Surfulater started off priced way too low at $35 with a 25% early bird discount on top of that, not to mention Donation Coder and other specials. Unless you have a mass market product it is difficult to build a long term sustainable business at such low prices. The time spent on one support request instantly removes any profit. So we raised the price to $59 a while back and reduced the early bird discount amount. With Version 3 we have added more important new functionality with lots more to come in the 3.x series. We have increased the price again, to $79 which we feel is reasonable and necessary. There is a $10 discount which makes this only $69 for new customers. And for the first time in four years we have charged for an upgrade. We possibly should have extended the paid upgrade period beyond two years and we will reconsider that.-nevf
I think that there are a number of elements of wishful thinking in here.
The first is about paying for support. Corporates expect it and are willing to pay. Most users of low price software will take it if they can get it, but are happy enough with support through forums with much of it coming from experienced users rather than the developers; they are rarely willing to pay anything/much for support. So, if you split support activity into two (those dealing with issues/bugs where users are actually providing free help to improving the software and those helping users use features already present and correct) and the second type of support is proving considerable, then an assumption that customers will be ready to pay for it may not be correct and it might be better to cut back on that support.
Second, experienced users are likely to be less expensive users of support and should therefore be cheaper customers in terms of future costs. They also cost nothing to acquire (and I would point out that new customers are expected to be expensively gained in most industries).
Thirdly, there may be NO price at which the desired (needed) income is achieved. The number of customers at higher prices will be lower; it is very easy to increase price and reduce income. In many ways it is easier to increase price from a low price base than to increase the number of customers after reducing price. It is certainly important to avoid shocking customers and potential customers. One approach to doing this is to choose a high or very high price point but to have a lot of offers and low upgrade prices; over time the average % reduction of the offers can be reduced and the customer base will have gradually shifted to a perception that the 'correct' price is high.
Fourthly, any software prooducer needs to know their market well. Especially if they are trying to charge more than their most direct competitors. I've never bought or trialled Surfulater, though I have read the threads here. I do have Evernote 2 & 3, Ultra Recall Pro and OneNote (and Do-Organiser), and expect to buy IQ at some point; I never saw Surfulater as an alternative to them from my own perspective and therefore have no idea what a realistically competitive price is for Surfulater. I do know that I never paid as much as $69 for any of these products. And many of the reactions here suggest that the new price is too high for many people.
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Not quite sure how this happened, but it seems to have happened to a lot of other people too. I've requested a change, but am well aware that all the requests they are likely to receive from this will really overload a support system really intended for paying customers/other things.
