There is definitely a market for DIY solutions - people can build a site themseles practically for free if they want. There is a market for prefab WP themes and the like at around 300 - deployed on shared hosting etc. There is a market for a 1k website where someone doesn't fit into those other 2 options. Believe it or not there is a market for 10k, 20k, 200k websites. We're always going to have a 1k website option but we plan to include cheaper options too. I think perhaps if you can't fathom someone spending more than 300 bucks on a website, you probably haven't spent very long deploying websites for people.
Are you sure you have been deploying websites for people for a long time? For starters, you're comparing a CMS system with Wordpress themes, which by the way can easily climb into the 3k ~ 6k ($300 dollar themes are generally mass produced and not favorable for brands and companies, regardless of how beautiful they might be) price range if done by an experienced renowned designer. Second, there is surely a market for the 1k, 10k, and 100k websites, I never said otherwise.
You seem to be equating a CMS to a website and that is just not the case. Original and unique Wordpress themes can cost thousands of dollars because they are generally custom made, original works of great designers. Websites/Web applications/Web services can cost ten, even hundreds (and beyond!), of thousands of dollars because not only the design is custom made, the development of the application and system to management it is also made to order. Let's not even get to the part of how expensive A/B testing and user experience architecture can get.
What you are advertising right now is that you will give a free trial for a year... hosted by you guys for free... for a $999 setup fee? If that is the setup fee alone what will the cost of the CMS be? I'll be honest, I'd have no problem paying you 1k, hell I'd have no problem paying you double or triple that a year for a hosted solution, provided it really is the next big thing since sliced bread and has really great support. From what I saw in your website and video, you'll be directly competing with Squarespace, which offers a lot of the same overall functionality and costs $480 at the top tier without a yearly plan (and seems like it has more features), though I do want to point out that I like yours better from what I saw in the video since it looks a lot more polished IMO.
I've been developing websites for ages and acting as sysadmin for longer even, so I kind of don't appreciate the patronizing, specially since I'm saying I like your product. In any case my advice is this: develop a scalable and sensible pricing structure that will fit your target audience, listen to what your potential customers (read everybody here) have to say, and for gods sakes if you're going to offer a free trial make it really free (and for a month or two, a year is just overkill for a cms)... People will gladly part of hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars a year if they like your service, but paying a thousand dollars to try a CMS out just doesn't make much sense.
Edit: Also you really need to spruce up the design of your CMS's website. It really takes away merit won by the video.
"$300 dollar themes are generally mass produced and not favorable for brands and companies, regardless of how beautiful they might be)"
Yeah I was only referring to prefab themes in that price bracket
"What you are advertising right now is that you will give a free trial for a year... hosted by you guys for free... for a $999 setup fee? If that is the setup fee alone what will the cost of the CMS be?"
Okay so this is obviously a problem with how I'm communicating the deal. I was really pitching this at people who have a website already, whether it has a CMS or not, we'll "Decalify" it for $999 and host it free for a year. After that, you pay for the hosting.
"I've been developing websites for ages and acting as sysadmin for longer even, so I kind of don't appreciate the patronizing, specially since I'm saying I like your product. In any case my advice is this: develop a scalable and sensible pricing structure that will fit your target audience, listen to what your potential customers (read everybody here) have to say, and for gods sakes if you're going to offer a free trial make it really free (and for a month or two, a year is just overkill for a cms)... People will gladly part of hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars a year if they like your service, but paying a thousand dollars to try a CMS out just doesn't make much sense. Edit: Also you really need to spruce up the design of your CMS's website. It really takes away merit won by the video"
I wasn't meaning to patronise you - I suppose I had assumed we were essentially talking about "the same thing" however I clearly didn't articulate what was involved very well. To be honest I assumed the type of viewer I was pitching that video/deal at at the time would be unable to make the distinction between "website" and "CMS" - ie. they just want to know what it costs
And yes the design sux :) That was basically something I threw up there to give this thing some presence and it worked to an extent - we got a few early adopters mostly through an extended network and having a video online was a big part of that.
The design and launch pricing structure is something we're currently working on - and it sounds like HN is going to be a great place to get some feedback so thanks!
Incidentally what is the etiquette on hijacking someone else's thread like this??
It wasn't so much a problem of a price. It't that you say the platform is free to try and the hosting is free for a year... but you pay 1k in setup up costs. Most companies willing to part with their money to get a good CMS will have a CTO that's going to look at you product and say "I like it! What free hosting? Free trial for a year? Where do I signup!?! Oh wait... 1k in setup fees? :@ :@ :@"
Offer the same thing for a month with no setup fee and you'll get a lot more customers (though I don't know if that's what you are looking for at this point... maybe you're waiting for more infrastructure before a big launch, I apologize if this is the deal and I'm getting ahead of myself) and can probably build some following through word of mouth alone.
In any case I like your product, looks really polished, and I hope you guys hit it big. Good luck!
