking to other customers later (post LTD) when we could name drop similar customers in their region. I did a demo for a customer in Singapore, and when they asked me if we had any other customers in that country, I could honestly say we had about 30, and gave them some names. Before the LTD, we had 0 customers there and would have lost this new (normal MRR) customer.

THE BAD BITS

• Power users will find every bug and deficiency and security loophole in your system, guaranteed. You will be working around the clock to keep up with fixes.

• Your support lines will be hammered to within an inch of its life. HOT TIP - Get a good support system in place, and populate it with standard answers so you can quickly get back to people while still getting some sleep. You WILL be asked 1000x over the same questions like "What does 'lifetime' mean" and "How do I upgrade to 'x' plan later?" etc.

• You have to get REALLY good at saying 'No' to feature requests and other changes that LTD customers will pepper you with. Those that pay the least are normally the most vocal, and this especially holds true with AppSumo customers!

SUMMARY

If you are struggling to get that initial critical load of customers on board, then an LTD is the best way to do it without giving away equity.

But I would stress to you to 'leave something in the tank'. The best way to leverage your LTD users is to omit some juicy part of your app to them initially, then offer them a discounted rate subscription later to upgrade to a plan that includes it. This was a big life saver for us, because we heard a lot of other startups didn't offer this and ended up supporting LTD users for years without additional revenue.

We are finding that a large portion of our LTD users are upgrading their plans now (we offer them 50% off our rack rate for life as an incentive), and that is helping us grow our MRR significantly, even many years after we did the deal.

Are we glad that we offered an LTD round for our app? Yes, absolutely. Would we do it again? Nope, never.

Good luck in your journey down this path. Feel free to DM me or reply here if you want more info.

I would say YES, but with a heavy "it depends".

For Polygonjs, I offer lifetime deals, but:

• customers use very minimal server resources, so that has very little cost to me
• it only gives access to software updates in the 12 months after the purchase. They can still keep using the versions before that, but in order to remain up to date, a new purchase is required. And since Polygonjs serves a fast moving industry (3D/WebGL), the chances of them wanting to upgrade is high.

If those 2 conditions were not true, I probably would not offer lifetime licenses. That said, I've also modified my business model so that I could offer them, as I believe it is much a more attractive proposition.

In the beginning - Yes. Later - definitely no

Think it could make sense in early periods of launching but would limit it.

Should always think about your unit economics - e.g. LTV:CAC (how much money are you making in profit on each customer) and whether you're at least going to be profitable on that customer in the long run.

After reading this thread and some linked articles, I've started my own pre-sale LTD for https://www.saasydb.com but it's off to a quite depressing start. I'm only running it for this month, so hopefully it helps me get enough runway to survive.

For full time founders or someone who just launch their first product, they can get encourage and support from LTD users.

Even though this LTD user may won't be active in the future, they will be very helpful for this product's growth -- the fastest feedback from market, and ca$h.

There are products where recurring subscription not works. For example user use a product not every day, week. In this case the LTD is the best decision.

🤔 I would argue that, from a metrics perspective, it doesn't matter at all.

In a nutshell, the success of your business can be boiled down to the formula:

SUCCESS = Number of Clients * (LTV / CAC)

Where:

• LTV (Lifetime Value) is the expected amount of money a customer generates over time.
• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is the cost of acquiring a single customer.

Thus, an LTD done right is about securing the full LTV (minus some discount for immediacy) now, instead of waiting for it over time.

As long as you are earning more from each customer than you spend on their acquisition, your business is in a healthy state, and the primary goal should be effective scaling.

If Long-Term Deals help in this scaling process, they are a viable strategy. However, if they negatively impact your unit economics, pushing them into the red, it's better to avoid them.

LTD is very beneficial in term of quick cash a bootstrap startup especially in the first start , it would very difficult to convert LTD users to recurring plan over time because of the LTD mindset,

I have mixed opinions on this. My startup Frontly just completed a 400K AppSumo campaign.

It was incredible for building an 800 person discord community and 1600 paid users in a few months.

However, with our rev share, we end up with thousands of paid users to support for life. Running a SaaS costs a ton of time and energy, and investors aren't psyched about LTD revenue, so you get kind of stuck.

