How to calculate a price for the Pyra

[Mr_Loon]

35% profit is nothing. He should be making a lot more.

+1

Agreed, that 35% has to cover a lot of things : wages, RMA's, general business costs, future development, paying investors etc.

 

[TrashyMG]

Pyra seems pretty affordable compared to my current smart phone: Samsung Galaxy S4

$200 to initially buy it, my crappy 2GB Verizon package is costing me $75 a month X 2 years of owning it.. 

$200 + (($75 X 12 months) X 2 years) = $2000 US dollars

And it keeps adding up...

 

[WizardStan]

But while saving pennies left and right in his story this point is almost sneaked in casually "and therefor I have to charge more to everybody too"

No, there's nothing sneaky about it at all. ED didn't say "I'm getting 15% from resllers who will then make 20%, therefore I must raise price by 35% for everyone", that's not how it works. ED set his price so he could make a decent amount of money, and then cut a DISCOUNT for those buying bulk. He didn't raise prices to screw you over, he LOWERED the price for Link and other shops so they could, in turn, make some money and make it worthwhile to carry them.

 

[bzar]

Pyra seems pretty affordable compared to my current smart phone: Samsung Galaxy S4


$200 to initially buy it, my crappy 2GB Verizon package is costing me $75 a month X 2 years of owning it.. 


$200 + (($75 X 12 months) X 2 years) = $2000 US dollars


And it keeps adding up...

:blink: :blink: :blink:

Completely offtopic, but I just tried bundling a S5 (24 month payment plan) with a unlimited/unmetered 100Mbit/s 4G data, text and calls plan (24 month plan) on a local telco (saunalahti) and got ~45€/month for the first 24 months and ~25€/month after that and no downpayment.

I knew you're getting bad deals there but

 

[WizardStan]

It's not much better here in Canada, but at least we've got the excuse of huge landmass with relatively small population. The major companies like Bell and Rogers have country wide coverage and charge around $60 for 300 minutes and 1.5GB of data. The smaller companies operate only in major cities but on Wind I'm getting unlimited everything (including roaming in the US) for $45 a month. The catch is that it only works in a few major cities, and outside of that I'm paying 15 cents a minute and 5 cents per MB of data, but that's fine because I'm typically in one of these major cities and have an offline GPS map app for when I'm not.

The reason the US and Canada get shafted for cell phones (beyond typical corporate greed, which is a major influence but not the key) is simply because of how big it is. If companies were forced to operate and compete state by state much like they do in the EU between countries it'd be a lot better. We're just too big for any company to handle.

 

[bzar]

If I calculate the per-customer cost overhead (how much it costs to provide current level of service per customer) of those US providers and the finnish ones, will I get a substantially bigger number for the US one? Or are they just having a lot bigger profit margins? I do know and acknowledge the larger area is a problem and causes larger overhead, it's just a question of how much more?

EDIT: If we calculate the mentioned S4 to have been in the status and price of the S5 now, and assume the price difference is mainly due to larger country, the phone should cost about the same.

So ~$23 per month on the phone (as in the finnish plan) for 24 months =  $552 for the phone.

That leaves $2000 - $552 = $1448 to cover the mobile plan, coming down to ~$60 per month

Notice that I picked an unlimited 4G 100Mbps plan compared to the 2GiB plan for the example. Still, there's a 2.4x higher price just for the plan. Is the cost difference really that much per customer?

 

[WizardStan]

I do know and acknowledge the larger area is a problem and causes larger overhead, it's just a question of how much more?

Not enough more. Corporate greed takes over at that point, says "if it costs $X more, we need to charge $(X*Y) dollars more" for some value Y which is probably closer to 10 than 1.

 

[ibisum]

I'd pay ~600 for this comfortably, as long as it kicks ass, which it will.

 

[Glyph Reader]

I'm willing to pay up to $700 USD, but, being the almost college student I am, would prefer a bit lower. 

-Glyph Reader

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I'm willing to pay up to $900 or so.

