We have finally decided on what we are going to charge for adderuppa. The subscription code is not quite finished, and so for now it remains free of charge, but as of some time in the new year, we will be charging ….

£2.50 per month flat rate. The user defines a higher rate if they feel like it.

Today I downloaded Radiohead’s In Rainbows and paid nothing for it. Having bought their last few albums it was almost a certainty that I would buy a copy of this anyway, but because of their capacity for hit ‘n’ miss, doubt had crept in.

Flicking through the tracks it didn’t take long to decide to buy the deluxe vinyl version. Would I have paid anything if that physical set had not been available ? Yes. Why ? Because listening to ( some of ) this music brings joy. I don’t know where Mr Yorke and gang live, so I can’t knock on their door and tell them how much I like certain passages, I can’t buy them several beers, but would like to show some appreciation for the fact that they recorded their music and put it out there for us to share, and for me to enjoy.

I can do that by donating an amount that makes sense to me.

When trying to set a minimum monthly fee for adderuppa we were initially settling on about £5.00 per month. This isn’t a great deal if you live in the UK. However, £5.00 translated into some currencies is a sizeable amount, and so would potentially put off a large amount of users.

Most of us using these sorts of services are freelancers. The average freelancer’s income tends to be a bit of a peak-trough affair. During the troughs it might be difficult to justify paying for a more feature-rich tariff, but we still often need those features if we have become used to them during the peaks.

What to do then ? Give users the chance to reflect how much they can afford, and to dictate how much they would like to pay. Does it really sound so absurd ? Wouldn’t you enjoy the flexibility ?