I launched SubPulse — 6 installs, 0 uninstalls, and my first real users. Now I'm testing retention.
A few days ago I launched SubPulse, a privacy-first Chrome extension for tracking subscriptions and recurring expenses.
Instead of connecting your bank account or giving a third party access to your financial data, you manually add your subscriptions once and SubPulse takes care of the ongoing reminders and tracking.
I now have my first real users, so I wanted to share the numbers and, more importantly, start validating whether the product actually provides enough ongoing value.
The first numbers
So far:
- 6 installs
- 0 uninstalls
- 2 weekly active users
- 13 Chrome Web Store page views
- 1 five-star review
- 100% of installs so far are from the US
It's obviously a tiny sample, but seeing people outside my own circle actually install it is a pretty exciting milestone.
What SubPulse does
The basic idea is simple:
You add your subscriptions and SubPulse keeps them visible and reminds you before they renew.
It currently supports:
- Monthly and yearly subscriptions
- Renewal reminders
- Monthly spending totals
- Spending by category
- Multiple currencies with automatic conversion
- Price-change tracking
- Pause/resume subscriptions
- Upcoming payments
- Calendar export
- Budget limits
- Search and duplicate detection
- Backup/import
- Light/dark/automatic themes
- English and Spanish
There's also a Pro plan with unlimited subscriptions, spending history, CSV export and additional analytics.
The most important part for me is privacy:
There is no bank connection, no account required and no server storing users' subscription data. The data is stored locally in the browser.
But I have a big question
Someone here made a really good point on my previous post:
Does manually entering subscriptions create enough ongoing value for people to keep the extension installed and eventually pay for it?
I think this is probably the biggest thing I need to validate.
The initial setup is manual by design because I don't want users to connect their bank accounts just to get subscription tracking.
But after that initial setup, the extension needs to become something people actually come back to:
- renewal reminders
- upcoming payments
- spending history
- price-change tracking
- budget monitoring
- notifications
So right now I'm much more interested in retention than vanity numbers.
I'd rather have 50 people who actually use SubPulse than 1,000 people who install it once and never open it again.
What I'm looking for
I'm looking for early users who have enough recurring subscriptions that they genuinely want to keep track of them.
If you have Netflix, Spotify, ChatGPT, Adobe, gym memberships, SaaS tools, etc. and you've ever forgotten about a recurring payment, I'd love to know whether this solves a real problem for you.
You can try SubPulse here:
And the landing page is here:
https://subpulseapp.netlify.app/
It's free to start, and I'm actively developing it based on feedback from early users.
If you try it, I'd genuinely love to hear:
- How many subscriptions do you currently pay for?
- Did you find the initial setup quick enough?
- After setting it up, would you actually keep the extension installed?
- What would make you open it regularly?
- Would you ever pay for additional features?
I'm especially interested in brutally honest feedback. If you install it and think "this is pointless because...", please tell me. That's much more useful to me right now than a compliment.
I'm going to keep posting updates as the numbers grow.
