First of all, I am all for free enterprise and entrepreneurship. I think Angus and Elle have created a well-oiled business that needs to stay competitive with every emerging competitor and current alternatives in the AI Art generating sphere.
The Freemium membership and upgrading options that Night Café Studio offers are great.
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However, the business model largely depends on the fact that their active and recurrent monthly users are hobbyist and constantly top-up on credits — mainly to compete in challenges and feed their self-gratification by receiving likes and comments.
Even @Gazelli, one of the most generous, noble and popular users of the site, eight months ago said "the focus on gaining likes as quickly as possible through challenges and chats and spamming demotivates me."
I'm sure I would enjoy creating fantastic pieces with Loras and premium models. But, unless I am getting paid to create an AI image for a client, I would not go Pro.
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If I get paid to create, I'll happily pay Night Café. Until then, I'm happy with my free membership. 🤙🏼
I don't mind if a company makes a profit. However, since most people who are among the 20,000 are hobbyists, I think the price is a little high. 20,000 subscribers out of 1,000,000 people cruising is a low percentage of pro users. The best business strategy would be to capture more of the visitors by reducing the price.
A source close to the company tells TechCrunch that NightCafe is raking in $4 million in annualized revenue with a gross margin of nearly 50%, meaning that NightCafe is generating approximately $2 million a year in profit after expenses (inclusive of payroll for its nine staff).
Roughly a million people ...