Show HN: Unlimited Web-App Testing Service starts $99/month. First test is free | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Unlimited Web-App Testing Service starts $99/month. First test is free

testrise.com

35 pointsAna_TestRise23 comments

Looks like an interesting service, but...

1. Testing isn’t always as easy as following a list of steps, and when it _is_ those get to be technical. Explaining those as text instructions could get harder than what most expect if they are to be useful.

2. This is a lesson learned from experience - unlimited plans rarely scale. Instead, they make those who would fit into an entry level (aka just a few tests) feel like they’re paying a premium and those who will fit a large plan not pay nearly as much as what they consume.

Not only that, but when the founders realize this they’ll have to change it and users will be upset, so they’ll grandfather them and we’re back to the beginning.

Side note: I love “breaking” new features personally and know it’s not a straight forward process. If all this aims to do is replace selenium I don’t see the need for it — selenium tests are very predictable where text-to-human isn’t. If it aims to go beyond, that can’t happen without real knowledge of the application.

Arielm those are all good points.

1. I completely understand, being a software tester for over 10 years. We are going to build in functions in the software that will make it easier for users.

2. The unlimited plan is limited in the launch phase to certain number of companies already. We are going to shutting down sign ups after hitting that level to avoid disappointment as you have mentioned.

3. TestRise isn’t a replacement for Selenium. While automated tests have their place, using real users with real devices brings up a lot more edge cases.

Would be great to hear your thoughts in detail and swap notes about your experience with prior similar services. I can be reached at analyn (at) testrise (dot) com

I was just thinking about this the other day. I think you are on to something here. We do have test suites but at the end of the day having real people test things out is the only way to catch certain bugs and UX stuff. I mean a robot will understand everything you tell it. You don’t know how a human is going to think in which combination they are going to click.

A friend of mine hacked together something like this with mechanical turk. This seems like a much more polished version.

I hope you succeed! When I launch our product will definitely try your service out.

Thanks artellectual. Looking forward to working with you.

"Tests run on Launch plan take 2-12 hours to execute." - i normally run my test suite several times when developing and i'm sure i'm not the only developer that does this. having to wait 2-12 hours per run is completely incomprehensible and unacceptable. with that in mind, how and where do you see a service like this fitting into the development life-cycle?

my thinking is that this a late stage April Fools day prank.

TestRise is a fit for applications that have launched and say do weekly deployments to production which need to be periodically tested. The client can use our service to test their staging environment first and after all their tests have passed, they can get us to test production afterwards as well.

Companies who require faster turnaround times will be able to do so in the future as well. The Unlimited plan with a single parallel test works very well for early stage startups that can execute the tests at the end of their workday knowing that when they come back the next morning they will have their results.

The unlimited plan is not a good fit for people who are deploying multiple times a day and need much faster turnaround times.

I guess this is more for testing a built application, by actual users, which is not easily automated using a test suite. Totally acceptable in my opinion.

How do you differ from [1] Rainforest QA?

[1] https://www.rainforestqa.com/

Our main difference from rainforest is going to be that we have a completely in-house team of testers at our startup. Rainforest uses their virtual network to match your tests with appropriate testers.

At a glance, it appears there’s a limitation where the service runs only one test at a time. As your product and thus your testing requirements grow, this becomes infeasible. Additionally, the FAQ states that you may not get results back for 2 hours to as long as 12 hours. Both of those limitations can apparently be overcome by giving them more money for parallel tests and/or faster results.

The reason you’re running tests is to view the results and then quickly fix any bugs, re-running any failed tests to verify. Given the serial nature of testing and the turnaround time, you’re losing far more in productivity than $99/month. And if they get a sufficient number of signups at that price point, their ability to service tests is going to be severely impacted to the point where it becomes unusable.

They should really change this model and offer a limited offering for the $99/month. Keep the one-at-a-time model, but also limit the number of tests per day to something reasonable. Then introduce a $999/month plan which is unlimited. This is still way cheaper than even a part time QA tester, but as soon as you start firing sufficient load at the service you run into capacity limitations. Of course, at that point it makes sense to start offering dedicated resources for those who hit those capacity limitations, which results in a few additional offerings of $X,999 per month for various values of X. Assuming they can offer 24/7 coverage, screenshots, recordings, variables, API, etc. they’ll perhaps become a viable competitor for Rainforest QA [which I used at a previous job].

Biot you made some excellent points. The pricing at the moment is definitely exploratory. Our goal is to limit the number of people we sign up at this level and learn from the process.

I think your idea of limiting the amount of tests is great and something we will definitely explore. When we were running the service for clients manually we did something similar. As for services such as 24/7 support along with neat features like variables and interacting with API's they are on the roadmap. We are bootstrapping this at the moment and looking for our first 10 - 20 customers to work with us as we refine the service. They get a very affordable QA service and we refine our process.

Biot if you have used rainforestqa before would be great if I could ask you a couple of questions over email if possible. I can be reached at analyn (at) testrise (dot) com. Your help would be greatly appreciated

Recommend reading this re pricing: https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/saas pricing, I know you are experimenting but a single, unlimited plan is rarely a good idea.

https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/saas-pricing

Thanks for this Jefro118. This would greatly help us as we are learning from the process.

Why would someone choose your service over a service such as Applause? https://www.applause.com

Look nice. Do you support recurring tests? Say if we release code every Friday and would like it tested after? If not might be something to think about.

Yes, we do. You can just run the test that you define every Friday and when you get back to work on Monday you will have everything tested and ready to go for your next cycle. If you have any questions you can email me at analyn (at) testrise (dot) com

Do you integrate with tools like Jira? That is what we use for our development at the moment.

We do not support Jira integration at the moment sorry. It is something we will put on the roadmap if enough users request it. I am building the notifications to be pushed to Hipchat & Slack though. Hope that will be good enough to get you started!

Looks good- hoping for more details. Just signed up #41!

Thanks Lyon, will be in touch with you over email to learn more about your product.

Neat! Any plans for mobile apps?

Yes @spking. In our initial launch, we will be supporting all major web browsers. Mobile apps is going to be released shortly.

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