Define a more sustainable pricing model for our current hub service

[choldgraf]

The pricing for our current hub service is intentionally simple, because we defined it without having a lot of experience at running this service. In the subsequent months we have learned a few things:

1. Our support model captures more than just standard "saas service" actions (e.g. providing guidance on user environments)
2. We're providing other kinds of services than just engineering ones (e.g. use-case guidance, strategic / leadership guidance, etc): https://github.com/2i2c-org/leads/issues/136
3. The flat monthly fee is too expensive for some communities, and too cheap for other communities.

As a result we are likely not recovering our costs for the services that we currently run. This makes them unscalable.

We should revisit our pricing model, with the goal of understanding whether changes to this model, without significant changes to the service, can make the service more sustainable.

Tasks

Beta Give feedback

1. https://github.com/2i2c-org/leads/issues/137
2. https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/559
3. Answer other questions below and create dedicated issues to focus discussion
4. ...flesh this out as we learn more

Questions to ask

Once we have refined 2i2c's service model description (https://github.com/2i2c-org/leads/issues/137) we can revisit these questions:

• How does our current pricing compare to similar non-profits and tech services?
• What is our internal cost model for a typical contract, given our new understanding of the services we offer?
• What kind of buffer do we want to build into our cost model to account for "extra service" actions or a financial buffer?
• What is the ability to pay for our current contracts? Could it be more than what we currently ask for?
• What is the ability to pay for communities that are not represented in our current contracts?
• What models of cost recovery have been used by similar organizations? (e.g., monthly billing, usage-based billing, grant-based funding cycles, membership models)

Outcomes

The result of this effort should be a proposed update to the prices that we charge, and/or the way that we describe the service contract.

Related issues

Pricing issues

• https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/483
• https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/418
• Explore the usage of Membership Models for partner communities #581
• Research pricing models for non-profit and cloud services #524
• https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/382

Historical discussions

• https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/78