Pre-Sell the Plan You Haven't Built Yet: The Early Supporter Pass

Write the tier down in one line

A pass sells a promise, so the promise has to be small enough to keep. Voyager's Plus fits in one line: "Everything in Free. Connect one external app. Mount S3-compatible storage." Two features, both concrete. A buyer can tell whether they want it, and the team can tell when it is done.

From voyager.fm, read October 26, 2026.

Price the pass against the plan

Price the pass in months of the plan it replaces. At $10 a month, Voyager's $200 equals 20 months of Plus. At the yearly price, $84 a year, it is about 2.4 years. A buyer who expects to use the tier for three years or more comes out ahead. Voyager collects two years of revenue on day one, before it has built anything.

1. Write down the monthly price you plan to charge for the tier.
2. Multiply it by 18 to 24. Under 18 months you give away too much. Over 30 the pass stops looking like a deal.
3. Check the total: price times cap. Voyager's ceiling is $20,000. If your total would not pay for building the tier, raise the price or rethink the tier, not the cap.

Cap it, and let Stripe close the door

A cap only works if the checkout stops at the cap. Stripe Payment Links do this on their own: set a payment limit, and when the last payment completes, the link deactivates and shows your message instead of the checkout. No inventory code.

1. In the Stripe Dashboard, create a product called "Early Supporter Pass" with a one-time price.
2. Create a Payment Link for it. Under the options, turn on Limit the number of payments and enter your cap.
3. Write the message people see once it is sold out. Point it somewhere useful, like the waitlist for the tier.
4. Add the refund promise as text under the Pay button, so it is on screen when they pay.

The same thing through the API, which is what I ran in test mode:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_links \
  -u "sk_test_...:" \
  -d "line_items[0][price]=price_..." \
  -d "line_items[0][quantity]=1" \
  -d "restrictions[completed_sessions][limit]=100" \
  -d "inactive_message=All 100 Early Supporter Passes are gone. Join the waitlist for Plus." \
  -d "custom_text[submit][message]=Plus for life when it launches. Full refund any time before then, just reply to your receipt." \
  -d "metadata[offer]=early_supporter_pass"

# "restrictions": { "completed_sessions": { "count": 0, "limit": 100 } }

Then I proved the cap. I made a second link with a limit of 1 and paid it with Stripe's test card. The link's count went from 0 to 1, active flipped to false, and opening the link again showed only the sold-out message:

Promise the refund, and price in what it costs

"Full refund before Plus launches" is what makes a $200 pre-order easy to say yes to. It also tells the buyer exactly when their money is no longer at risk: the day the tier ships. Put it on the pricing card, under the Pay button and in the receipt.

• Stripe keeps its fee. Stripe's refund documentation says its processing fees from the original payment are not returned. Budget for that on every refunded pass.
• Quick refunds are cheaper. A refund issued shortly after the charge goes through as a reversal, and Stripe withholds no fees on a reversal.
• Refund before they dispute. You cannot refund a payment while a dispute on it is open, and a dispute adds its own fee. Answer refund emails the same day.
• Expect a closer look. Stripe's account review FAQ says businesses that take payment before delivery are more likely to see disputes, and that Stripe may hold part of each payment in reserve. A clear delivery condition and fast refunds keep you out of that bucket.

Turn the payment into lifetime access

Stripe's entitlements feature is built around subscriptions. A pass is one payment, so the simplest model is a flag on the user, set from the webhook and read wherever you gate the tier:

const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(body, signature, webhookSecret);

if (event.type === "checkout.session.completed") {
    const session = event.data.object;
    if (session.payment_link === PASS_LINK_ID && session.payment_status === "paid") {
        await db.users.updateOne(
            { email: session.customer_details?.email },
            {
                $set: {
                    lifetimePlan: "plus",
                    passPaidAt: new Date(),
                    passPaymentIntent: session.payment_intent,
                },
            },
            { upsert: true },
        );
    }
}

1. Match on the Payment Link's id, not the amount. Prices change, the link id does not.
2. Store the payment intent next to the flag. A refund then becomes one lookup: refund it, clear the flag.
3. Upsert by email, because pass buyers may not have an account yet. When they sign up with that email, they already have Plus.

Tell buyers what happens next

A pre-order buyer has paid for something they cannot use yet. Silence is what turns that into a refund request.

1. Say what triggers delivery. Voyager's condition is "when Plus goes live". A date is better if you can keep it. If you cannot, say so and give the next update date.
2. Give pass holders the work in progress. Early builds, a private channel, a changelog they see first. Voyager ships its free app's changelog in public, with releases on October 21, 24 and 26.
3. Honor the 14 days. In the EU and the UK a consumer can withdraw from an online purchase within 14 days without a reason. The exception for digital content needs delivery to have started, and a pre-order has not started. Your "full refund before launch" already covers it.
4. Never redefine "lifetime". Lifetime of the Plus tier as you described it on the day they paid. If Plus later splits in two, pass holders keep everything they bought.

Pass, or an AppSumo lifetime deal?

Both sell lifetime access for one payment. They solve different problems.

AppSumo says about 10% of applicants are accepted. If you already have a few thousand users, a pass to them is faster, keeps the money, and tells you whether the tier is worth building. If nobody knows you yet, a pass has nobody to sell to, and a marketplace is the reach you are paying for.