Be sure to have a plan on how to move past the LTD.

If you're running your own LTD (retaining 100% of revenue), it would be a much better situation, except that you're unlikely to hit the level of penetration that you can get from a big LTD platform.

My 2 cents!

I think LTD should not be maxed out on features, you should be able to offer more features to customers to get LTD to sub again for more.

I believe in a limited lifetime offer to raise capital, once they buy your product they are stuck with your forever whether they use it or not.

That's a good start to build quick capital for the business to improve and thus have the budget to scale.

If the product is very good, every time they think about spending $300 a year on a similar product they will revert to yours because they have a lifetime subscription, speaking from experience. And those customers have valuable information for you, they won't complain that they pay $25 per month and your product was down for a minute. nope!, they will stick with you as long as they actually need the product you offer and it's good.

limited lifetime offers invokes a sense of urgency, it convinces you to buy a product that you don't really need because you just can't miss the deal and you think that product may be useful someday, that's bad for both the business and the consumer but the upside is you'll be able to gather capital quick enough to get the business on track. Clickfunnels did something similar to this once and it was very convincing and a lot of people went with it.

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. LTDs don't add long term value to your company if that is what you are trying to do. They'd likely be considered a liability if you have a goal of selling your company one day. They are, however, great for getting cash in the door if you need it to continue development or make a case to yourself to keep working. For the sake of argument this is ignoring the product value you may or may not gain from user feedback/product improvement with an influx of LTD users.

I think of LTDs like I think of a project based business. Great to generate some revenue in the short term when needed but subscriptions will create more long term value.

This is great option for small startups or 'hoby' projects to get some initial budget just to reinvest in marketing. Another benefit is to get users excited and build community which you can then use for product feedback and product evangelists.

I have used this method on QPoint Survey now it works great as passive income with real subscribers (not only LTDs).

But, remember, there is short window to use this achievement.

AppSumo is fantastic. Just do it. Make LTV = Live Time Deal.

While LTDs can be good for getting capital up-front, they are generally looked down upon if you go to sell the business, because the buyer is now obligated to support customers that they never got compensated for, and never will. In other words , they have to provide free support and cover costs for people they never got money from.

There have been some really great feedback here. Not surprisingly, most of it is from a product owner's perspective. This is valuable, but I've definitely seen some advice here that would be considered "red flags" or not go over well in the LTD communities.

From the perspective of an LTD buyer:

• DON'T DO "FINE PRINT" IN AN LTD CAMPAIGN. LTD consumers are a different breed. They will sniff out any terms, loopholes, or vaguery that might later compromise their use of or access to the product for the term promised (lifetime). Be honest, be transparent, and be clear. If you can't include everything in an LTD offer, be 100% clear about what is and what isn't included.

• UNDERSTAND WHAT "LTD" MEANS TO USERS. If there is any point where users will not maintain access to what they have initially purchased, then you are NOT offering a lifetime deal. If there is any point where the users will not receive updates or new features, you are NOT offering a lifetime deal. If users are receiving updates or features to a specific version or for a specific period, you are NOT offering a lifetime deal, you are offering a perpetual license. (If you want to see the effects of trying to turn a lifetime deal into a perpetual license after the sale, see the links shared by arvidkahl earlier on the recent Filmora debacle. The reputation damage will be felt for a long time. Not worth it.)

• MAKE YOUR BED AND EXPECT TO LIE IN IT. Plan carefully, know your limits, and set your limits wisely, clearly, and definitely BEFORE you launch your LTD. Live with the terms that you sold. NEVER try to reduce or restrict limits or features after the LTD sale. If you have a large vocal LTD base, they will rally together and rage publicly against the changes. This can be catastrophic for your brand's reputation and exponentially more costly than it would have been to simply eat the sunk costs of the LTD accounts.

• SEEK WIN-WIN RELATIONSHIPS.
If you are offering an LTD, be clear as to why you are offering an LTD. If you are transparent about the goals, expectations, and impetus for your LTD you will more likely attract quality LTD customers who believe in your journey and will support you when times get tough. Create a clear "give and take" offer: (e.g. we [company name] are offering a lifetime account to [product description/tier] with [the following terms/included features] at [this price] for [lifetime of the product's existence]. In return for this amazing price/deal, we expect [regular feedback, bug reports, social sharing, patience as we develop, acceptance of imperfection and iteration, etc.]

