How to be Safe When Buying SaaS Lifetime Deals (Tips & Tricks) | Mini-Course

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How to be Safe When Buying SaaS Lifetime Deals (Tips & Tricks) | Mini-Course

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Introduction

This guide is important if you buy lifetime deals on SaaS.

I will share with you how to be safe when getting lifetime deals and what factors you should consider.

So, make sure to watch the video or read the article thoroughly at least once because it will help you save your time, money and avoid unnecessary risks.

This guide is not specific for one product or deal network, but in general, it will help everyone who is buying LTD.

These are not clear-cut rules, but instead, tips based on my personal experience and members’ experience from our community.

What is a Lifetime Deal? and Why Offer?

If you already know about lifetime deals and are aware of why they are offering these, you can probably skip to the next section; if not, you want to have a clear definition and understanding, this section will help you to understand.

SaaS lifetime deals mean you are getting software or SaaS product for an one-time price. Usually, these prices will have around 90% discount with one-time price where you will get access to the software for life-long of that software.

It does sound too good to be true. But, there is a reason why developers are willing to offer it.

Most of the time, the developers who are willing to offer lifetime deals will be a startup, and they will provide an one-time price for their software to get the initial set of customers known as early adaptors.

The software will not be on a final matured stage; instead, they will use feedback from early adopters to develop this product into its final form.

It is a win-win situation because developers are getting their initial set of customers quickly, and buyers getting an excellent software lifetime deal for a steal of a price.

It is the main reason for the popularity of lifetime deals.

However, you can avoid many risks and pitfalls by understanding following factors and use it when buying deals.

Let’s look at tips…

Now I will list all the important factors and tips you need to be aware of to reduce risks.

Research about company or Founder

It is an important step where you need to learn and research about the company & Founder(s) of that products.

You can take a look at their history, past projects, funding ideas, communication, vision, how they are planning on growing, etc.

You can also check whether the founders’ and team members’ profiles are publicly viewable and not hidden.

You don’t need every single good deal

It is an important fact to Remember where you don’t need every good software or SaaS; instead, you only will need right ones for you.

There are thousands of SaaS in the market, and more are releasing every month.

So it is very easy to get addicted to purchasing habits even without using your already purchased softwares.

This might sound silly, but it’s true where all of us have experienced this stage.

We have a couple of terms to explain these also such as:

• FOMO – Fear of missing out on a great deal
• Hype – Overexciting promotions
• Shelfware – The purchased softwares are just sitting on the shelf (unused) without you using it for its purpose.

So when buying lifetime deals, make sure this is something you are absolutely needed, and you are just not buying and keeping it without using it.

Also, make sure you make any purchase decision when you are clear and not just purchase based on hype.

Get ROI as fast as possible

This is one of the important factor you need to be aware of when it comes to lifetime deals.

Anything can happen in future for the saas company such as closing down, acquisitions, problems with software, issues with your LTD, better competitors, industry changes and more.

We can’t predict what will happen in the future, so when you make investments, make sure to start using that product as fast as possible.

This will help you get the return on investment (ROI) and recover your cost.

You try to make calculations to find the break-even point based on how long or after how many projects or how many clients you will recover the cost because if you can survive up to that point and after that, everything will be profit.

Risk of SaaS being dependent on third-party source

This is an important point to remember because if the software you are purchasing is fully dependent on a third-party source for its functionality or data then it’s at the mercy of that source.

It means the risk is higher since any issues that occur within the source will also impact the software and its customers.

When that happens, if they cannot find an alternative solution, then the product will be unusable.

How well is the SaaS website built?

It is not a direct factor since we don’t care about the website as long as the software is working.

Still, in my personal view, I consider a website for the software as a sales office, so I’d like to look into the effort they are put into marketing and explain their product to the customers.

So I will make sure whether all the legal pages are available on the website.

Is the website is broken, or does it contain any dummy content?

Do they provide any use cases, tutorials, documentation & knowledgebase to educate users.

Again, these are not mandatory, but this will help us see the effort they are putting into the website, indicating their quality & their commitment.

Price Manipulation & understanding

This is a factor which I learned through personal experience where sometimes I have noticed that some founders try to make the monthly or yearly prices high to make the LTD price very appealing.

In this case, I will generally look at the web page in the web archive or cached sources or look into their competitors to understand the standard pricing for a similar feature set from similar software.

Also, it is a valid point to remember that even if they offer a one-time price as an LTD, make sure that it is more profitable or meaningful to you than getting their monthly or yearly deal for it.

Risk of your LTD is mapped to custom plan

This is a important indicator that you need to be aware of when purchasing lifetime deals.

Make sure the deal you are purchasing is not mapped to custom or starter plans because the chances of missing out on the future updates or features are very high.

