Strange, I was thinking about this today and I read a nice article from Marc Lou about this. I would say for early stages, especially during validation phase (PMF) it would be better to have an one-time payment to your product. That way, you can validate and generate revenue fast. Especially as a solopreneur, giving let's say 7 days of free for your app and then one time payment is more attractive in my opinion. It is better to see your card charged once, than once every month.

Here are my 2 cents: One-time payments work well for high-ticket offers. For low-ticket offers, you can provide multiple one-time offers that would encourage users to repurchase from time to time, mimicking recurring revenue. Subscriptions are great to have a viable long-term business, but some offers make more sense as a one-time payment; so depends on what you're selling.

In my opinion, the choice of model depends entirely on your costs. If the growth of the number of users increases your expenses, then only a subscription. And if not, then you can use a One-time payment model.

On average, you can summarize this as such: subscriptions are business friendly, one-time payments are consumer friendly. Afterwards, its up to you to decide your own priorities.

There is also a 3rd option of a usage based model, I know this is something being discussed more widely as the 'death of SaaS' and I know Satya Nadella was proposing this is the future based on integrated systems and AI usage, so perhaps another possible option to consider?

@nickanisimov Totally agree that the choice depends on costs, but I think user psychology also plays a huge role. Some people hesitate at subscriptions, but they’re fine with occasional one-time payments. A hybrid model—like a low-cost subscription with optional one-time add-ons—could balance revenue stability with user flexibility. Curious if you’ve seen any startups successfully pull this off?

Depends on the goal of the product and long term vision. If your system requires an ongoing cost, even if small, subscription is probably the way to go. This allows for RR and give you more flexibility to expand, add new products and more