Everyone launches with a discount, does it actually help, or does it just anchor you low?

I discounted at launch and it took two years to undo, so here is the honest version of the risk you are describing.

What happened: fifty percent off for launch week, a good number of signups, and a cohort that never moved. Every attempt to raise them produced churn and unhappy emails, so I carried them at the old price. Meanwhile the discounted number was the one in every screenshot, every review and every conversation, so new prospects arrived expecting it and full price felt like an increase rather than the price.

The part I did not anticipate: a discount selects for the people most sensitive to price, and those are also the ones most likely to churn, most likely to ask for support, and least likely to give you useful product feedback. My best customers came later, at full price.

What I would do differently, and did the second time:

Discount the first period, not the price. First month at a low rate, then the real price, stated clearly up front. Urgency without a permanent cohort.

Or give something that is not money. Extra usage, a longer trial, early access to something, a call with me. All create the reward without touching the reference point.

Or do nothing. Launching at your price is a legitimate and underrated option.

On lifetime deals specifically, since they turn up in every launch discussion: be extremely careful, and understand what you are actually selling.

A lifetime deal is not a discount. It is you taking a small amount of money now in exchange for an unbounded obligation, support, hosting, updates, forever: from the customers least likely to be a good fit.

What happened to me: a hundred or so lifetime buyers at a low price. Two years later they are a meaningful share of my support load, a meaningful share of my hosting cost, and zero of my revenue. They also, entirely reasonably, expect the product to keep improving.

When it can make sense:

When you genuinely need cash now and are clear-eyed that you are borrowing against future revenue.

When the marginal cost per customer is near zero and you cap the number sold.

When it is capped and time-limited, so the obligation is bounded.

What makes it dangerous: uncapped, on a product with real per-customer costs, sold to people who wanted a bargain rather than the product.

If you do it, cap it hard: a specific number, stated: and price it at something like two to three years of the subscription, not two months.

If what you actually want is urgency: a reason to act today rather than bookmark it, there are ways to get that without touching the price.

A closing window on something scarce. The first fifty get onboarding help from you personally. That is genuinely limited, genuinely valuable, and costs you time rather than margin.

Founding customer status with something attached - a say in the roadmap, a mention on the site, direct access to you. People value being early and it is free.

A price rise announced in advance. The price goes up on a date, and early buyers keep the current one. This creates urgency and it does the opposite of anchoring low, because it establishes that the price goes up over time.

That last one is the shape I would use, and it has a bonus: it makes the eventual increase a thing you have already announced rather than a surprise, which is most of what makes raising prices difficult.

And one practical note whatever you choose: write down what happens to the launch cohort before you launch. When they renew, at what price, and what you will say. People discount without deciding that, and the decision then gets made in a year by whichever email is most uncomfortable to send.