I have had a lot of thought on this topic myself lately. I am a SaaS consumer spending monthly fees to companies each and every month for business and personal use. I try to only pay for the SaaS products I actively use and cancel the others to save cost.

So myself, I think, “How many others are doing this? Should I not build a SaaS product in case others will want to cancel my plan or not try my product as they are nervous to add *another* $5/month to their spending habits?”

I say it depends. Like Know Your Company does, use whatever business model works best for your market. Monthly subscriptions are being used by tons of companies today but there are other options. Annual subscriptions, one time fees, pay-per-use, pay per license, etc.

Not sure if “SaaS is ready for disruption”, I think of it more of “Hey founders, there are other options besides SaaS. Find whatever business model provides the best value for your customer instead of just picking the SaaS model because you can.”

It also comes down to being human. We as humans enjoy knowing how much something is going to cost me. Knowing “this software costs $50.” is better than “this software will start at $5 but could cost you $500 if you continue using it each and every month for extended periods of time” SaaS is accessible. It has a place in the market. There are use cases that work for it. In the service industry, people don’t like paying a programmer by the hour they would rather pay by the project. Sure is is harder to hand over $10k for developing the whole project instead of an initial $200 to get the project started, but at least you will know exactly how much it will cost you in the end.

You can still start a product online today that is hosted on a web server provided by yourself and license it out for use to others for a fee. Lots of value in that. Doesn’t mean you need to charge per month for it. Choose what your customer wants.

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Lots of ideas here to discuss. You bring up some great thoughts. It’s a great time to experiment with different business models and see what happens. *Tons* of business models out there. Finding the best one for your business is how you will survive.

Wow, so many thoughts in my head. So many ideas…