As I’m getting closer to the official launch of Tangara, I decided to change its revenue model to be subscription-based.
In the first post, I wanted to offer a way to self-host Tangara. After talking with interested creators, it was clear that the industry-standard SaaS model would be more straightforward for them.
Managing your own business and creating content is already a huge effort. There is no need to add the stress of managing servers on top of that.
It was clear that I still wanted to distinguish between existing solutions. I’m choosing a single pricing plan that includes all platform features.
The only limitation will be on resources that also cost me more when a customer has a high usage. Sending emails and disk storage are the only two limits; customers can add more resources as needed.
Customers who subscribe to the Tangara core plan get all the features. There’s no feature gating behind tiered plans. There’s one plan, one price, and it includes everything.
Customers who need to send more emails or disk storage increase the quantity to match their needs and pay for what they’re using.
Another disruptive benefit of using Tangara is its ability for a customer to host multiple websites under their single paid plan.
All websites share the same resources and must use the same Stripe and PayPal accounts. For example, I’m using Tangara to sell my online programming courses, and my wife also has a website to sell her online educational courses. Both websites are hosted under two domain names and have separate lists of categories, products, blogs, affiliates, communities, etc.
However, both websites use the same Stripe and PayPal accounts. It’s not uncommon for a creator to have two or three distinct websites. With Tangara, it does not cost anything more than the resources used for all websites combined.
You may host an unlimited number of websites. We’re not limiting the number of customers or community users you have. Those don’t cost Tangara more, so we don’t charge you more either.
Since I built Tangara as self-hostable software, it is still possible for a customer to decide to self-host. Although there’s no mention on the pricing page, it’s doable anytime. I’ll leave this as an option for discussion if a customer wants to do it. It’s another disruptive improvement over any competing solutions in this space.
Communities are a new feature that we added since the last version. They allow you to start a private community with customers of a product.
A community lets users post, read others’ messages, and reply to conversation threads.
The fact that a community is attached to a product opens many usage scenarios. For instance, you might be selling coaching for a batch of people, like “Batch June 2024”. Customers who purchase that product will have access to that community space, while your “Batch January 2025” would only have access to that and not the other.
Adding a community and keeping it alive is a great way to engage with your customers and increase after-sales values.
Another important feature we added is the blog module. Creating helpful and valuable content is still the best way to get organic traffic to your website.
Tangara allows you to start a blog on your website. Imagine having a constant flow of potential customers visiting your website and purchasing your products by reading one of your posts.
We’re working hard to finalize a minimal version for the official launch. If you plan on starting your content creation business, consider opening an early-stage account.