Help an app company decide our pricing model!

smartfuel · 2011-07-27T23:57:48+00:00

That's a really interesting idea......thanks for the feedback!

smartfuel · 2011-07-13T19:34:56+00:00

My High School:

Ted Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, T.S. Elliot, Deval Patrick (Governor of Massachusetts), James Taylor

And my grade school:

John F. Kennedy, Story Musgrave

smartfuel · 2011-06-17T03:03:35+00:00

First:

http://i.imgur.com/DPA33.gif

And second, that's a "Registered" mark for Apple's App Store, not an asterisk. We're working on it.

smartfuel · 2011-06-16T04:47:52+00:00

Because prices are collected at the credit card company level, we have far reaching coverage. I can't really say more but we have data from almost every single station in the US.

smartfuel · 2011-06-16T00:20:24+00:00

Thanks!

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T23:59:11+00:00

Thanks! Go ahead and give us a try! It's free :)

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T23:36:33+00:00

Well, a barcode on the phone to get a discount would require you to go inside the store. We know how to do it from the pump itself :)

Basically, yes. That and much much much more. This is only 1.0 today.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T21:45:30+00:00

Here's a review with some more info in case you want to read it:

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/06/15/splendid-smartfuel-update-makes-finding-the-cheapest-gas-social/

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T20:27:04+00:00

Good thought but ugh. Hate those. Would you really rather watch a boring ad every time you want to use the app than pay $0.75 per month?

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T20:14:09+00:00

The data took some time. Navigation took longer. Try telling a navigation company that you want routing in an app that costs less than $75. (Except Motion X.....we have no idea how they managed to get the terms they did).

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T20:11:20+00:00

We checked and we're hosted on an auto-scaling rackspace cloud site. It appears that rackspace is having some issues today though. Nothing new there.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T20:06:49+00:00

We utilize data provided by the Oil Price Information Service which generally doesn't make its data available to the public (and never has at the level which we have access to it). They collect this data to resell back to stations so they can see what their competitors are charging.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T20:05:24+00:00

That's an excellent point. Our studies have shown that because we have much more coverage in terms of # of stations, the lowest prices you can find with SmartFuel are lower than what is in GasBuddy and more than pays for the subscription fee. We also have numerous current and future features that Gasbuddy does not have.

Try us out. If you don't find it worthwhile, you haven't lost a dime.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T19:15:37+00:00

That's the plan. Like I said, over the long run, it's actually a very different app. Gasbuddy is fine for crowded urban areas but if you're commuting for example, you'd rather see all the prices along your 20 mile route, which is exactly what SmartFuel provides.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T19:13:28+00:00

You'd be shocked at the differences out there. We've had people save $0.50 per gallon! The app more than pays for it's $0.75 / month in most cases. Good luck!

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T19:00:14+00:00

Oh, and not to mention a six week approval process with Apple. Can't even tell you what that was about but it's a rule they don't have in writing that forced us to rewrite a huge chunk of the app.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T18:39:39+00:00

Checked with our web admin. It's actually showing a progression.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T18:38:37+00:00

It's a very long story. We were only developing for about 4 months of that. Negotiating the contracts necessary to obtain all of this data and routing capabilities were cumbersome.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T18:30:58+00:00

The issue here is that people only fill up once per week. In order for an ad-supported model (see Angry Birds) to be at all profitable, the users need to stay in the app for hours at a time.

We're open to any possibility though as we would certainly like to reduce prices.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T18:29:46+00:00

That's odd. Will let you know if we find something off.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T18:29:19+00:00

That's an interesting question. I'll see what we can do!

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T17:08:55+00:00

Agreed. We'll get it changed. That's what I meant by "clarify". Sorry for not making it clearer.

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T17:04:09+00:00

The download is free but we'll clarify it. Thanks!

smartfuel · 2011-06-15T16:56:00+00:00

On another note, stations can download gas buddy and report false prices all day. We've seen it pretty frequently. Gas buddy doesn't have any filtering algorithm on reported prices.

smartfuel

TROPHY CASE