Show HN: Callingly – turn any phone number into a link – powered by WebRTC
callingly.comNice and simple service. I was a bit annoyed that you plaster free everywhere, but the only way to find out that it's a free trial that includes 10 calls is to sign up.
$5 is a good price point for Stripe billing purposes, but 25c a call seems pretty high. I'm assuming that your backend is Plivo or Twillio or Voip.ms and the cost per minute is about a tenth of a cent.
I would consider doing 40 calls for $5 and 100 calls for $10.
Also, instead of just an affiliate program, consider doing social media marketing with call credits to encourage it. For instance, if the person retweets a message about callingly, grant them 5 call credits.
Also consider making the call page, like callingly.com/deftnerd, have the affiliate link within the "Get your free call page!" link so any users who sign up through my call page are associated with my affiliate account.
Another source of monitization is allowing for CNAME pages. Instead of callingly.com/deftnerd set things up to have deftnerd.callingly.com. For a $5 yearly fee, allow custom CNAME so I can set up call.deftnerd.com to CNAME to deftnerd.callingly.com. That yearly fee should also allow the user to remove any branding.
Lastly, if I'm in DND mode, the call page at callingly.com/deftnerd doesn't seem to indicate that. It would be nice to remove the "Call Adam Brown" button and replace it with a status indicator.
I built something similar a few months back, but it was purely Bitcoin related. Users would create an account and get a deposit address and as long as it had funds, the service would be live for them. It made sense when Bitcoin transaction fees were nearly free, but now they're as much as Stripe for sub $5 or $10 purchases.
Awesome suggestions. Thanks!
- For pricing: sorry about the confusion, I have a pricing section of the home page in progress but didn't want to wait to post this.
- I'm using Twilio and the WebRTC connection is cheap but calling to an outgoing phone line is not. It's a few cents per minute, depending on where I'm calling. I might play with pricing some more but even at $0.25 a call I'm worried about breaking even depending on how long the calls last.
- Social media marketing w/ call credits is a great idea. That goes on the immediate to do list.
- Same with affiliate link and CNAME. Someone has mentioned the CNAME concept before but I somehow didn't understand what they were talking about until you spelled it out that way.
- Status indicator - cool idea. You don't think it will deter people from making the call if they know the person is not available? Or is it better to know beforehand that you're going to voicemail?
Thanks again for the great ideas.
Re: Status Indicator
I think people would like to know if the user is in DND mode or if their call will go straight to voicemail. In fact, having an option to leave a voicemail instead of calling the user in realtime might even be something that some users want.
I don't like being disturbed while coding, but I wouldn't mind checking my virtual voicemail now and then.
Re: Pricing
Also, I do really enjoy the up-front per-call pricing model. It's easier than a flat monthly rate and per-minute charge typically associated with the VoIP industry.
I can understand how it'll make your finances risky though. It's likely just a matter of time until some premium rate scammers start knocking on your service to see if they can make 12-hour-long calls.
If Twilio supports it, maybe you can put a time restriction in place? Or make it so a call that consumes a call credit every 5 minutes.
Also, Local US rates with Twilio are pretty much 1.5 cents a minute. The international calls get more expensive, but maybe you could do it so more expensive calls use more call credits.
Some things you might want to put in a FAQ or on the pricing page:
1. If leaving a voicemail counts towards the call credits.
2. What happens when a user runs out of call credits (does every contact just go to voicemail?)
3. If there are any restrictions on voicemails (auto delete after X days, for instance - Something you should consider. 1/4th of a cent per minute and 1/20th of a cent per month for storage can add up if you get big)
- Interesting point about the voicemail option. I'll think about that, maybe run some tests.
- Thanks for the feedback on the up-front per-call pricing model. I struggled with making the decision on that just because it does introduce some risk to me and the industry standard is per-minute. However, I really do believe this simplifies the experience for my users and I appreciate hearing that others agree.
- Thanks for those suggestions too. I'll add those to the FAQs.
I've been working for a while on a number of different projects to harness WebRTC to connect businesses and customers and make it all very easy to use.
Callingly is the latest and most straightforward solution - something that can be used by everybody from a mom selling things on Craigslist or Etsy to big international corporations.
Basically, you just sign up with your phone number and you get a Callingly page like this: https://callingly.com/leon
You can put this link in your email signature, post it online, on social media or even embed it as a button in your website. Then anybody can just click on the link and call you directly through their computer, tablet, mobile phone, etc.
The call goes right through to your phone and you know it's coming from your online profile. The caller never gets to see your phone number and you can control what hours during the week you're available to let your phone ring. Otherwise, it just goes to voicemail.
Plus, the web call is free for the caller anywhere in the world - so it's perfect if you have international customers.
I'd love any feedback!
I find it really difficult to trust a service that doesn't show clearly their pricing before sign-up.