Things I think LTDs should always have upfront:
• CODE OF CONDUCT - let your users know up front what is acceptable. What type of critical feedback is acceptable and what is not? Where to go to provide feedback. Where to go for support. Where to go if support is not meeting your expectations. Where/how to file complaints. Where to follow progress. What is the arbitration process if we disagree on terms/changes/refund/etc?

• PATH TO UPGRADE - this has been mentioned a lot in this thread, but not from an LTD buyer perspective. Don't try to offer an upgrade path FROM a top-tier LTD account. Most don't want it, won't do it, and worst case scenario it's going to cause suspicion and create drama. A better approach is to offer upgrades outside of the Lifetime account. Offer additional MRR accounts for special pricing. Get them to be customers twice, don't try to devalue their initial investment.
If you had a multi-tier LTD then you can offer add-ons or upgrades for lower-tier accounts to gain features/limits equivalent to upper-tier LTD accounts. In this case, the buyer made the conscious decision to purchase the lower tier so a subscription/upgrade is expected/acceptable. If they bought the highest tier to begin with, a subscription/upgrade feels like a "bait and switch", "money grab", or act of disloyalty.

• FLAWLESS COMMUNICATION - I've been around LTDs since their inception over a decade ago. One thing I've learned is that at least 90% (probably higher) of the incidences of drama and friction between LTD sellers and LTD buyers could have been mitigated or entirely avoided through EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION. In fact, when I advise my clients, I emphasize communication as the most underrated investment they could make. Spend the time, money, and effort that it requires for effective communication and you won't be sorry. This means having an easy way for people to contact you, having enough staff to support and serve users, and disseminating information regularly and clearly in a very accessible location. It also means having the right voice to communicate with your user community. This may not be you as a founder especially if you come from a culture where being very direct is acceptable or if you are the type of person who is sensitive to feedback/criticism. If that is you, do yourself a favor and hire somebody to be your voice. Don't interact directly with your users if you are not an effective communicator.

• CLEAR VIEW OF IMPACT - understand exactly what the costs of an LTD user are (both monetarily and emotionally and at every tier) and set your offer limits accordingly (#of licenses and features included.) Once you decide on the LTD parameters, WRITE THOSE ACCOUNTS OFF! Never look at them again as a source of direct income. Don't think about future upsells. Don't plan on moving those accounts to MRR down the road. Don't think about creating a new tier or product in the future that leaves out LTD owners. Consider LTD users as an investment, a marketing tool, a living landing page, not a sales pipeline. Determine how many LTD accounts your product can handle and for how long and then limit the number of licenses accordingly. Then these accounts are SUNK COSTS, don't "F" with them. Turn them into raving fans. Make LTD users your brand ambassadors. Understand LTD account owners as channels for INDIRECT income and you will get your return.

• BEST DEAL EVER - Make your LTD something special. Make it an event. Better to offer fewer full-featured LTD licenses than many limited-feature LTD licenses. Full-featured offers will create satisfaction, and a sense of value, and build loyalty and buzz. They will be coveted and people understand when the LTD offer is no longer available ("a deal too good to last.") LTDs that limit features or don't match up with existing plans lead to dissatisfaction, suspicion, uncertainty, lower quality users, and unreasonable expectations. Limited-feature offers turn your LTD into a commodity rather than an exclusive opportunity. Offer more to fewer people rather than less to more people.

Final thoughts:
I love buying LTDs, but I love being a beta tester even more. The two can be similar because many LTDs are launched as a means to get the first users, but expectations are different between the two groups. LTD buyers are making a monetary "investment" from their perspective and have high expectations and often too many demands. LTD buyers are often selfish and one-sided.
Beta testers are often givers from the start. Beta testers understand the "give and take" relationship. Their expectations are more realistic and symbiotic. E.g. "I get early access in exchange for feedback, support, and sharing." Beta testers have gratitude, and LTD buyers have expectations.

*I have more than two dozen lifetime accounts for different products that were provided to me for free as an early adopter. In exchange, I've been a consistent source of feedback, a brand ambassador, and a prolific source of referrals.

