Indian indie founders: who actually pays in the ₹99-₹499 zone?
So I'm 5 months into building an app, speak into it and it sorts the stuff into tasks ideas reminders, and pricing has been doing my head in for a week. Asking here because nobody else is going to give me a straight answer.
Priced it at ₹99/mo. Felt right. One Zomato meal. The market knows that number.
Then I did the actual math.
Apple and Google take 15% on day one (small business program). Backend costs me around ₹25 per user per month. So at ₹99 I'm netting maybe ₹59 per Indian subscriber if I'm lucky.
But the bigger problem isn't the cost. It's the price band.
In Indian app subscriptions you've got ₹0 on one side (most consumer apps), then ₹1000+ on the other (enterprise productivity, Notion-tier). The ₹99 to ₹499 middle is basically empty. People who pay ₹99 expect it to be free. People willing to pay ₹500 already have a Notion or ClickUp subscription. So who exactly buys at ₹99?
Globally I priced at $1.99. Same costs, store takes the same percentage. Net is around ₹119. That's 2x the India number. Not 30x like the gross prices would suggest. Refunds are 2-3x higher from Indian users too. Nobody talks about this in pricing posts.
I think I'm sitting on a price that nobody actually wants to pay. Question is whether to push up to ₹199 (still cheap, fewer refund issues, fewer impulse subscribers) or stay at ₹99 and bet on volume.
Anyone who has shipped a consumer subscription in India: at what number did people actually pay you? Specifically the ₹99 to ₹499 zone. I'm not asking about freemium vs paid. I'm asking what tier actually converts.