I think pricing works in mysterious ways. There are a lot of variables.

- what is the market willing to pay - does this solve the core problem - how much is this problem worth (hint time is the most valuable thing in the world)

I don't think it should be more expensive than adobe products at all. My goal is to make it cost efficient for most folks who don't have large budgets. However here are a few points.

- hiring someone could cost a non adobe user $800 for 2-3 videos (this is way more than an adobe product because you are paying for time and skill) - assets and templates depending on usage can easily cost $100 for a few videos on envato (this also enables non creative users to create professional looking content which solves the problem above). - if users can move faster and can iterate faster then they make more money (this applies to serious users who know what they're doing and agencies with a higher budget)

Just some of my thoughts. There is no magic bullet for pricing but I think the number one rule I have found with pricing is that it's relative. If Tiffany & co can sell a $1.5k paper clip https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-obje... then pricing is really what you make of it.

There are variables and you have to know what your target audience is willing to pay. My idea on pricing is that I want to 10x your investment. So if I am charging $20 per month. I want you making at least $200 from the service.

If you're an agency making $10,000 from the service I am going to charge $1k

Targeting the $10-15 price range per month for the lower tiers is ideal. This would basically sit just under adobe's costs, but there wouldn't be the time investment of learning their tools, and the user doesn't need a beefy computer. There's also a good possibility that a small chunk of potential customers may only be using a phone.

Keep things reasonably priced and allow your user base to grow. There is a huge market for the casual user.

True.

I have considered a one time fee with upgrades.

Don't. No matter how many people vocally moan about subscriptions (myself included), the fact is if you are actually creating value for users then people will pay them.

One time fees lead to bloated software, most of the money is in making upgrade versions and forcing users to pay again, which means there is a huge financial incentive to constantly add features that sound cool whether or not users actually use them.

For pricing IMO your starting sweet spot will be around $10/month. There's a benefit in charging something and getting people signed up with their card details. At some point in the future you may find it beneficial to charge $5/m to get more users through the door and make money through extras. Just my 2 cents.

How many people know how to use AfterEffects or can spend time learning it? Its not this app vs After Effects. Its this vs hiring someone who knows to use After Effects.

Or this vs spending time learning to use a professional video editing tool

There's two kinds of users here, users who don't want to pay $20/m but have time (e.g. students) and users who have little time to learn AE but more money. They want to capture both. So the approach is to make the starting price appropriate for group A and then find something that group B wants and upsell it to them.

> pushing to increase price serious?

I agree. I'm puzzled why this is getting so much excitement, it's hardly in the ballpark of "After Effects".

Let's see your product that you've coded?

I spent years learning to code. Dropped everything to live in a car in Silicon Valley so I didn't have to work at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.

I then worked my way up to a $200k salary. Quit that to pursue being an entrepreneur.

Last year I made $20k and risked it all for this.

Thanks for your time and energy checking it out though. I'm looking forward to your version and if you have a role then I will gladly come work for you.

Cheers

Don't get defensive dude, it's obnoxious. All he said is it's not in the ballpark as a product that has hundreds of developers and over a quarter of a century of development effort.

To be fair, the comment he was responding to didn't have any value. All it basically said was "I don't understand why people like this", which, in my opinion, is a lot more obnoxious than the response.

People who create and put things out into the world deal with these sort of comments all the time. I think it's fair to be critical of them.

Calm down buddy, this is your show HN, try to take the high road, also dropping your salary is not the classiest thing to do.

It's completely fair to compare your product to its competitors (especially one you referenced in your post title) when discussing the pricing scheme you landed on.

Yikes, someone's got a chip on their shoulder :)

You're in your emotions whereas you should be making calculated moves to increase your chances of success, off of free exposure you're getting here on HackerNews.

Your project looks really nice, it is nowhere close to the feature set AfterEffects offers and that's a fact - it has nothing to do with you as a person or your journey.

Furthermore, your project is not competing with AfterEffects, it is competing with Fiverr or not bothering with adding 'effects' to videos at all.

