commercial-pricing

activetype/area-doc

Commercial — Subscription Pitch & Pricing (Aksara Karir)

TL;DR

Aksara Karir is currently on a one-time delivery contract with no SLA. The plan is to convert them to a paid retainer that funds operational ownership (backups, monitoring, security, WAHA babysitting) and unlocks future feature work (B2B, Zoom-API attendance, voucher logic). Key constraint: client is cash-strapped — pricing must respect that without subsidizing infra long-term.

Engagement today

  • One-time project, no SLA, comms via WhatsApp.
  • All infra billed on mg's personal credit card — unsustainable as Aksara grows.
  • Owner: mg (sole prod-access). Co-dev fallback: friend.

Pricing options considered

Option 1 — Tiered retainer (recommended)

| Tier | Price (IDR/mo) | Includes | | --- | --- | --- | | Lite | 500k | Uptime monitoring, weekly backup verification, security patches, 1 bug fix/mo, 24h response on WA business hours | | Standard | 1.5jt | Lite + cron health checks + WAHA babysitting + 4hr response + 5 small content/config changes/mo | | Growth | 3.5jt | Standard + 1 minor feature/mo + staging env + DKIM email + on-call weekends |

  • Floor: 500k/mo.
  • Add-on: annual infra pass-through (Vercel + VPS + Supabase + R2 + Resend at cost + 15% admin fee) so the personal CC stops absorbing growth.
  • Add-on (one-time): Stabilization fee 3–5jt covering the 10 red flags in [[Projects/aksara-karir/context/onboarding-brief|onboarding-brief]]; paid upfront before retainer kicks in.

Option 2 — Revenue share

  • 0 base + 8–12% of paid enrollments processed through the LMS, with a 750k/mo floor.
  • Aligned incentives, but enforcement requires trust on enrollment counts (we already have read access).
  • Risk: client could route enrollments outside the LMS to dodge the share.

Option 3 — Per-active-student-month

  • 5k IDR per active enrolled student/month, min 100k.
  • Cleanest accounting; pushes client toward unit-economics thinking.
  • Risk: client unfamiliar with SaaS billing models.

Proposal structure (recommendation)

  1. Stabilization sprint (one-time fee) — fix top 10 red flags before any retainer starts. Output: documented in [[Projects/aksara-karir/runbooks/index|runbooks/index.md]] + ADRs.
  2. Tier 1 retainer (recurring) — Aksara starts on Lite, upsells naturally as student volume grows.
  3. Infra pass-through (recurring) — itemized monthly statement.
  4. New features quoted separately — explicit exclusion list (B2B build, design overhauls, data migrations, payment gateway integration when legal entity ready).

Exclusion list (must be in the contract)

  • New features and major design changes.
  • Data migrations and schema redesigns.
  • Payment gateway integration (depends on Aksara legal entity).
  • WhatsApp Cloud API migration if WAHA becomes untenable.
  • Legal/compliance work (data residency audits, ToS, privacy policy reviews).

Open commercial decisions

  • See [[Areas/LumenDev/clients/aksara-karir/subscription-pricing-model-adr|ADR — subscription pricing]]
  • See [[Projects/aksara-karir/decisions/adr-2026-04-26-billing-handover|ADR — billing handover]]

Pitch artifacts to produce

  • [ ] Indonesian-language proposal PDF.
  • [ ] English-language summary (1-pager).
  • [ ] Itemized infra cost statement template (monthly).
  • [ ] Stabilization sprint scope doc (links to all p0/p1 backlog items).