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A recap of charging to post for hosts (msg to providers)
Let me preface this by formerly stating you're an idiot if you rely on any single platform for 100% of your business.
Now, let's continue:
$200 a year really isn't that bad of a deal.
If you can't afford it, you don't have a business, you have a charity.
My average cost per lead is $3 right now in my own business.
My cost per click is about $1, so for every 3 clicks, I get about one opt-in.
$3 per lead, with about a 1% conversion rate on a $497 product.
That means, it costs me literally $300 to make a $197 profit, and it's up to me to make the real money on the backend.
In the real world when you actually pay for advertising, it's extremely insignificant to pay $200 to make significantly more on the backend.
Take advantage of this platform while it exists, it's currently profitable to pay for the tag... and milk it until the cow runs dry.
/discuss
Comments
I totally agree with you here. Pennies.
I've said it before the Patron Provider is ON SALE!
Not really sure what the point of this thread is. From what I have seen, it is regular members rather than providers making the most fuss about the charge. A few providers have been vocal but most have sensibly made a silent decision.
Providers will either pay or they won't, their choice, If they don't pay, whether that is because they can't pay or won't pay it's not for anyone but them to be comfortable with that choice.
I suspect all you will see other than those few vocal providers are regular members, like me, chiming in on a thread that will go nowhere.
Not for you or me to tell providers whether they should or need to pay to post offers. Neither of us knows their business, financials or anything else to tell them what they should do.
$200 a year is literally a rounding error when you're running Google Ads or similar campaign.
The point of this thread isn't to convince.
It's merely to cast a new perspective. Like you said, it's up to them.
Here's the thing, a lot of providers here only post offers occasionally. It doesn't really make financial sense to pay $200/year only to post offers a couple of times each year which usually don't generate enough profit/revenue to make back the cost. Most LET members also look for the unsustainable/extremely low margin deals to purchase.
For those who rely on LET for advertising, yes, it might make sense for them.
Sure, so buy it and take full advantage of it if you're serious about growth.
Business comes down to 3 things:
1) A good offer.
2) Getting eyeballs on your offer.
3) Converting more of those eyeballs.
The amount of eyeballs you're getting for $200 is presently worth it. In a year from now? Maybe not.
I wonder how @Cam justified the $200 even if he only posts two threads a year, around the same time when MegaThreads are available.
He has 10 servers each costs $80/month and hosts 1000 $2/year containers.
$200/year would eat away 5% of his profit, not exactly a rounding error.
So far, he entirely relies on this forum. All of his eyeballs come from here.
$2,000 - $800 - $200 = $1,000. That's better than zero.
That's basically $1,000 of free money.
For me, it was less about the money than it was about the worth. I don't post many offers here, because I don't want to lower my price a lot. This isn't really my target market and making a living off of people who want the world for nothing was never part of my business plans.
To put it simply, I'd rather have fewer clients that pay more than more clients who pay less. It's just easier to manage things, provide support, and maintain a good service that way. Competing on price isn't our niche.
We officially turn one years old tomorrow and I did a big promotion elsewhere, even at those discounts you'd be better off just drawing a random LET brand from a hat if you're only interested in price.
I have started messing around with a bit of social media advertising, but that's mainly to promote domain registrations than it is hosting.
With that said I may still buy it for a quarter to push some big updates we're working on once they become live but my offer threads will be inherently annoying and bumped continuously so I can milk it for what it's worth. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
EDIT: If every provider bought the tag then posted an offer as much as they possibly could to justify the worth, this place wouldn't be LowEndTalk, it'd be LowEndOffers and the visitor base would just go somewhere that isn't floodfilled with offers.
"I'd rather have fewer clients that pay more."
I like that, you're exactly right. I follow that philosophy in my own business in an entirely different market (copywriting / media buying).
You're correct in that aspect. It'll save you headaches.
Build an email list. Buy some email drops. Build a relationship.
