This is the story of why we got fed up, what we built instead, and the belief that drives every decision we make.
It was a Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday where you're doing the monthly SaaS audit — that ritual every founder eventually does where you scroll through your credit card statement and ask yourself, "Wait. Am I still actually using this?"
"We were paying $59 a month for a testimonial tool. Every month, like clockwork. Had been for two years."
— The moment it clickedTwo years. $1,416. For a tool that collects reviews and displays them on a webpage. A tool we'd used maybe a dozen times to actually change the embed. A tool whose "pro features" we'd unlocked and then mostly forgotten about.
And here's the thing — it wasn't even bad software. It worked fine. The problem wasn't the tool. The problem was the business model. Subscription pricing for software that solves a problem that doesn't change. You don't need new features every month for testimonials. The job is the same. The job has always been the same: collect customer words, display them where buyers can see them, watch trust build.
We looked at the alternatives. Senja at $29–$59 a month. Testimonial.to at $40–$80 a month. Everyone doing the same thing: solving the same finite problem, charging forever for it. It made no sense. And the deeper we looked, the more we realised: the industry had just accepted this as normal. We hadn't.
We didn't set out to build a company. We set out to solve an obvious problem and price it honestly.
"Why is this a subscription?" The software that collects testimonials doesn't need to be rented. The database that stores them doesn't expire. The widget that displays them doesn't need a monthly fee to keep running. We wrote it on a whiteboard. We stared at it for a long time.
We asked one question: "What do you actually need from a testimonial tool?" Every single person said some version of the same six things — collect text, collect video, import from other platforms, approve what goes public, display it beautifully, and know if it's working. Not one person said "and I need new features shipped to me every month to keep using it."
We took everything those 47 people said they needed. We built it completely. We added the things competitors had gotten wrong — auto-sync across all 50+ platforms instead of just 11, six Wall of Love layouts instead of one, a Chrome extension, unlimited workspaces, a team audit log. We built the full version. Then we priced it the way we wished software was priced.
$100. Once. Forever.Proof is used by SaaS founders, marketing agencies, course creators, e-commerce brands, and consultants across the world. Every one of them paid $100 once. Not $100 to access a starter plan. Not $100 to get to the features that actually matter. $100 for everything. For life. The way we wished it had always worked.
These aren't marketing values. They're the things we actually argued about in the room until we agreed.
"Software pricing should match the value delivered — not the maximum a customer will tolerate."
We solved a finite problem. Charging forever for a solved problem is a business model, not a product decision. We made the other choice.
"Trust is the most valuable asset a business has. It should be easier to build, not harder."
Social proof is the oldest sales mechanism on earth. We didn't invent it. We just made it so easy to use that there's no excuse not to.
"Early customers who believed in us before we were big deserve to be rewarded, not repriced."
When the price eventually goes up — and it will — every person who joined early stays at their $100 price. Always. That's a commitment, not a promotion.
"The best products are built for how people actually work, not for how a pitch deck says they should."
We built Proof based on 47 real conversations with real users. Not a market-sizing exercise. Not a competitive analysis. Just listening.
Not because we're contrarian. Because we actually think the other way is better — for users, and long term, for us.
This isn't a marketing guarantee. It's a commitment that changes how we make decisions every single day. When we have to choose between what's good for our revenue and what's good for our customers, we choose our customers.
That means when a customer who paid $100 in year one is still using Proof in year five, they pay nothing more. That means when we ship new features — and we ship regularly — every existing customer gets them automatically at the price they paid.
It means the 30-day money-back guarantee is real. Not "store credit real". Not "subject to conditions real". If you pay $100, use every feature for 30 days, and decide it's not for you — you get your full $100 back, immediately, no questions.
"The best software companies I've ever used made me feel like they were on my side. That's exactly what we're trying to be."
We build software that makes serious things simple. We believe the best businesses are built on trust. We believe in pricing that respects the people who pay it. We believe in shipping things that work, then making them better, forever.
Every business has customers who are happy. Most of those customers never say so publicly. Proof gives you the system to change that — and the platform to make every word of praise count.
30-day money-back guarantee. No subscription. Price locked for early buyers. Lifetime updates included.