Advice if you are going to offer an LTD:

DO
• Make it a great offer. Have an amazing price (the best that will ever be offered).
• Include everything you possibly can.
• Limit the number of licenses to something sustainable for the long run (consider beta testers first and offer those that are most active first access to limited LTD licenses).
• Turn LTD customers into passionate brand ambassadors. Leverage them to share and promote your product by making them your most important user segment. (Another reason to limit licenses is to make connecting/nurturing this group manageable.)
• Consider two types of LTD offerings. An initial targeted offering that is curated and offered y to loyal beta testers or most active users and a standard LTD offering (for revenue injection or building user base.) The curated offering should be the best offer you ever have. The standard offering should be less valuable than the original offering. Either higher price or lower access. This way if the second wave of LTD buyers act-up, are unreasonable, or too demanding, you'll have an army of OG users to protect your brand and call them out on your behalf. This insulates you to some degree from the potential bad PR situations that seem to accompany most LTDs.

DON'T
• Offer limited/handicapped licenses. You might think it saves you resources or creates a path to MRR upgrades but it really just creates dissatisfaction, and confusion, attracts low-quality disloyal users, and low engagement.
• Try to be sneaky, "clever", or disguise terms or policies in fine print or nested locations.
• Plan on MRR directly from LTD owners. Ever. Just don't have that in your mind. If it occurs organically down the road, celebrate the gift.
• EVER change the limits, features, or terms of an LTD after it has been sold. This includes creating new features or tiers that are not accessible to LTD accounts but would be expected. (New features that have a recurring cost to the developer are an exception. Features that add functionality to the tool but do not have recurring costs are not an exception.) If you do this, I promise you it will cost you much more in damage control and reputation repair than you will ever gain from the perceived upsell revenue.

Yes

Hey Muneeb, I would say yes!
This type of deal is highly advantageous for both sides, customers and SaaS companies since customers can purchase lifetime access to a product or service at a much lower cost than regular subscription plans.
Additionally, for SaaS businesses, lifetime deals can be great for driving cash flow, user acquisition, and customer loyalty.

Depends on maintenance costs, API calls, support. Probably not. But if you need money, you need money

Nope .. If your product is valuable you can't do that.

Yes, so long as it equals the customer lifetime value. If you're selling for 10 dollars a month, and your user might use it for 2 years, you can price it around 480 dollars total, or you can offer a discount due to it being a larger amount and make it like 399 dollars instead, effectively 4 months free out of the 24 months total.

Before Christmas, we at Zencal.io gave LTD to our early adopters. This was a form of repayment for their help in catching bugs and fine-tuning the product.

In fact, as others have written I would never opt for such a model as a regular business model. It just doesn't make sense.

We have released 1000 such licenses. There will never be more.

My current SaaS currently offers a free plan. Which is used by many people for mostly updating the blog of their static site.

The “problem” I'm facing is I haven't found a way to capitalise upon these free users. Also the conversion rate from free users to a paid plan seems to be quite low.

I'm now entertaining the idea on charging a one-time fee to use the current free plan. This would not change anything on the current (or future) paid plans as it's overall steadily growing.

So yes, depending on your business and use-case and LTD might be worth exploring.

Hey Muneeb,

There is no direct answer to this.

We launched a LTD campaign for MonitUp.com via AppSumo.

When we first launched our product, we couldn't sell it, even we asked our friends to use it and give feedback, but no one used it.

AppSumo has been a life saver for us, we sold it, took steps to validate the idea and earned cash.

However, we couldn't sell from AppSumo for a long time, we didn't know how to sell and AppSumo. Then we tried new things by researching why we couldn't sell, and we sold 28 licenses from 10 countries.

More details about our AppSumo experience:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/what-have-i-learned-so-far-from-my-appsumo-launch-caedec7d7f

Summary:

If you're selling outside of the LTD, go ahead. But if you can't sell, if you need feedback, if you need some cash. And if the cost of keeping the customer in the system is low, it's okay to sell the LTD.

I met someone on AppSumo who sold 3K licenses and then things went wrong.

The important thing is not to make too many sales at once, but to make enough sales to keep you moving forward.

Because the road is too long :)

I wish you success in your project.