Your unique selling point is being reliable but allowing more than others allow. Appeal to that audience.
We finally agree, weasel.
I've been wondering....what happens if a provider who's a bit wonky has paid for a tag, and we turn up and shit all over the thread, call out the provider etc, then the provider complains to management - where does it end up?
I am imagining a PayPal chargeback chain party. Users to host. Host to LET.
where shall we get started on this test?
LET Thought Police will handle that, I guess.
We need to wait for one to pay. We took apart the CP clown the other day so I guess he never paid the invoice in the first place, need another like him to test the waters...
damn shouldnt have jumped the gun on mayomayo
Nah not mayo, the CP-Hosting guy who was asking for a provider tag
oh that was a waste
Yup, need to play the long game next time, let these clowns pay the fee and then take'em apart.
Agreed.
Exactly not.
I came to know about @cam from Google Search and Other forums and
later more info about plans from vps search lists. These were years before
i came to know about LEB and eventually LET.
@cam may generously have paid for provider tag here at LET.
As per @cam ovz boxes and bundles are provided at such a
margin price while providing consistent good services and support
for years he is one of the best providers.
Yeah I got a vps from him a while ago because I just googled "cheap nat vps"
Not sure if it is just naivety or you still don't really understand the lowend mentality where good business acumen does not apply to most hosts.
Sure, there are some providers that can command sales at a profitable level, not for most, they are competing at the bottom end of both market and pricing here.
Loss leaders with little opportunity to be developed and break-even deals are a necessity for hosts on here to get noticed or stand a chance of gaining customers.
Do a great BF deal at $10 and gain 100 customers at a loss or break even. But I can assure you that coming to this BF if someone else offers the same for $9 then 75%+ of those customers will bail. For those that stay, you will get nothing more from them unless it's cheaper again.
10 customers paying $10 will always be better than 100 customers paying $1. But the former is significantly harder to achieve than the latter in places like LET.
You have some claiming to do great at LET, turning over a million or whatever, but, it's akin to a Ponzi scheme. You do cheap, recurring deals and that means you need more and more customers. Try and change the pricing down the line and they will leave. So your costs go up and you can't increase pricing except on new deals. It will either fail at some point or you jump before it does either by selling or running.
Once you have made a few of those loss-leader or break-even deals, nobody, will take you seriously at a 'normal, profitable' level of doing business and therefore, won't buy at $10 because you have a history of doing lots of deals at $5. So the chance of converting is next to zero.
A good business approach is to use LET sparingly, not rely on it. Far too many come to be entirely dependent on LET and can't get away from unprofitable, shitty clients.
What does success look like? Even if you said it was being able to make a 40-hour minimum wage (country dependent) each week. I can pretty much guarantee, that less than 10% of providers here can even achieve that.
Get off LET, find your market/niche/USP and develop that in the right places. It's hard, but that is why LET is so appealing to many, it's easier and removes the need to work hard to build an audience.
Who would have thought offering something cheaper than it really costs to run would be easier than charging enough to make a living!
Business comes down to 3 things:
2) d e a d p o o l
I just had to fix your math there. I also wouldn't assume that's the end of the costs (panel costs, support costs, not all sold, etc etc).
When a bulk of the cost model is sunk the final 25 percent of capacity is where you get nearly 1:1 translation to the bottom line. Keeping servers full equals the best profitability. Used properly LowEndTalk is an amazing tool towards achieving that goal and thus enabling long term, reliable and sustainable profitability.
i think you might be wearing out the word amazing, sir.
Insert a synonym that better suits your preference. The point is the same.
.
Have about you use a different word to keep it fresh and keep us interested. Here are some suggestions for you:
Providers choosing this exact strategy to maximise their $200 is what would lead to a lot of crap, oversold offers and lead to this place becoming WHT.
It’s almost as if you’re begging people to become the next Alpharacks. Their VPSes were oversold to the point where simply SSHing in would cause 100% CPU usage.