lifetime deal
Also called: LTD, lifetime access, lifetime plan, lifetime license
A one-time payment for permanent access to a subscription product, often sold through deal websites. It brings quick cash but turns future recurring revenue into a single payment, while the cost of serving the customer continues.
A lifetime deal (LTD) sells permanent access to a subscription product for a single payment, usually through a deals website that takes a share of the revenue. For a young product it's tempting: a burst of cash and users in a few days, and some public attention.
The trade-off is structural. Every lifetime customer is a subscriber who will never pay again, while hosting, messages, support and new features keep costing money for as long as they use the product. The math is simple: if the one-off price is less than what an average customer would have paid over their lifetime, you've sold future revenue at a discount; and if the customer stays longer than the price covers in serving costs, you're paying to keep them.
Lifetime-deal buyers are also often a poor fit: many are collectors of deals rather than people with the problem, they ask for many features and support, and they make the recurring price look like a rip-off to everyone else. For a business that lives on MRR and will one day be valued on it, a lifetime deal makes sense at most as emergency cash on precise terms. If cash up front is the goal, an annual plan gets it without giving up the future.
Example
In year 1 a deals website offers to sell GarageDesk for 9,000 UAH once, forever, and promises a hundred shops: 900,000 UAH at once. Per shop, 9,000 UAH is twelve months at the new 750 UAH price.
With churn around 5% an average shop stays about 20 months and brings roughly 750 / 0.05 = 15,000 UAH, so each lifetime shop gives up about 15,000 − 9,000 = 6,000 UAH, before the website's share. And every reminder a lifetime shop sends is SMS that GarageDesk pays for, forever. The founders aren't in an emergency, so they say no.
Common mistakes
- Comparing the deal with one month's revenue. Compare it with lifetime value.
- Forgetting serving costs. Lifetime customers keep costing money every month.
- Attracting deal hunters. They rarely have the problem and often need the most support.
- Undermining your price. Public lifetime deals make the monthly price look unfair to paying customers.