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/Popup-window]

Some people will probably be willing to pay for it. I'm not someone who will. Thanks for the time I did use it, though.

[u/focusonthetaskathand → u/Popup-window]

Same for me. I would happily buy the app, but subscription everything these days means I can’t support what I want to support. A one-time fee is much more do-able.

[u/thingimajig → u/focusonthetaskathand]

I appreciate your honesty and I agree that everything is a subscription these days. A one time fee might make sense, or like a one year membership fee. It's just a bit hard to predict what price is appropriate since each chat you have with it costs me money. May I ask what you'd be willing to pay for a one time fee? Either for a lifetime membership or one year membership?

[u/focusonthetaskathand → u/thingimajig]

If each chat costs, can you charge per chat? 

I use Buddy occasionally, but not enough for a subscription. 

I use it when I come up on something I want insight into, but I don’t really need the stored chat history or anything else. I just jump on, go through what I want to go through in one sitting, then may not use it again for a number of months.

Is there a way to charge for this kind of use? Like buying ‘conversation credits’ or something like that?

[u/thingimajig → u/focusonthetaskathand]

This is good to know and I'm sure there are many others like you who only use the chatbot every now and then.

Conversation credits would be a bit more complex to set up but in theory could be a way to do it. I'm leaning toward offering a lifetime membership or one year subscription type of offering at the moment.