How much should LegendKeeper cost?

Hey everyone! Sorry for lack of updates! I've been hard at work trying to get the feature set for Beta Phase 2.

Beta Phase 1

I've decided to expand Phase 1 rather than keep it limited to a handful of people. We are at 31 beta testers and growing! The testers are giving tons of feedback and finding lots of bugs to fix, which is great. 

I appreciate everyone's patience during this time. It's starting to hit me what a huge undertaking LegendKeeper is, and how far it's gotten. I appreciate everyone's support. It is possible to get into Beta Phase 1 as Wizard Tier, but I'm rolling people on slowly, day by day. This allows me to focus on critical bugs, rather than worrying about how many users are affected. I'm balancing my time between the community's needs, bug reports, and features I need for Phase 2. I'm constantly trying to assess how I spend my time, and right now the strategy is grow slowly. I'm wearing a lot of hats, and soon it will be time to expand the team more.

Let's Talk About Money

So what's needed to move on from here? The biggest thing is the account/ permission system.  This system handles file sizes, total account storage, map sizes, and other things. As I let more people on, I do see my data bills growing. They are small at this point, but it remains that I need a way to control how much users cost. 

So what's my plan here? First, starting a few months ago, I began putting every dollar of Patreon money into a server fund. This fund gives me flexibility while I figure out how to pay for everything long-term. 

Second, I'm thinking about monetization more, and I would like your input on the topic. Compared to other services you use, what do you think is reasonable? I look at services like Notion and Dropbox as examples for pricing models. Other tools in the domain, such as WorldAnvil and RealmWorks, are good to look at also.

So what can differ between free and paid versions of the app? Here's a few examples:

Things I must limit and cannot compromise on:

• Total world storage for images, maps and attachments (e.g. Free: 200MB, Paid: 10GB)
• Per image/attachment file size (e.g. Free: 1MB, Paid: 10MB)
• Map file size (e.g. Free: 5MB, Paid: 100MB)

Things I could limit, provided it makes sense:

• Number of worlds / projects (e.g. Free: 1 private world, Paid: Unlimited multi-user worlds)
• Number of users per world (Free: 3, Paid: 7+)
• Map size in pixels (Free: 2k x 2k, Paid: 20k x 20k pixels)
• Advanced sharing features (user groups, admins, editors, community-building features like comments and forums, etc)

Things I'd prefer not to limit, but could in theory:

• Ads vs no ads. (I'd prefer not to have ads at all, but if the app is too popular with free tier users, it may become necessary.)
• Number of documents. (I don't know about you, but I'd get a mental block knowing my wiki could only become so large.)

Things that both versions must have:

• Bulk export
• Private worlds (No "everything is public" business like some other tools out there...)

More experimental, "ultra-premium" stuff:

• Publicly hosted worlds for fan sites and communities
• White labeling / custom domains
• Mega user counts (10-1000)

When I did the survey, the average desired price landed between 3 and 8 dollars per month. That's a big range, but is true to the reality, tending towards the higher side of it. I'd also like to offer a yearly discount, but I want the platform to have some momentum first.

My Goal

I want to create a world-building platform that empowers creativity at a fair cost. I want to be transparent through this process, so feedback and questions please! Current beta testers, I know you're out there, and would love to get your point of view, also. 

Talk to me! 

Braden