Ending SaaS gracefully

SaaS businesses have a big problem.

It may not be obvious to start with. Or even for many years.

But eventually, it shows up:

How do you end a SaaS project gracefully?

Think about it:

We used to buy software on discs, and could run it anytime we wanted. And if we never changed our hardware, the product would run basically forever.

But the SaaS world is littered with expired domain names or condolence letter landing pages… projects that may have been great, right up until the point they weren’t: because they were shut down and taken away.

There’s a whole world of opportunity for us to explore here:

• Could we make offline/local versions of our work?
• Could we sell self-hosted versions of our work?
• Could we make our server/operating costs lower so we can run it indefinitely?
• Could we modify pricing for retired products, so that it breaks even and lives on?
• Something else we have yet to think of?

If we make great work, we can distribute it forever even if it doesn’t sell like crazy to begin with, or if it’s time to move on.

There are options.

And having an option in hand could let customers feel even more confident in buying your product.

Because they know it’s never going away.