Could this kill Polar Habits? 🐻❄️
Curiosity killed the cat, but generosity might kill the bear.
Hey friend! 😊
It’s no secret that pricing products is hard. It’s a frequent topic of conversation in maker communities. 💬
But, few people talk about the challenges of figuring out the split between free and paid features in freemium products like Polar Habits.
I’ve always believed in doing the right thing, and that means offering a decent free plan that doesn’t force users to upgrade for what I’d consider basic features in a habit tracker. So, when it came to deciding how many habits a free user should be able to track, I thought “as many as they want.” ♾️
My rationale was that tracking habits is the most basic feature of a habit tracker, and therefore it should be free. Placing a limit on the number of habits—as most other habit trackers do—felt too arbitrary and meaningless to me.
I’m starting to see why I may have been wrong, though! 😬
The unique selling point of Polar Habits is its guilt-free Momentum system. I designed the system first and foremost for tracking daily habits, and that’s where it really shines. 📈
In fact, I didn’t even plan to support non-daily habits at first because the system didn’t fit that use case (I adapted it later.)
So, I ended up creating an app with a standout primary feature, made it free and unlimited for everyone, then tried charging for secondary features—like weekly habit tracking—that most people don’t need.
The people getting the most value out of the product—those tracking multiple daily habits over a long period of time—never need to pay for it. 💸
It feels backwards.
That’s why I’ve been thinking I may have been too generous with my free offering, and unless I find another standout feature to charge for, that level of generosity could kill the business. 💀
What’d happen if I limited free accounts to a maximum of 3 active (not counting archived/ended) habits? I’m afraid of turning people away, though that fear may be unfounded.
What do you think? Have I been too generous with the free tier? Or would I be shooting myself in the foot by introducing a limit?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for joining me on this ride. It means the world to me, so thank you! 🚗
Until next time,
Merott 💛
I love PolarHabits, and upgraded to premium because I appreciate it so much, not because I needed the extra features although I may use them.
I'm probably not the average user, and not sure if people are willing to pay, but the best way to find out is try.
I really think that the real money/solution is a sort of while label version that you can offer or partner with course and challenge creators/coaches. I'd love if I ran a challenge for 30 days based on 4-5 different habits for my clients/audience to be able to track it and share what they have done, and that I as the owner of the challenge can see statistics on the success rate of the challenge as a group and at an individual level.
Not sure that's a path you want to go down, but that's my 2 cents :)
Hi Merott! Just an idea: restrict habits should you like, but we should reflect the paying capability of the user. Keep in mind that especially for productivity products, a lot of people who really need them can't pay for them.
I like Reflection.app's model - they require Premium for stuff like syncing and extra features, but grant it free if they feel you have reasonable need while you can't pay for it. Nothing fancy, just one textbox of an application asking users to explain why they can't pay for the service.
Thank you for this wonderful idea and the courage to build a niche product! BTW, do you think streaks are always useless? I've been using polar habits for all my habits now, but I'm concerned that I'm being too lenient with myself because yk, it's just momentum and it bounces back. Are there some habits you think streaks are better for? Or maybe some number of habits you should have streaks for?