 

[Glyph Reader]

I'm willing to pay up to $900 or so.

What about... over $900? 

-Glyph Reader

 

[rohezal]

As University Student I would prefer 500-600€.

 

[Saber]

Around 500-600 Euro, which is 569.50-683.40 in U.S. dollars, without shipping/insurance tacked on is decent. No denying the Pyra is cool, but after the devoted forum members have preordered theirs, business must continue on. Higher pricing could lead to steady but trickling sales and slow expansion(desirable with low production runs to stay niche longterm?). There's of course costs today as we discuss this and a reminder that donations are ongoing.  

 

[EdenR]

Hi!


For 500 max 600 eur,i'm with Pyra!! It s time to replace my lovely gph Wiz!

 

[Exophase]

:blink: :blink: :blink:

Completely offtopic, but I just tried bundling a S5 (24 month payment plan) with a unlimited/unmetered 100Mbit/s 4G data, text and calls plan (24 month plan) on a local telco (saunalahti) and got ~45€/month for the first 24 months and ~25€/month after that and no downpayment.

I knew you're getting bad deals there but

It's not as bad here if you go for a non-contract plan that doesn't go with a phone. I pay $30/month for unlimited (sorta) data plus 100 minutes of voice and add minutes for voice if I need them ($0.10/minute). The unlimited voice + data version is $50/month. It's a much better deal so long as you don't need a flagship Android hone or iPhone and can make due with a $200-300 one instead (which are almost as good, at least on Android), especially if you don't need a lot of voice.

These contract plans build the costs of the most expensive phones into the monthly rate so you get hit if you don't need an expensive phone even if it moves the $200 upfront cost to $100 or so.

It's a little hard to do a fair comparison for things like mobile plans or internet between countries like this, since USA is so much more spread out which increases overall infrastructure costs.

 

[bzar]

Nice to hear there's some reasonably priced options available.

It's a little hard to do a fair comparison for things like mobile plans or internet between countries like this, since USA is so much more spread out which increases overall infrastructure costs.

Yeah, that is true. I would however be interested in knowing how much of the price difference actually stems from that. Not interested enough to find out by myself, but enough to consider the possibility of other factors, such as higher profit margins, making up a bigger portion of the total price difference. I do give the companies the benefit of the doubt as far as not considering "greed" to be the default reason for all their pricing choices, but as long as I don't have any better knowledge, I'm not content with just the area difference explanation either.

 

[Exophase]

Yeah, that is true. I would however be interested in knowing how much of the price difference actually stems from that. Not interested enough to find out by myself, but enough to consider the possibility of other factors, such as higher profit margins, making up a bigger portion of the total price difference. I do give the companies the benefit of the doubt as far as not considering "greed" to be the default reason for all their pricing choices, but as long as I don't have any better knowledge, I'm not content with just the area difference explanation either.

I wouldn't assume it makes up for all of the difference, actually it could really have no impact at all. It's just an unknown variable. I don't think companies will really be much less greedy in other countries, but there might be less competition either due to monopolized resources or anti-competitive practices like price fixing (which is illegal). Maybe your country also lowers the price by having more government subsidies, wouldn't surprise me since you guys pay a huge VAT while we pay nothing outside of much lower state sales taxes.

 

[bzar]

I wouldn't assume it makes up for all of the difference, actually it could really have no impact at all. It's just an unknown variable. I don't think companies will really be much less greedy in other countries, but there might be less competition either due to monopolized resources or anti-competitive practices like price fixing (which is illegal). Maybe your country also lowers the price by having more government subsidies, wouldn't surprise me since you guys pay a huge VAT while we pay nothing outside of much lower state sales taxes.

Yes, we do. I think that kind of subsidy would go under "Digital service environment development" subsidy package in our ministry of transport and communications' budget, so it's difficult to say exactly how much they get.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Won't all Pyras be development units?

 

[WizardStan]

plus whatever UPS decides to pillage

Link was quickly convinced not to use UPS for this exact reason. I think all shipping is DHL or USPS.