Why New Members Get a Discount (and Why It's Not for Everyone)

A few people emailed saying $10/mo felt steep for a wardrobe app. Fair complaint, and one I actually sat with for a while before doing anything about it, because the easy fix and the right fix aren't the same thing here.

The easy fix is a coupon anyone can grab that knocks the price down to $3/mo. Looks generous, solves the complaint in an afternoon. Except it doesn't really solve anything. If a 70% off code is sitting there for anyone who wants it, that code is the price. People compare notes, the discounted number becomes what everyone expects to pay, and I'm left with a product that costs $10 on paper and $3 in practice, without ever actually deciding whether $3 is what it should cost. That's not a pricing decision, it's just margin quietly leaking out the back.

What I built instead

New-customer intro pricing, time-limited, not available to anyone already paying:

Both are gated so an existing subscriber can't just cancel and re-sign-up to grab the discount. The list price stays $10/mo (or $108/yr) the whole time, so if you're already paying, nothing changes for you, and if you signed up during a previous intro window, you already got yours. See the full breakdown of what each tier gets you on the pricing section, including how it compares to running the self-hosted, open-source version instead.

Right now that's WELCOME6 for monthly and WELCOMEYR for yearly, and yeah, it's got an expiry date attached (offers like this usually rotate every so often rather than running forever, so if you're reading this later the exact code might have changed, check the pricing page for whatever's currently live). The reasoning below is the part that doesn't expire.

Why not just lower the price

I thought about this seriously, not as a rhetorical setup for "but actually intro pricing is better." A permanent price cut is honest in a way a coupon isn't: everyone pays the same number, no games. But it's also unfair to people already paying $10/mo in good faith, cutting the price out from under them with no warning and no say.

Time-limited pricing for new signups sidesteps that. It makes the app genuinely cheaper to try for people who haven't committed yet, while leaving the deal intact for everyone who already signed up trusting the current price. Existing subscribers aren't subsidizing a discount they didn't get, and new subscribers get a real, lower price for real money, not a gimmick.

The other option I turned down

There was a version of this aimed at people who already cancelled, a win-back offer specifically for anyone who churned citing price. Genuinely tempting, because it's more targeted and it directly addresses people who already told you the price was the problem, in their own words.

I didn't go that route this time, mostly because it's a narrower fix. Win-back only reaches people who already left. It does nothing for people who haven't tried Wardrowbe yet and might be put off by the sticker price before they ever get to see if it's worth it, which is the bigger group. Once there's actual cancellation-reason data piling up (something I only just wired into the backend, so there isn't much of it yet), win-back is a natural next thing to build. Just not the first move.

If you're weighing whether Wardrowbe is worth $10/mo at all before any discount enters the picture, the honest cloud vs. self-hosted breakdown covers that trade-off directly, and what you actually get during the 14-day trial is worth reading regardless of which plan you pick.

What actually changes at checkout

Nothing complicated on your end. Checkout already supported promo codes before any of this, so redeeming one is just typing it in at the Stripe checkout screen like you would anywhere else. No separate signup flow, no hoops.

• Sign up for a new account (existing subscribers aren't eligible, the code is restricted to first-time transactions on our end)
• Pick monthly or yearly on the pricing page
• Enter the current promo code at checkout
• Pay the discounted rate for the intro period, then it reverts to the normal price automatically, no action needed on your part

If the current offer has expired by the time you're reading this, that's fine and expected, that's the whole point of it being time-limited rather than a permanent price. Keep an eye on the pricing page (there's usually a small callout when something's live) or just sign up at full price if the wardrobe-tracking itch can't wait. Both are reasonable, honestly.

Try it

Check the current pricing and any active intro offer, or if you'd rather run it yourself, the whole thing is open source and self-hostable too, no subscription at all, just your own server. More on that trade-off in the blog.