SaaS Lifetime Deals are pretty opposite to what a SaaS solution is supposed to be – a recurring subscriptions business. LTDs offer users lifetime access to the tool for a one-time payments. Please note that lifetime here means the lifetime of the app.
But there is a reason why builders prefer Lifetime Deals. Let us explore the same 👇🏻
- Lifetime Deals offer early cash to the builders. While they may turn out to be -ve in the longer run but they allow builders to get upfront cash which the builders can use to improve the product and build the subscriptions business. In some cases, Lifetime Deals may be net zero or net positive as well, in terms of margins.
- Lifetime Deals are a great source of brutal feedback. When we launched Podnotes on AppSumo, little did we know that we will get so much feedback that helped us shape our product. We were able to generate $25K in 6 months. Our competitor did $600K in 6-8 months on AppSumo. Supergrow also did very well on RocketHub.
- Builders upsell to customers once the customers are onboarded onto the Lifetime Plans. Users get to use the base features for life but require booster packs or subscriptions to use the advanced features.
- Lifetime Deals are generally sold either directly or via platforms such as AppSumo or RocketHub or via Facebook Groups.
- Pabbly Connect, a zapier altenrative, built their entire business around lifetime deals over a Facebook Group
We do not recommend Lifetime Deals if your product incurs a variable cost every time the user uses the product (such as an API cost) as it becomes very difficult to make financial sense out of such deals.