Show HN: Lifetime SaaS Deals (tired of paying monthly for biz tools?)

by Bjarnee • 7 years ago

22 33 7 years ago

This is a pretty useful list. In some cases I actively avoid businesses with this model as I do not believe the business model is sustainable. But it really depends. If i'm buying FTP software (e.g. transmit) then fine. But if i'm buying a VPN, no chance.

I would suggest moving the source column on the table. At first I found it hard to read as the primary data I'm looking for is the service, not the source.

Also, remove your obnoxious newsletter popup, especially with the "No thanks, i hate to save money" dismiss...

SallySwanSmith• 7 years ago

That "No Thanks, I hate to save money" is a classic dark pattern designed to manipulate people. There's tons of articles about how damaging they are to users perceptions of the interactions (Example https://www.nngroup.com/articles/shaming-users/ ). I honestly closed the browser and didn't give the content any look due to it, as if you're going to try to shame me into giving you my email address, you're not going to play fair with anything else.

Bjarnee13• 7 years ago

Thank you for your opinion. I agree, and will rephrase it later today. I have tried to be very forthcoming about what the site is about, sticking my affiliate link disclaimer on top of every page, so I sincerely do not want to have a popup that makes people vomit!

superasn• 7 years ago

I used to believe the same, how can someone offer a VPN service with a lifetime deal? How can they predict my bandwidth usage? Maybe there will be a fine print wrt usage.

Long story short I decided to buy a service called Windscribe 2 years ago anyway after reading some reddit replies (it's a lifetime deal) and so far my experience has been amazing. It's actually better than some monthly paid services I've used and the only service that allows me to watch Netflix US. So exceptions are there though it's only been 2 years using them.. so fingers crossed!

Bjarnee13• 7 years ago

Thanks for the great suggestions, I will try to implement some improvements this week. If nobody cares about the first column, I can at least move it to the far right As for the business model, I have gotten some great tools from startups that are trying to get off the ground, but of course there are also some tools that never seem to get anywhere after initial rounds. It's a good idea to ask the founders for roadmaps, company details etc.

jedberg• 7 years ago

As someone who runs a SaaS business, lifetime subscriptions seem like the worst idea ever. I can't imagine it gets you that many more people who wouldn't buy otherwise, vs the incredible risk you take that you've correctly predicted the cost of providing your service forever.

That being said, this is a super helpful list!

Bjarnee13• 7 years ago

Yes, there surely are many pitfalls, both for customers and companies. I think it is important for the company not to overpromise in cases like this. But I guess one of the main reasons companies do lifetime deals, is to get initial traction, and fastet build a very dedicated group of beta users. If they handle that correctly, it can be a big asset, and cheaper than many other forms of startup marketing.

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

This is actually the reason why I do not buy any lifetime membership. Because of the risks involved it seems to me that buying lifetime memberships run the risk for the customer of overspending when the service closes shop. Or in some way getting screwed.

An obviously bad monetization strategy is more of a warning sign than no monetization strategy at all.

ujjain• 7 years ago

There was a forever hosting provider for a one-time fee in Holland.

They were very popular until they went out of business.

They weren't cheap either! I think €99 or even €199, but don't remember well. It was around 8 years ago.

jv222222• 7 years ago

IMHO - On the signup popup form. If you want to close it without entering an email address you have to click a link that says - "No thanks, I hate saving money" - it seems to go against the friendliness of the rest of the branding.

Bjarnee13• 7 years ago

I agree. I suck at marketing, so had someone come up with that, but I actually hate it myself, so will try to think of something else. I genuinely want to build something useful that will bring people to the site because it helps them rather that annoy them!

jv222222• 7 years ago

How about "No thanks, maybe later" or something like that :)

Even "No thanks" is fine!

cpcallen• 7 years ago

How about not having a modal dialog that prevents me from seeing / using the site entirely?

Are the signups you get really worth driving away most first-time visitors?

jcims2• 7 years ago

I agree with your intuition. The likelihood that the person actually hates saving money is approximately zero. What they are actually saying is that you haven't earned their trust enough yet to cough up their email address. So when you force the question with a timed modal, they have three options: sending their email address to a site they don't trust, clicking a link that's simply a lie or just closing the tab and never coming back. Why on earth would they pick anything but the last option?

eps2• 7 years ago

* “SUBSRIBE TO OUR JUNK MAIL”

* Thanks, but I hate saving money

Got this full-screen popup with no close button not 5 seconds in. This is not acceptable. It’s obnoxious and disrespectful.

Flagged the whole thing.

Bjarnee13• 7 years ago

Thank you for your opinion. I have removed the popup, as my intention is not to annoy people, belive it or not.

eps2• 7 years ago

Appreciate you listening. I rescinded the flag.

dylz4• 7 years ago

This is an affiliate link farm with obnoxious shaming dark patterns...

Bjarnee13• 7 years ago

Yes, I agree the popup was annoying. I used a template I found, and understand it was annoying, stupid, disrespectful etc. I have now removed it. It is clearly stated on top of every page that there are affiliate links on the site. I spend 20+ hours weekly finding deals and updating the deal list. If it turns out the world hates this, I can stop doing it, close the site down, and do something else with my time. It seemed however some people found it useful, so I thought why not see if people found it useful.

dylz4• 7 years ago

I'd also be interested in why some of your external scripts are (very badly and slowly) trying to fingerprint the browser and do persistent tracking. Your aiva thing is triggering "site is attempting to load adobe flash" notice bars.

It also tries to spin up the GPU, ruining battery life.

I am curious if you've actually tried all of these, or if you're just going with whatever offers affiliate money, because a decent number are either pretty much ad-packed open source projects being sold with a windows GUI/the type of stuff you see on clickbank with a landing page that looks like spam/actual garbage/run by criminals.

jarym2• 7 years ago

I remember when Quip were on Appsumo and I went for it but couldn’t understand why they were doing lifetime deals. Then several months later Salesforce came along with a $300m acquisition and it all made sense - user base.

That said I will generally avoid ‘award winning’ software I’ve never heard of (after buying one Appsumo product I realised the software was a dud) and I also avoid any critical services (lifetime 10Tb cloud backup for $5... no way)

Show HN: Lifetime SaaS Deals (tired of paying monthly for biz tools?)

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