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You MUST See the Price for this Software

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vradmilovic:
He says he just started this model 3 weeks ago-Ralf Maximus (October 29, 2007, 04:19 PM)
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Oh, then it wasn't him that I remember then... I stand corrected. :)

Ralf Maximus:
Just got permission to post the reply from Christian ([email protected]):

Hi Ralf,

I'd say the model has been quite successful at the moment. I've only started this thing about three weeks ago, so it's probably a bit early to make a definitive statement, but in these three weeks I've earned what I've earned before in a year (with a fixed price of 40 Euros). The average price people pay is around 9 US Dollars at the moment, so people really seem to be willing to pay non-negligible amounts. The number of buyers who went for the cheapest option of 50 Cents (to cover Paypal expenses) is definitely lower than I expected, about 30 percent (which, interestingly, is of the same order of magnitude as for the new Radiohead, where also about 30 percent of the people paid basically nothing). So, all in all I'm glad I've taken this move! The only thing one might suspect is that quite a few people have bought the software just to support the idea, and if all developers would do it this way, the "marketing effect" of the new payment method would no longer be there...

By the way: I think what I do is not donation coding. There is the fundamental difference that people FIRST have to pay (albeit almost nothing) and THEN get the product. I've observed it from myself that I often download something from a donationware page and, in spite of being really satisfied with the software, never come back to donate because I basically forget it. So the order of things seems important to me.

Cheers, Christian

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Renegade:
By the way: I think what I do is not donation coding. There is the fundamental difference that people FIRST have to pay (albeit almost nothing) and THEN get the product. I've observed it from myself that I often download something from a donationware page and, in spite of being really satisfied with the software, never come back to donate because I basically forget it. So the order of things seems important to me.
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That seems like a very important point there. I'm quite sure that there is donationware that I use that I've never donated for.

nosh:
I wonder how he'd fare if he fixed the price to USD 9.00, which is what most people seem to think is a good bargain for the software. 40 Euros is over six times that amount and not a very good pricing model to compare against.

Carol Haynes:
Actually it is an interesting idea ... a possible corollary of the 'pay what you want' approach could be that you provide a copy at that price but users would have to decide if each future update/version is worth a further purchase rather than the current model where most users assume that if they buy something they are entitled to updates (at least for a period of time if not forever).

The upshot would be that if you have a product the users value and use a lot you may generate a small but steady flow of funds and in the long run do rather better than a fixed price for a few sales and then work for nothing to keep improving the package.

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