Specific tactics that work

Five things experienced builders know that you should also know.

Price ending in 7 or 9. "$7" outperforms "$5" or "$10" surprisingly often. So does "$19" vs "$20." Not magic. It's a small signal that someone thought carefully about the price. Don't use $7 if it feels wrong, but consider it.

Too low signals "this is junk." A $1 product is sometimes lower-converting than a $5 product because $1 feels too small to be useful. People assume the $1 product is abandoned or AI-spam. If your product is good, $5 to $10 will often outsell $1.

Charge before the product is polished. This is the tactic most builders skip and most regret. They wait until the product is "ready" and then ask for money, and the customer says "huh, why is this not free?" The customer's expectation has been set to free during the months you were polishing. Charge from day one of v1. Even if the product is rough. The first paying customer is the cleanest signal you can get, and rough plus paying beats polished plus free every time.

Talk about the price openly. Don't hide it. Don't make people sign up to see it. Don't "request a quote." If you're charging $9, the homepage says $9 in the headline. Concealed prices signal that the product isn't worth the price.

Sort your real customers from the noise. Mateo's $2/month customers were SIGNIFICANTLY more demanding than his free ones. They wanted features faster. They reported bugs faster. They cared more. Money is the sharpest signal in the world. At $0, Mateo had 200 servers who barely noticed his updates. At $2, he had 47 servers who told him exactly what was wrong. The 47 paying ones taught him more in a month than the 200 free ones had in six.