I run a limited lifetime deal for https://Elephas.app, made decent sales. It helps to cover my cost while I grow the product. I only intend to run it for a while.

Very timely post. We went through this phase two months ago. I've battled against LTDs for a year now since users have been asking about them. Finally gave in.

I think all the answers are in the comment section here, as we've literally just gone through setting it up.

It's all set up now and we've started rolling out our LTD plans... so lets see.

I do think many users are wary of LTDs and the pitfalls, and Saas businesses won't see the big levels of success of those that did it 2-3+ years ago.

→ feel free to check out our LTD and some of the terms. I'd rather have less LTD users than try to burn our users later on.

Didnt really help with our linktree alternative

To me it is very simple. Guess which is the Life Time Value of your customers or potential customers. Put the LTD a bit higher than that. If it sells, keep it.

Yes, definitely. I believe this is a great way to launch a business if you need early revenue streams without having a full product yet. However, pricing is important.

We consider launching one of our projects with a LTD, however, would add two add-ons to balance the price.

I'm in favor of offering huge time-limited discounts to early users (eg: 50% for a year). This way you avoid to have a strange cohort of users:

• they won't bring you any revenue anymore
• they will be sad if you limit them when they cost you too much
• they might buy and never use the product as you mentioned...

I think a lifetime deal is great for more established companies that know about the typical customer lifetime value (LTV), and that put clear limits to the deal to avoid unfair use from a few users.

I'm not entirely sure about LTD plans, because as a NEW startup - there is a possibility that the customer that buys one expects it to be up and running forever (which is usually the plan, but i've seen startups doing this, and then 1 year later shutdown because they started a new one or didn't get as much as expected in MRR etc).

But maybe if you put that in the "fine print" - telling that your service is intended to be up as long as possible, then maybe. Me personally just thinks about the reputation and if people all of sudden expects refunds. But as I said, i think it all comes down to the "fine print", what they agreed on when signing up.

I understand businesses doing this that have it's reputation for running it's service for a longer time and have proven that they are a serious business.

Maybe it's a personal thing, but for me I would probably never go with LTD.

Someone who have done this could tell more about the process and their experience.

It’s something you should consider, if this going to be your first launch, then yes go for it.

Although some things to consider -

• your LTV won’t increase but your recurring expenses will always remain the same
• say you sell your LTD at $99, where your running expenses are $2/user/m. You’ll start losing money on LTD users in a year or two
• LTD users don’t like being upsold to MRR subscriptions, ever.

We did our LTD around 2 years ago, generated $600k ARR, and we still have users reaching out to us for XYZ features despite over delivering.

If you’re going to do an LTD, do a Private one (not AppSumo), so you can keep 100% of the revenue. Sell limited licensees, ~200 max.
That’s usually good enough to validate your idea + get you some extra funding.

We are launching our new product, PostNitro, an AI-powered carousel post generator.

We are now live on Product Hunt and needs your support to get the top spot 😊

Your support on Product Hunt would mean a lot!
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/postnitro

We've worked hard to create an easy-to-use carousel post-generation platform, which 720+ users currently use.

We are entirely bootstrapped, and the platform is free to use while in beta.

PS: a shoutout on your social channel would be appreciated!

To test the app visit: https://postnitro.ai

Here's a short one:

• Make it as expensive as monthly plan * average subscription duration.

Ubersuggest for exemple has 2 types of plans. Not "monthly or yearly" but rather "monthly or lifetime". A lifetime deal is $290 while a monthly plan is $29.

Why lifetime = 10 months?
Because they do not expect their users to stay more than a year on a monthly plan before churning.

A lifetime deal is equivalent to 10 months per client, but it's 100% better (literally) than seeing them leave after 5 months on the monthly plan 👍

It depends on the business model, but on the Hackers Incorporated podcast (Lifetime Pricing is Underrated episode), Adam Wathan lays out one of the best descriptions I've heard of when it makes sense to do this.

I think that depends totally on the product. When you have ongoing costs that needs to be paid with something like a SaaS product then I would not do LTDs but when your product dont run on your own costs then I would consider adding a LTD.

Yes, useful in initial days but, keep it limited to few people.

Yesss, going on my 3rd year on bootstrapping you should do everything that is possible and sustainable to maintain your business running.

