A mentor once asked his entrepreneurship class "How do people decide what a business is worth?" People threw out Cashflows, asset value, and other thoughts. He disagreed: to Ken a business is worth only what people are willing to pay for it.
It seems you are in the same boat: they are worth what they feel is fair.
All this to say that I have never heard of a uniform method. It's all up to negotiations for your team.
That being said, I feel like you can't charge people for what you provide. I think it is too much of a limiting factor for the user. Personally, my mind turned off after I looked at pricing. I checked the rest of the site but it was over once I knew you were charging me.
People expect a service like this to be free. It's Chacha vs. KGB, only you don't have the millions that KGB spends on marketing.
That's just my opinion as a member of the freemium or steal-me-sum generation.
My answer is Woot.com... they sell the products of others in a very unique method. Additionally, they sell the attention of their audience with advertisements.
That being said: everything valuable in life comes at a great cost. Absolutely everything costs something. 6 figures should about cover that "great" cost.
Ask: what are you living for? To sustain or to see a world you've never seen before? If the latter is the case, start your company and never look back
Options, options, options. The internet is all about options. This stems from the fact that people would prefer to "Have it their way"... still waiting on BK to deliver that.
When people online don't have options they feel alienated. It's the expectation at this point.
Can anyone provide some examples of businesses that have successfully used more than one of these methods? We all know about Facebook, but let's look at businesses who fall under the Radar.
I want to see what people say before I provide my example...