| The Upgrade Cycle
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Date: 7/10/2004
| I was just reading this and it made me think about what I'm planning to do with InScribe's v2 release. I've always said that I'd charge an upgrade fee for v2 and I'm planning some features that are worth it. The main one being a rewrite of the folder format to enable some very exciting searching capabilies as well as more speed and robustness. That in of itself would be worth almost the cost of InScribe v1 again. But what I feel about the price and what people actually pay are 2 different things. Do people accept that for a software business to make money that upgrade fees must be charged ($10 for v2)? Would you buy software based on a subscription (e.g. $10/yr for upgrades - bought versions work forever)? Or even a micropayment (no free version, just InScribe for $0.50)?
The other aspect that I'm thinking about with regards to pricing is simply the outright first purchase price. People want to buy the software for the cheapest price available, or even just crack the commercial version for free. However that is in direct contrast to the value that people associate with a product. The reasoning is that the more expensive the product the more useful/valuable it would be. In that regards Scribe is one of the least useful email clients on the market, having a low cost price. Many of the faithful users would smile at that, knowing that it holds it's own against OE, Eudora and so on.
What would you do in my shoes?
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| Comments:
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Sean C. Johnson
07/10/2004 4:59pm
| First, let me say that InScribe is a great product. I use it every day and i really like the fact you release updates continuously. Reading the article on The Bat! i found myself agreeing with the "software death" of that program. I moved to Inscribe *from* The Bat! mainly because it didn't have Unicode support and their techs couldn't give any kind of reasonable time frame for them doing so. I paid the big bucks for Bat and liked it, but at this point i would never go back to it. They still send me email and i can it as spam!
My take on upgrade fees depends on the price. For $10 i would gladly pay for the next jump of Inscribe because i really like supporting smaller programers like yourself. ( i wish i could make software for a living like you do). My rule for commercial apps varies, if i have to have it for work related (real estate) stuff i usually get screwed because in my experience whoever makes software for this industry always seems to make it a subscription (which i hate) and they do a very poor job.
Other commercial software i have includes Adobe Acrobat (full edition) which i paid $200 in 1999 (version 4) i have refused to pay upgrade fees so far because it does what i need it to do just fine without plunking out more cash. Only latetly have i had issues with opening older files and see the need to upgrade (after 5 years). I also make a lot of mindmaps and have different software for this too. Mindmanager i paid $150 back in 1997 their price now is $300+. My response to upgrade requests for this? Went to sourceforge and looked for great open source applications which i found in Freemind -- for free. Yes, i lost some functionality but they had morphed the product into a large application integrated with MS Office and aimed it at big corporations willing to part with money easily. Just call me a tightwad!
I think this comment has gotten out of hand a bit so i will signoff, but to summarize:
<$20 -- small upgrade fees ok
>$20 -- wait for as many versions to buy new or upgrade
>$80 -- look for opensource or free stuff (it's always there if you take the time to hunt for it)
subscriptions out of the question!
micropayments? huh? i pay .50 cents every time i open the program???? :)
Regards,
Sean |
SnappyCrunch
07/10/2004 6:37pm
| Micropayments are troublesome. If there were some sort of unified system wherein it was transparent to the user, micropayments would be feasible. As it stands, giving you $.50 to download i.Scribe costs me another $1.50 in labor. Setting up an account in order to download i.Scribe would be easily justifiable for the InScribe faithful, but not for the casual email user just poking around for a new client. They'll go to a free or open source client.
I think the value of InScribe comes from it's great price/performance ratio, and a certain sleekness it has. A look at the download size will tell you that i.Scribe is cruft free. People who aren't concerned about that are off using OE or Thunderbird. You're catering to a niche market, and as such, you should be marketing to that niche market.
For the most part, the people who use InScribe are the ones who recognize it's value, and have decided you should be rewarded for such an excellent program. I think a large majority of your userbase would have no problem ponying up another $20 for v2. I know I wouldn't. I would, of course, be happier if there were some sort of discount involved, but I'd still buy it if there weren't. |
Justin Heiner
08/10/2004 6:07am
| I definately would pay $10 for a v2 upgrade. I don't like the idea of micropayments and DEFINATELY don't like the idea of subscription based services.
However, I don't mind paying a $10 upgrade fee when the product contains great new functionality. That being said, I would probably buy anything that you put in front of me since they're such good products...i just wouldn't be that happy about it :) |
Damien
08/10/2004 1:52pm
| For myself, I accept without any problem to pay 10$ for the V2.
Inscribe is realy a great soft. I use it every day and i really like the fact you release updates continuously.
Your support in the forum is already great and quickly.
Micropayement and subscription based service is for me not great solutions.
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Dmitri Kozlov
10/10/2004 2:50pm
| There are good notes on this topic although they don't answer your question explicitly. You may have seen it already...
http://software.ericsink.com/bos/Product_Pricing.html
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Bill
12/10/2004 4:29pm
| Inscribe is a very good program. Matthew seems to be working hard to improve it even further.
Would $10 be a fair upgrade price for version 2? I don't know, since we don't know what enhancements would be added. Lets look at one of the competing news + email programs: Forte Agent. Forte released version 2 with no important changes for the =user=. The big change was in the language used to program the software. Yet, Forte charged for this "upgrade", and lost users because they did not provide what the users wanted.
About the only way to learn if the Inscribe upgrade is worth $10.00 is to offer it at that price, and explain how the enhancements would help the user. If users think the enhancements are worth $10, they will (or, at least, should) pay for the upgrade.
Hopefully future upgrades will indeed be useful, and not merely symptoms of "creeping featuritis" (addition of "features" that are used only by a very few geeks with special needs). One way to help assure this would be for Matthew to post a list of proposed enhancements, and see how many people are interested in each.
Suggestions:
1. Eventually finalize version 1. (Don't let it remain a Beta forever)
2. Publish a list of possible enhancements for version 2
3. Start work on version 2 betas, adding enhancements that are most useful. Charge an appropriate price =after= sufficient enhancements have been made to make the software worth the price.
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Michael
13/10/2004 4:20am
| Hi Matthew,
I don't like the idea of a subscription fee. It'd be one more detail to keep (or lose) track of with life online.
I would have no problem paying $10 for an upgrade. In.Scribe has let me manage my email at work and home by doing everything from a USB gadget. It's greatly simplifed my email life. You're very prompt in responding to questions and problems. I'm happy to support your developing the program. |
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