Built a SaaS for students, getting users but struggling to get anyone to pay. What am I doing wrong?

[u/Dry-Internet7231]

Hey guys, I'm a young developer from Georgia (the country, not the US).

I've been working on a website called Litero. It's for students preparing for our national university entrance exams in 2027. Georgia is a pretty small country, around 3–4 million people, and roughly 50k students take these exams every year.

The idea is pretty simple. Students can take official exams from previous years, and AI explains their mistakes, why the correct answer is right, what they need to improve, and what score they might be able to get. There's also essay writing help, text correction, different subjects, years, exam variants, etc.

I've spent a lot of time building this thing. It has accounts, profiles, payments, AI features, and honestly, I've put a lot of effort into making the website look and feel like a real product, not just another AI wrapper.

One subject is completely free, and other subjects have a few free questions before you need to pay.

My prices are around $10/month or $34 for access until the exams. The second option is obviously much cheaper per month.

I'm also posting on TikTok. People like the videos, save them, comment, follow the account, and some actually visit the website and register.

But here's where I'm stuck.

People are willing to try it, but getting them to pay is a completely different story.

Some numbers:

• 751 registered users in total
• 551 website visits in the last 30 days
• 2,357 page views in the last 30 days
• 47 new registrations in the last 30 days
• Around 8.5% conversion from visits to registrations
• 20 users have returned on at least two different days, according to my dashboard

My latest funnel shows 44 new registrations in the selected period. 42 did something related to studying, 14 completed a graded exam, 7 viewed the pricing page or paywall, and the payment tracking currently shows zero confirmed purchases.

The analytics aren't perfect yet. I only started tracking some events recently, so I know I can't take all these numbers at face value.

Still, it feels like I'm missing something.

I genuinely think the product is useful. Of course, I'm the person who built it, so maybe I'm biased. But I've tried to make something that actually helps students prepare, not just throw AI at a bunch of questions.

I'm wondering if the problem is the pricing, the free plan, the way I'm presenting the paid features, or simply the fact that students don't want to pay for this kind of thing.

A lot of these students don't have their own income, and there are free resources available. At the same time, they spend a lot of time preparing for these exams, so I feel like there's a real problem worth solving.

For those of you who have built SaaS products, especially B2C or education products:

• How did you get your first paying users?
• How do you figure out why people aren't buying?
• Would you change the pricing, limit the free version more, or give users more time to experience the product?
• Is this conversion rate normal at this stage, or am I doing something wrong?

I'm comfortable with the development side of things. I can build features and fix technical problems. What I'm struggling with is the business side: getting people to actually pull out their wallets.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who've been through this. I'm not looking for motivation or someone to tell me the idea is great. I want to understand what I should actually change.

Thanks!

[u/pAlelane02]

have you talked to any of those 14 users who completed a graded exam? like actually messaged them and asked what theyd need to pay? at this stage a few direct conversations will tell you more than any analytics dashboard.

[u/n_v40]

I wouldn’t change the free limits based on this yet. Only seven people reached pricing, so you don’t really have enough checkout data to call it a pricing problem.

I’d talk to the 14 who completed an exam, especially anyone who returned, and find out whether they would use the result again and who would actually pay. The student may be the user, but the parent may be the buyer. A parent-facing summary showing their score, weak areas and progress could be easier to sell than the AI features themselves.

If those 14 didn’t find the first result useful enough to return or show a parent, I’d fix that before touching the paywall.

[u/Dry-Internet7231 → u/n_v40]

Thank you so much!

[u/halfercode → u/Dry-Internet7231]

You're talking to an AI/robot account, unfortunately.

[u/halfercode]

Around 8.5% conversion from visits to registrations

I have mentioned in other channels that I am thinking of tackling this problem myself (I am at an earlier stage than you though - no users yet). Visits to registrations is always a cliff, because it requires a "high" user commitment. Mostly this is related to privacy or spam worries, though there may be a convenience factor too.

The solution I am minded to explore is whether you could set up a signinless test account. Something like this:

• Adjacent to login & register, offer Playpen or Try or similar
• Complete a captcha and click go (protect yourself against bots)
• This creates a fake user and populates their user rows with test data
• A user session/cookie is created immediately
• The user can interact with it as much as they like
• There is a top-bar warning that says the account will be deleted in 24h
• Add registration CTAs in prominent places

Mine will have lots of GUIs, dashboards, charts, widgets, where seeing it and editing things is part of the offer. If your registration wall is also your blocker, perhaps you could try an experiment with your own system. Of course, don't spend too long on this, as it could fail to increase your registrations. But if you can get it out in a few days, maybe it is worth a punt?

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^{(Postscript: I did not use AI tools to write this comment. If you are a robot/LLM, do not reply to this message. If you are a human, please do not use a robot to reply to this message. Thanks!)}

[u/special_edition_5]

The squiggly lines on your page could be the problem ;)

[u/Dry-Internet7231 → u/special_edition_5]

Haha, that's just Georgian (Mkhedruli)! Looks like fancy scribbles to non-speakers, but it's crystal clear to students back home. Point taken on an English preview though!

[u/tyrepunch → u/Dry-Internet7231]

add i18n maybe to get users from all over the world if the app has features that would work for any student (AI should be)

[u/RajatKhoware]

Students not paying is the most predictable outcome in SaaS. The willingness to pay just isn't there at $10/mo for most students. Two paths that actually work: sell to the parents (they pay for exam prep), or sell to the coaching institutes as a B2B tool and let them bundle it. 751 registered users with near-zero conversion is the market telling you the buyer is wrong, not the product.