What a pay-as-you-go waitlist actually costs, with real numbers
Springuplist
November 3, 2026 · 3 min read
Contents
"Pay only for what you use" is an easy line to put on a pricing page. It's a harder one to actually show the math for. This post is the math: what you're charged for on Springuplist, the real pack prices, and three worked examples so you can see roughly what a waitlist of a given size actually costs rather than guessing.
The two things you pay for
Only two actions spend credits. A new signup costs 1 credit. Sending a broadcast email costs 1 credit for every 5 recipients, rounded up, so a broadcast to 42 people costs 9 credits. Everything else, building the page, adding referral tiers, setting a countdown, checking your dashboard, is free regardless of how often you do it.
Every account starts with 100 free credits before any of this is spent.
Credit pack pricing
When the free allowance runs out, you buy more in one of four fixed packs. There's no subscription tier underneath any of these, you simply buy a pack and spend it down over however long that takes.
| Pack | Credits | Price | Per credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 300 | $9.99 | 3.33¢ |
| Launch | 1,000 | $24.99 | 2.50¢ |
| Grow | 3,000 | $59.99 | 2.00¢ |
| Scale | 10,000 | $149.99 | 1.50¢ |
Bigger packs are cheaper per credit, but nothing forces you to buy ahead of what you need. Credits never expire, so there's no pressure to pick a bigger pack than makes sense right now.
Three example waitlists
These are illustrative scenarios, not guarantees about what your own list will do, but the credit math on each one is exact.
A slow, early-stage launch
Say your waitlist picks up 80 signups over its first couple of months, and you send two update emails to the full list along the way.
- Signups: 80 credits
- Broadcast 1 to ~80 people: 16 credits
- Broadcast 2 to ~80 people: 16 credits
- Total: 112 credits
That's 12 credits past the free allowance, so you'd top up with the smallest pack, $9.99, and have 288 credits left over for whatever comes next.
A waitlist that's finding traction
Say the list grows to 500 signups and you send five updates over a few months, averaging around 300 recipients per send as the list grows.
- Signups: 500 credits
- 5 broadcasts at ~300 recipients each: 300 credits
- Total: 800 credits
Minus the 100 free credits, that's 700 credits needed, which the Launch pack covers at $24.99, with 300 credits to spare.
A waitlist that goes properly viral
Say referrals take off and the list hits 3,000 signups, with 10 updates sent along the way averaging around 1,500 recipients each as the list grows.
- Signups: 3,000 credits
- 10 broadcasts at ~1,500 recipients each: 3,000 credits
- Total: 6,000 credits
Minus the free allowance, that's roughly 5,900 credits needed. Two Grow packs would cover it for about $120, or one Scale pack for $149.99 with meaningful headroom left for whatever comes after launch.
What this means in practice
For most early-stage waitlists, the real number lands somewhere between free and about $25. The cost only climbs meaningfully once a list is big enough that most founders would call it a success rather than a problem, and even then it's a one-time purchase, not a bill that keeps showing up whether the list is active or not.
Start your first waitlist free. Every account begins with 100 free credits, and they never expire.