Don’t take me wrong, but the product will be usable even if it’s on a custom plan, but it will help you reduce risks if your lifetime deal plan is mapped to an existing higher pricing plan.

So it’s a good tip to remember that when you’re purchasing make sure that it is tied to the higher plans or atleast when you are stacking.

Understand the refund policy

I am sure that you already know the meaning of refund policy, but basically, this means that in case if you didn’t like the product, you can refund and get your money back.

When purchasing deals, it is essential to understand types of refund policy.

First, you need to understand whether it is a no-questions-asked refund policy or a regular one, where if it’s no question then they won’t ask you for any explanation, and they will refund instantly, or if it’s regular they will ask you to share valid reason to get your refund.

Also, it’s worth remembering that some digital products will have no refund policy, and some deal networks/products will also have no refund policy. So make sure to check the deal terms before purchasing any deal.

Also, the number of days you get for the refund period will differ based on the software or the deal network.

Typically you will get 60 days, but there are also cases where are you might get only 30 days or even 14 days or some other number.

During the refund period, make sure to utilize it to the fullest. You can keep on testing the product, observe the development, analyze whether the product is working as it should be, and decide whether it is moving on the right direction.

If you are not happy with any of this, it’s better to refund and wait for the next best product.

As an additional tip, you can also use PayPal or a credit card since they have good customer protection.

A trial is always better than a refund

This step will sound silly, but it’s important to remember it.

You won’t need to purchase to test and see whether this is something you need or not.

Since most of the time, they will have a free trial where you can get acess even without adding your credit card or purchase plan details.

You can use this to test it for yourself, and it will help you avoid unnecessary refund processes or unnecessary charges from your payment processes in case of a refund.

As a general tip, you can use a secondary email or a burner email when testing out trials since you can avoid newsletter or follow-up emails with it.

Examine ToS & Deal terms carefully

It is one of the important factors which most often gets skipped.

When making any big purchases, make sure to read and understand the SaaS terms of services and uses of the product.

During this, make sure that there are no hidden limits or practices that you don’t like.

This will help you to make an informed decision and also reduce risks.

Take a screenshot or archive URL of the deal

If I buy a deal, I will capture a screenshot of the whole page to store it in the cloud as a fail-safe if the founders didn’t offer something listed there.

But I advise you to use the web archive, a free service that helps you take a screenshot of a particular web page at a specific time and store it in their cloud storage for free without any tampering possible.

This is important because there are times when they can change the sales page or if it don’t exist anymore and you won’t have access to the old details or deal terms.

Make sure to redeem codes

Again this might sound stupid, but it has happened to most of us.

Where sometimes, we get busy or buy something at the last moment.

Then we think, ok, we can redeem it later, but each deal will have a final date for Redemption, so make sure to activate your lifetime deal before that.

Otherwise, the Founder might refuse to honor your lifetime deal purchase.

Don’t fully trust on-site testimonials

Usually, lifetime deal networks will have reviews section; you can use this to learn other users’ feedback.

Most of the time, it’s great to get users’ honest experience from it.

Since they only allow people who have purchased the deal to review but do not trust them fully.

Because sometimes:

The reviews could be moderated – They might only allow positive feedback and block or pause out negative feedbacks.

The reviews could be incentivized – Which means that they will offer some kind of bonus or incentive for providing reviews and and some cases they might specifically ask for higher ratings.

The reviews could be fake – Sometimes fake accounts can be created to leave positive and top rating for the deal.

So to get more reliable sources for feedback and review, some suggestions include:

Look for alternative independent communities where all the members can share their honest experiences without censorship or restriction.

Ask opinions from other people you look up to or trust; this can be your friends, co-workers, professional connections, or even influencers who you trust.

Another good way to get feedback is from existing customers directly because it’s the most accurate since they are already using it.

Never buy LTD based solely on Roadmap

This is another effective lesson learned through experience; most of the time, the softwares that come as LTD will be a developing software instead of matured product.

So most of the advanced features can be on the road-map.

Roadmap refers to the plan of the software development.

But the issue is it is really easy to put 100 different features inside the road map and say that this is the plan.

But until the feature is developed and it’s in a usable stage, it just promises.

If the founder is active and development moves rapidly, road map tasks will also get completed.

So use the road map as an indicator but never make a full investment based only on the road map.

So my tip is to see whether the software is in its current state even if it’s missing some features check whether it’s usable for you or not; if it’s usable, then make then purchase, or else it wait for a better option or alternative.

Commitment, support, and listening to users

It is important because when we buy LTD, we do not invest in the software; instead, we invest in the company, so we need to make sure they are trustworthy.

You can see how the team interacts with potential buyers, and also, you can see how they respond to feedback, especially negative.

You can also use their support replies and how fast they are at development and bug fixes to understand their SaaS commitment.

