I don't know how much of that $10k was for web design but however much it was it was money well spent.
Interesting choices in the pricing plans. I'm not sure I like using SSL as a differentiator -- I know it is quite common these days for many web apps, but particularly with invoicing you're putting third party (client of client) financial information out on an open wire because somebody was too cheap to pick the $50 a month plan.
Only charge for things that actually cost you time or money
I can't agree with that. I charge money for software, which is free at the margin. My customers don't feel ripped off about it, because their time is not.
The worry with SSL is the security implication (particularly for people who had no option to say "Please treat my data as non-sensitive! I totally don't mind!"), not the fact that the code is making an arbitrary distinction between user classes despite the cost to the company being the same for all users (essentially nothing at the margin).
I meant that you shouldn't charge for things that customers have the perception of being free to you. People don't seem to like that. A customer will think "Oh, more invoices if I pay X dollars more!" and that's tangible. Those are physical invoices stored somewhere.
But when you try to charge for something stupid like the ability to change colors or something, that seems to make people angry. I've done user testing with payment tiers, and whenever someone asks "Why does this cost more? That's stupid" they immediately have a bad taste in their mouth about the product. And that's a first impression before they have even started to use it.
These days it's pretty negligible, at least in my experience. If you every get to the point where the SSL handling CPU load is a problem, you're driving a TON of traffic and hopefully can afford another box or two, or an F5 to off-load the SSL.
I've been involved with some REALLY big sites, and SSL didn't really impact performance at all.
Interesting choices in the pricing plans. I'm not sure I like using SSL as a differentiator -- I know it is quite common these days for many web apps, but particularly with invoicing you're putting third party (client of client) financial information out on an open wire because somebody was too cheap to pick the $50 a month plan.