Unlimited Free Forms Were the Whole Marketing Budget
Tally gives away what competitors meter, converts about 2% of users to paid, and passed $5M ARR bootstrapped. The math only works because free users do the distribution.
Topic
Pricing
What to charge and how: price setting, billing models, and the confidence to raise.
Zero Employees, 2,000 Customers, Millions a Year
Mike Perham has run Sidekiq alone since 2012: a free open source core, paid Pro and Enterprise tiers, and a no-discounts rule. Here is how the machine works.
One Person, 2.5 Million Sites: The Case for Charging $19 a Year
AJ built Carrd alone, priced Pro at $19 a year, and passed $1M ARR with zero paid advertising. The cheap price is the strategy, and it only works in one specific configuration.
The Cheaper Microsoft 365 Plan Sits Behind the Cancel Button. The CMA Opened a Case on 29 July
Classic plans keep the old feature set at the old price: 59.99 pounds a year against 84.99 for Personal. Microsoft does not document a route to them. What two regulators say happened, and the renewal audit to run.
One Designer, One Trello Board, $4,995 a Month: How Designjoy Is Built
Brett Williams sells design as a subscription with one request at a time and a 48-hour turnaround, alone. The price started at $449 a month in 2017 and took three years to pass $10k a month.
The Tip Jar That Became a $90-a-Year Subscription: CardPointers, Run by One Person
Emmanuel Crouvisier added a Pro tier to his credit card app at the last minute. Within a year it was earning more than his day job, on costs he puts in the hundreds per month.
Cursor Priced India at 649 Rupees: How to Choose and Defend a Second Country Price
World Bank purchasing power parity data gives you a defensible starting number for a regional price. Here it is for ten countries, next to what Cursor actually charged, plus the two mechanisms that ship a second price and the checkout dropdown that undoes one of them.
Your AI Bill Does Not Name a Customer: Three Layers That Fix Attribution
Provider cost reports group by workspace, model and day, never by your customer. The three layers of instrumentation that produce a per-customer number, with the exact fields to send and a worked conversion from one usage row to dollars.
How Daniel Vassallo Made $210,822 in Nine Months Selling One PDF and One Video
Vassallo published a line-by-line accounting of two digital products: a 173-page PDF and a 100-minute video. It shows which tweet earned what, which price cut worked, and which channel he abandoned.
New Jersey Just Banned Surveillance Pricing: The Line Your Pricing Engine Has to Stay Behind
Three states have now written personalised pricing into statute, and New Jersey signed on 23 July. The scope differences, the exemptions that keep loyalty discounts legal, and an afternoon inventory of every field that touches your price.
$6,000 and a Loan: How Tuft & Needle Reached $170 Million in Revenue Without Venture Capital
Two engineers put in $3,000 each in 2012 and built a mattress company to $170 million in revenue. Their competitors raised hundreds of millions. The difference was what they did instead of raising.
Open-Weight Models Are the New Budget Tier: A Price Map for AI Features
Open-weight models served over API now cost 10-50x less than frontier flagships. The price map from providers' own pages, a worked monthly bill with a 100x spread, and a three-tier routing rule.
The Power-User Problem: Pricing AI Features When Every Click Has a Cost
Cursor and Replit tore up flat pricing within weeks of each other, for the same reason: per-user costs vary by an order of magnitude. The math behind the pattern, and four structures that survive it.
After Patreon's Layoffs: What Membership Platforms Charge, and What You Can Take With You
Patreon cut 93 jobs while taking 10% of creator income. A fee comparison across Patreon, Substack and Ghost, and the question that matters more: who owns your subscriber billing?
Hourly or Fixed Price? Decide by Scope, Not Philosophy
Freelancers argue billing models like religions. The practical answer is a two-question matrix - how definable is the scope, how long is the engagement - plus a buffer rule for every fixed quote.
Your First Price Is Too Low: How to Set One You Can Defend
Founders anchor to early adopters, price for friction, then never revisit. Why underpricing compounds, what the evidence says, and a three-part method: cost floor, comparable band, and a scheduled reset.