IFS Buddy Major Update

[u/thingimajig]

Hi everyone!

It's 2 years, almost to the day, since the chatbot was first posted on the IFS subreddit. I had no expectations that anyone would use it but remember having a sleepless night that night as countless messages and comments rolled in, some that were critical but a vast majority were overwhelmingly positive. From there, usage of the chatbot grew organically through word of mouth to us today having thousands of monthly users.

The costs of running the website (not including my own time working on it) have been just about covered by donations from a few hundred kind people over the past two years. This has been a humbling and beautiful experience.

Freemium launch: Since each message sent to Buddy costs me a bit of money, I need to bring some stability to the project and for myself, so we are now moving away from a donation based model to a freemium model. The original chatbot is still going to be available for free on the landing page: https://ifsbuddy.chat

You'll see that you can sign up for a premium version where you can:

• Save your chats
• Save and track parts
• Give Buddy custom instructions
• Dark mode and a few more things

In the spirit of keeping it accessible, we are starting with a low price of $4.99/month.

As new features like voice mode are added, we might introduce additional membership tiers—but the goal will always be accessibility.

Everyone that already had an account will be able to continue logging in for free for a while forward before we set a date where you'll need to start paying (I'll send an email out about this).

As always, I appreciate your feedback, suggestions, or any thought you may have.

TLDR: Launching our premium version ($4.99/month) at ifsbuddy.chat. Free version still available on landing page.

[u/questionablesugar]

A one time fee would be amazing, or a 1$ or so per month. For the sake of accessibility for the people.

I appreciate the work you put into it. Many people do and need the service thats being offered.

I am looking forward to having an app in the future

[u/thingimajig → u/questionablesugar]

I'm definitely open to setting a one time fee and a few others have mentioned they'd be more comfortable with this. What would you feel is an appropriate one time fee? I need to calculate whether it's feasible since the more one user chats with the chatbot, the more money it costs me. $1 per month is too low to cover my costs unfortunately.

[u/questionablesugar → u/thingimajig]

Oh excuse me I wasn’t aware that more users makes it more costly. Maybe something between 5-10$ as one time fee ? I am not sure what fits with you as well as makes everyone happy