I'm curious and would like to understand it a little bit better:

You had a well paying job which would allowed you, in only 5-10 years to basically buy a house for half a million and then retire with the other half million.

What motivated you to build an Online Service?

What are your thoughts on your competitors? Like i do like your product from a first view perspective, butwhen i google 'online video editor' i do find a lot of alternative products.

Are there any long term plans when you would say you made it or where you would pull the plug?

I'd be able to live with the failure knowing I took my best shot at being an entrepreneur. Opposed to living a somewhat comfortable life not trying at all.

It's been a burning desire of mine. I truly fear regretting not doing this. If it fails, I am happy to try again.

I am ok with making $20k per year for the rest of my life if it means every year I can wake up shooting my shot to build something useful to others.

In regards to competition I am not afraid in the slightest. I do not fear others, they are just flesh and blood like I am.

That said I am reasonable when someone has a certain position, the good thing about space and time is that with proper course correction you too can find your own position. With correct defensibility you can own a certain position for as long as you have a good stance.

Video has been around since the first animators drew images in a flip book. It's not going anywhere. I believe there are gaps and this game is not zero sum.

I will continue to expand my knowledge on physics, computers, marketing, engineering, human/consumer psychology. I will continue to build relationships and find ways to leave people better than I found them. These are my principles and in these principles I feel confident.

Congrats on making the sacrifice to build something, and then following through to releasing this first public version. You will likely do quite well.

I would suggest, if I may, that you are going to get a lot of people dismissing your product, both now and in the future. If this is your first time being in the seat of both the creator and the public face for something you've worked so hard for, it's going to feel uncomfortable, and you will want to be defensive about their comments -- it won't seem justified that someone could make what feels like a low-effort, flippant comment about something you put so much time into.

In general it will be better to let it slide. They were not going to be your customers anyway. Lots of people will misunderstand who your target customer is. Power-users will say "why would I use this?" Or people who don't need any videos will say "there is no market for this." It doesn't matter, so long as people who are your target market see the value in it.

But more importantly, focusing on dismissive comments will take a psychological toll on you. You'll be sitting at dinner and feel angry about the jerk on the forum who said your work had no value. You've done great work, and letting those comments gnaw on you may make you doubt yourself, or think less of what you've built.

It's OK that not everyone sees the value in your product, nor should they: it just means you intelligently defined who you're going after. And that's great.

It'll take some practice and time to not feel the sting of negative comments, and the desire to argue with them -- to prove them wrong. See if you can be aware of your own emotions about them, and why they make you feel the way they do. As you do, you'll become fairly immune to it, and it'll help you truly enjoy the fruits of your entrepreneurial labor. This is a normal experience a lot of people go through.

Congrats again on a fantastic release, and for the dedication to give up so much to make this happen.

I would love to hear from you in 1-3 years again to see how your journey continues;

Its always interesting to see that a lot of people see things different :)

What? $200 year salary will have tax on it. Thats not your take home, then you also have to eat, live, pay rent for your current place.

Sure it will but if you earn already 200k a year, your potential includes an increase over the next 5 years;

And sure thats probably slightly easy calculated but personally for me, living 5 years very frugual and then buying a house and then doing another 5 years and then stop working, is very reasonable when you have a salary like that.

The first 5 Years might mean saving a lot, but then you own a house. Payed, mortgage free; Very low base costs.

Depending on how big that house is, you are now able to invest even more longterm: Solar Power for example to keep your utility costs very low.

but..but... can you reverse a linked list? JK! Hope all of your sacrifices paid off!

But your time isn't. What this product does is saves time, which ultimately saves money. The proof will be how many agencies and marketers this appeals to.

When you can charge a mid-sized e-commerce company $2500 a month for social media output, $99/mo is nothing.

Exactly it's all relative. It's bound to value, users are looking to get an ROI but if they have insane budgets etc then it's really just relative to the audience and the perceived value.