As an independent developer, I've created a read-it-later tool called HamsterBase, and I'd like to share my pricing model.

1. Pay a one-time fee of $45 to unlock all current features and all updates for the following year.
2. After the one-time payment, you can purchase a second time for $15 to continue unlocking new features for the next year.
3. A lifetime membership is available for $60, allowing users to enjoy all future updates.

Here are my reasons:

1. The software itself does not rely on servers, so even for lifetime users, there are no additional costs for me.

2. Instead of focusing on an account system, I want to first perfect the software. I can attract users to purchase the lifetime membership by offering this option.

Offering lifetime deals (LTDs) can be a double-edged sword for a bootstrapped/self-funded startup. While it can provide a quick injection of capital to sustain the business, it can also lead to difficulties in retaining recurring customers in the long run.

On the one hand, offering an LTD can help a startup gain initial traction and a user base. These early adopters can serve as brand advocates and provide valuable feedback for improving the product. However, on the other hand, an LTD can create a customer base that is less committed to the product, since they may have paid a one-time fee and therefore have less incentive to continue using and paying for the product over time.

In my experience, offering an LTD can be a viable strategy if the product is well-established and has a loyal following. If the startup has a clear plan to transition LTD customers to a recurring subscription model and can provide a roadmap for future development, it can work out well. However, if the startup is in the early stages and still refining its product, offering an LTD may not be the best strategy as it can create difficulties in generating recurring revenue and retaining customers in the long term.

Ultimately, whether or not to offer an LTD depends on the unique circumstances of each startup. It's important to weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks carefully and consider the long-term impact on the business before making a decision.

LTD's are great for small business practitioners who want to keep tight records and expenses. They must be prudent on keeping the apps current.

Here's how we are doing and you should too.

We launched on Appsumo: https://appsumo.com/products/conversios/?query=conversios with limited deals

After these get over, the user has to come to our site for the SaaS subscription.

LTDs help you to establish a brand presence and build trust in your customers.

I would definitely say yes.

Lifetime deals can be used as an effective way of validating ideas and gauging customer interest in exotic products that may not have launched yet. My experience is that we offer deals before launching a real product on multiple platforms – providing key insights into potential demand. Meanwhile we gained immediate returns on future investments in development/marketing resources.

Launching a lifetime deal can be a great way to attract new customers. It provides your SaaS product with initial exposure outside of your known circle.

Here are the benefits of Launching a SaaS Lifetime Deal
https://blog.saasmantra.com/saas-lifetime-deal-launch-benefits/

I can't help, but this is the best post to promote this - AppSumo Revenue Report.

Sales pitch: Find out how much revenue AppSumo deals make.
How accurate is this data? For over 50 of them, we have 100% confirmation from the founders. Our algorithm can forecast crazy close-to-reality revenue numbers for over 890 AppSumo deals.

Link - https://www.thebootstrappedway.com/appsumo-breakdown

I misunderstood the LTD acronym I guess I'm just not that familiar with the scene and associated lingo, I was thinking it meant like say I make websites for people, or port their dusty brochure photoshop 7.0 sliced html into a template for drupal or typo3 or joomla , whatever, then add zencart, oscommerce whatever they want now, and instead of paying me whatever I would normally charge, i guess this is more specific to the ecommercialization and sales online feature adding bit than templating, just more of what I used to do when working for myself in another city, where I knew alot of business owners and clients from working at datacenters and webshops , isps and the like, and since I moved to Calgary, worked at one place for like a decade which was a suprise but I know like barely a dozen clients who hire me to do various things, mostly healthcare regulation implementation related and whatnot, So say someone wanted to conduct sales in an automated fashion on their site, depending on how automated I would ask for a % of sales on the site ( actually I think nearly every contract that went like that I was running typo3 with oscommerce / zencart patched in and the documentation for typo3 is mostly poor or in german plus its a powerful cms so its rare people will want to work off it, instead they will completely replace and redesign or just keep paying my 5% or so, which covers hosting, isn't much more than their payment processor is charging them for some and some months I'm very grateful for just those few dollars comming in. Is that a silly idea you think? I still charge a little bit for the inital work especially if they alter even a word in their requirements as stated in our agreement as signed , but like 10% of what i would have otherwise charged..
/mk