Introducing the Pricing Plan

Introduction

It's been more than a year since PPResume was launched. 1450+ users have registered, 1480+ resumes have been created. Here's a timeline:

• September 6, 2023, PPResume was launched officially, got 15 registered users and 2 bug reports
• September 14, 2023, 50 registered users
• October 21, 2023, launched first demo video (opens in a new tab)—damn, making video is so hard for me
• October 26, 2023, 100 registered users
• October 31, 2023, launched this blog with first post (opens in a new tab)
• January 21, 2024, launched the new auth flow (opens in a new tab) for PPResume, which is powered by logto (opens in a new tab)
• February 20, 2024, launched Google Sign In (opens in a new tab) to further simplify the onboarding process
• March 7, 2024, 300 registered users
• March 14, 2024, launched the docs site (opens in a new tab), starting with a resume typesetting guide (opens in a new tab)
• April 9, 2024, upgraded the UI library and revamped the landing page
• April 19, 2024, 500 registered users, got a traffic spike with 1200 UV/day
• April 24, 2024, 700 registered users
• May 18, 2024, transformed PPResume to a PWA (opens in a new tab), with boosted performance and optimal offline experience
• June 1, 2024, 1000 registered users
• July 12, 2024, launched multi languages support (opens in a new tab)

We are making steady progress, step by step, however, there have been no updates since July 12, what's going on?

You have probably already guessed the answer, as the title of this post suggests, we are introducing a pricing plan today!

I wrote the first line of code for PPResume on December 20, 2022. It took me 8 months to launch PPResume to the public, and then almost a year to further improve and optimize it. Although PPResume is still not as good as I expect it to be, it is time to introduce a pricing plan to make the product more sustainable in the long term.

Slow Down

There are countless posts over the internet suggesting doing products in a move- fast way. So, what it means by moving fast?

• do a MVP in weeks or even days or even hours with the help of AI
• reach out to some users and inivite them give a try to the MVP
• if the feedbacks is not good as expected, throw the MVP to trash
• do a new MVP and loop forward

I personally do not favor this way of doing things. People has heard so many stories like:

• "got 10k MRR with 3 months, and here's how to do that"
• "tech is not important, what matters is marketing"
• "no need to waste time for pixel perfect design, ship fast instead"

No no no, marketing is important, tech is important, performance is important, design is important, UI/UX is important, and so on. In essence, you should respect your users, respect your code, respect your design. Do not throw a poorly designed and implemented products in fronte of users' and yell at them to try it.

For me, as the timeline shows, PPResume took 8 months from the first line of code to launch, and then almost a year to polish, polish and polish, and even now it's still far from perfect in my eyes. What I want to deliver is a product that is a carefully crafted, designed and implemented with bottom up respect for its users. That is why I spend 2 months optimizing the auth flow, and another 2 months optimizing the performance, with zero revenue at all—all these optimizations happens before the launch of a pricing plan.

I believe that my effort and hard work is paying off, even though PPResume only has 1450+ registered users at the moment. The fact is, PPResume's sign up rate is above 10%, while in contrast (opens in a new tab):

According to WordStream's benchmark report, the average Sign Up Rate for SaaS websites ranges between 2% to 5%, with top performing sites converting at more than 11%

From March to September, PPResume got 9.6k unique visitors and around 1.2k registered users, the sign up rate is around 12.5%, which is clearly a top performing figure for a SaaS product.

And that's not all, PPResume users come from all over the world, despite the fact that we have invested almost no marketing budget.

Pricing Model

To be honest, I am not doing PPResume just for kindness, instead, I want to make some profit, no need to be shy and hide that fact. After one year's constantly polishing, PPResume already got some tractions, with a small user base as well, it is time for me to introduce a pricing plan.

The first thing to consider when introducing a pricing plan is, which pricing model to adopt?

The pricing model is really a complicated topic with SaaS products. It is one of core decisions you need to make when doing a SaaS product simply because pricing model is tightly coupled with the design and implementation of the product. Stripe pricing model 101 (opens in a new tab) listed some types of pricing models:

• Subscription model
• Usage-based model
• Tiered pricing
• Freemium model
• Per-user pricing
• Flat-rate model

Competitors' Decision

Most resume builders on the market adopt subscription model, i.e, customers pay a set rate regularly, often monthly or annually. For example:

As you can see, novoresume (opens in a new tab) is the only exception that offers non-recurring billing.

Initially I also considered adopting subscription model, but then I spoke to some PPResume customers who told me that they would very reluctant to pay if I took the subscription model.

That is understandable. Why? Because most people don't update their resumes in a daily basis, most likely, people would only spend quite amount of time updating their resumes carefully when looking for a job or applying for a scholarship, and this period won't last for too long, normally less than 6 months. When people got a offer, their resumes would become static and untouched for quite a while, until next time when they are looking for a new job or applying for another scholarship. It doesn't make sense for resume builder to charge people in a monthly basis because most people won't update their resumes every month, and hosting a resume in a server database would cost less than a penny.

PPResume's Decision

As concluded above, it is unethical for resume builder to adopt a subscription model, that is why PPResume takes the Freemium model, more specifically, PPResumes takes a Pay As You Go model.

Put it simply, PPResume offers two plans:

• a Pro plan which has full access to PPResume
• a Free plan which has limited access—users can not update resumes, however, the hosting is free forever

Besides, PPResume offers a 14 days free Trial plan to all new customers which has the same full access as the Pro plan. At the end of the free trial period, customers can choose to upgrade to a Pro plan, or stay on the Free plan.

The Pro plan is also very flexible in terms of the period of the plan. PPResume offers four Pro plan period, i.e, a week, a month, a quarter or a year. The longer period you purchase, the more discount you get. For example, a Pro month plan is 25% off compared to 4 Pro week plans, and a Pro quarter plan is 25% off compard to 3 Pro month plans, same discount applies to the Pro year plan.

With all these setup, customers can enjoy the free resume hosting forever, and only pay when they need to update their resumes. For example:

• if customers only need to modify a small part of an existing resume, then they could purchase a Pro week plan for instant update
• if customers are looking for a new job, they may need to constantly update their resumes for a month or a quarter, then they could purchase a Pro month or a Pro quarter plan
• finally, for true lovers of PPResume, they could support PPResume by purchasing a Pro year plan

Compared to other resume builders on the market, PPResume charges the lowest fees. And most importantly, it doesn't charge in a recurring way, you don't have to worry about being charged additional fees if you forgot to pause or cancel your subscriptions.

Payment Processing

The last thing I want and also need to talk about is payment processing. People may worry about the security of their payment information and I just want to guarantee that all transactions are 100% secure.

Behind the scenes, PPResume adopt Stripe (opens in a new tab) as the payment processor which complies with with the PCI standards and also has the highest levels of security measures (opens in a new tab) that are available.

Once again, I want to emphasize that all PPResume plan are non-recurring, one-time charge, we said no to the subscription model so you don't have to worry to be charged every month!

Early Bird Discount

Last but not least, all customers that register before November 1, 2024 will get a 50% Early Bird discount. This discount will be applied automatically when checking out a Pro plan. The Early Bird program will valid for a year till November 1, 2025.

Look ahead

With the introduction of a pricing plan, I hope both PPResume and I, as a father of two, can be self-sustainable in a year or two.

In the meantime, I will continue to improve PPResume with long-awaited features and bug fixes. I've created a public roadmap (opens in a new tab) and published it in our community, check it out if you want to comment or contribute.

Any feedbacks would be highly appreciated!