Keep track of your LTD

Again this might sound simple, and it might be true if you have only bunch of lifetime deals.

But if you are someone like me who has over 200+ lifetime deals, then it’s become messy to organize and keep track of it.

For that, make sure you record and organize purchased deals so you can properly track and make use of it.

You can use any softwares to track but some of our favorites from the community include airtable, trackmysubs, raindrop, Google sheets, MS spreadsheets, and more.

See if SaaS is using its product

This is a big indicator for me. I usually check whether they use their product for themselves; if not, it is not complete or missing some important features, or they do not trust their product.

For example: if there is a lifetime deal for a chat software, see if they use their product in their own website or are they using a competitor product.

Is it white-label or codecanyon based script

This factor might not be known for new users in the lifetime deal market but people in this market for long-time understand its risks.

First, let’s learn some definitions:

Whitelabel means offering another product with your branding to make it appear that it’s your own custom solution, but all the functionality and features will depend on the source.

The risk with white label softwares is higher because it’s not a custom solution; instead, they are just providing a solution based on another platform that is easy to abandon.

For example, if white-label software does not renew the subscription, then your product will stop working for you, or you might lose access to your data.

Now let’s take a look into Codecanyon; it is one of the biggest platforms on the internet for plugins and custom solutions where you can buy and sell them.

They offer personal licenses and commercial licenses to buy and start your own business based on that product.

Most of the time, it has similar cons to white label products.

You will also get limited support, and also the development will be based on the source unless saas founder builds additional features on top of it.

This does not mean that every codecanyon or white label-based product is terrible but has a higher risk compared to custom solutions.

Risks associated with resell market

Most of you will already know about the resale market, but in case if you didn’t know, it means if you miss any lifetime deal for software, you purchase that particular product from a second-hand market (a person who bought it and looking to sell it for a profit)

This is one of the field where I am not experienced because I do not sell or buy on resell market.

There are a couple of factors you need to be aware of it such as:

It would be best to make sure that you know the safe process (especially when you are buying your first LTD) when buying or selling, making sure that you don’t get scammed.

You should transactions with trusted or with someone or who recommended by someone you trust

Also, it is important to note that most SaaS founders do not allow reselling with few exceptions, so they find out then they will probably disable your account if caught.

To prevent this some saas will disable you from changing the email address.

Never fully trust comparisons you see on SaaS site

To increase sales and authenticity, some SaaS will compare their products with competitor products on their website.

It can be accurate most of the time, but sometimes it can be not very objective because their goal is to make a sale.

From a logical point, they will not willingly say that their SaaS is bad compared to competitors.

There are sometimes where they might not even compare to true market leaders.

Or they can miss out on essential features from competitors when making comparisons.

So from a buyer perspective, we can check on it but always look for independent third-party comparisons.

If possible, don’t depend on the third party too; instead, look for multiple different sources so you can combine all data and compare it on your own.

Learn from other reviews and opinions but

Try to learn & understand SaaS from blog posts, video reviews, talks, webinars, etc.

But remember that most of these resources will be created by affiliates.

Even I am an affiliate.

For me, reputation and trust are important; that’s why I leave both referral & non-referral links and keep the video honest without sales pitches.

But still, we are affiliates and make money when you purchase the deal through our links.

So their is chance we might be biased knowingly or unknowingly.

It is essential to know that we also got to know these products simultaneously when you do, so we create these videos and reviews based on resources you have access too.

So my advice is to read, listen and watch reviews then try the trial, and if you think it’s good then purchase it, but you make it based on your final decision and gut feeling.

Since what’s good to me might not be good to you.

Understand the risks of LTD

From above points, we know that LTD softwares are usually not on matured stage.

Most often, they are early-stage products and not perfect.

So you need to prepare for the event SaaS fails during your usage.

Make sure you to think of scenarios like this and pre-prepared since this will help you reduce the risks and recover fast.

Also, it is essential to note that even if the product is good, it can turn into bad or un-usable product anytime in the future.

So lifetime deals will always be a gamble.

If it’s a good investment, you will see great Value, and if it’s a bad investment, you might end up with an unusable product.

Understand the risks of the industry

This is not a direct factor but you need to be aware of the changes or trends in the SaaS type industry too.

Because any considerable change in the niche industry can affect any tools that are part of it.

For example, if a social media platform stops all of the automation, then softwares dependent on that automation will also stop working.

Conclusion

I earn money for more purchases people do it through my referral link.

I am an affiliate but I am a customer too.

So it’s important for me to educate you to understand everything regarding lifetime deals.

This will help you to stop and make sensible & informed decisions.

We are a community of 4000+ members, and we need to look out for each other. Join us

All of these were prepared by me from personal experience but alot of our community members helped too, so thank you guys.

I hope this guide helped you.

Until the next video or review or guide, take care and happy LTD hunting.