Most indie product launches start with a price tag and hope. Mine started with a price tag, a catalog of 8 production-ready Next.js templates, and exactly zero sales.
So I changed the plan. For 4 weeks — through May 19, 2026 — every Craftly template is free.
Not discounted. Free. Pay-what-you-want on Gumroad with a $0 minimum.
Here's why, what's inside, and what I actually want in exchange.
The problem a discount doesn't solve
When I looked at Craftly honestly, the bottleneck wasn't pricing. The Bundle at $99 is the cheapest full Next.js + Tailwind v4 template catalog I know of. Individual templates at $19-49 beat most competitors on quality.
The bottleneck was social proof. Zero testimonials. Zero "I shipped this with Craftly" tweets. Zero stories.
A 20% discount doesn't fix that. It tells people buy now for less. It doesn't tell them this is worth buying.
Free does something a discount can't: it removes the "is it worth the money?" question entirely and replaces it with "can I use this?"
That's the question I actually want answered.
What's in the bundle
Every Craftly template, free through May 19:
- SaaSify — SaaS landing page, 8 sections, conversion-ready
- Admin Dashboard — charts, tables, sidebar, dark mode
- Developer Portfolio — 7 sections, single data file to customize
- Blog — tag filtering, newsletter signup, SEO metadata
- Pricing Page — toggle, comparison table, testimonials, FAQ
- Waitlist — countdown, email capture, social proof
- Free 404 — space-themed, always free
- All-Access Bundle — all of the above in one listing
Same stack across everything: Next.js 16 App Router, Tailwind v4 with @theme inline (no config file), TypeScript strict, Framer Motion, Lucide icons. Consistent design system. Dark mode everywhere.
MIT-friendly license — ship with what you build.
What I'm trading for
The only thing I'm asking for in return is feedback.
Seven days after you download anything from Craftly, Loops sends you a short email. Three questions:
- What did you build (or try to build) with it?
- What almost stopped you? Something confusing, broken, missing?
- Would you tell another dev about it? Why or why not?
Reply with one-line answers. Brutal honesty welcome. I'd rather fix what's broken than read compliments.
That's the whole mechanism. No hidden upsell, no bait-and-switch. The templates are yours to keep forever regardless of whether you reply.
Why the math actually works
Free isn't just a marketing tactic here — it's the highest-leverage thing I can do with Craftly's current state.
- Before free launch: 0 paying customers, 0 testimonials, ~20 Dev.to views per article, near-zero X reach.
- Predicted after free launch: 100-500 downloads, 10-30 testimonials, meaningful external coverage (HN, Reddit, Dev.to), email list in the hundreds.
The templates took weeks to build. Giving them away for 4 weeks costs me exactly $0 in marginal revenue (because marginal revenue was already $0).
What I gain:
- A library of real-world feedback I can use to make the next version better
- Early users who might become paying customers when prices restore
- Quotable testimonials that break the zero-to-one social proof trap
- Real conversations with developers building real things
The cost-benefit is absurdly lopsided.
What happens on May 19
Prices return. Bundle goes to $99. Individual templates go to $19-49.
Anything you downloaded during the free window stays yours — commercial use, personal projects, client work. No clawback, no license change.
After May 19, I plan to release Lite versions of SaaSify, Portfolio, Blog, and Dashboard — smaller free tier — while keeping Pro versions paid. That keeps a permanent free funnel open after the 4-week window closes.
If you want to participate
Free launch goes live today. Grab anything at getcraftly.dev.
No signup required to download — just pay $0 on Gumroad and the zip is yours. Email is only captured if you subscribe to the newsletter, which is optional.
If you want to help more directly, one public reply to this post or an honest review once you've tried a template would mean a lot.
This is the whole experiment. Four weeks. Free templates. Honest feedback. We'll see what actually happens.
Craftly ships production Next.js + Tailwind v4 templates. All 8 are free through May 19, 2026 at getcraftly.dev.
Top comments (0)