I\'m working on a cloud platform, and was curious what people prefer in terms of
ID: 648608 • Letter: I
Question
I'm working on a cloud platform, and was curious what people prefer in terms of paying for web services.
There's the option of very simple pricing (tiers and such), which is easy to project costs on, easy to compare, but (possibly significantly) more expensive for the average user, because you're always either underpaying or overpaying.
The other option is a complicated pricing structure with many different factors, a lot harder to project costs on, but you're literally paying only for what you use, so it comes out to a lower price for the average user.
Which do you prefer?
Explanation / Answer
Like all good questions, the answer depends. It depends on your application: Is it something you are likely going to be using periodically? A lot on some days of every month and very little the rest of the month? Once a year? Then a pay-as-you-go model would be 'nicer'.
It also depends on the sophistication of your users. Will they bother to do the mental arithmetic if you explain the PAYG model to them? Will they care?
How much will your users be spending? $5? $10? They might simple not care for that amount of money to optimize their experience and would probably rather go for something that is simple or easy.
Could the two models make a differences as large as $1000? Then you might find people are more than willing to have a look at the PAYG terms...