I think the businessmodel of phreak and businessdad is the best model for making money.
that is, Don't give it to anyone unless they pay for it. Then when only that option is available for all plugins - by fee, then the masses will realize in afterthought - maybe I shouldn't have been such a tightwad about donations and supported the people who provide for community-based plugins, rather than piece by piece product sale only available for purchase.
Or you may provide something that is with limited functionality for free and paid for the full functionality.
My speciality is tooo far from this field and my figures sometimes are from freelancer and odesk, where you can get anything for any price without even negotiation, but the result sometimes is disappointing and expensive when you pay again for fixing. So the conclusion is clients will roam around and will realize that they should pick the quality of work first.
This is absolutely true @hbf. People like me don't have 0.001% of your experience in websites, server etc but trying to appreciate professionals contributions as much as they can. When they feel in danger (spending money) they take one step back if not more because, simply they don't know the amount of work spent in the backend for a plugin.
My speciality is tooo far from this field
Bottom line - any working plugin that was created - took more than $5 of man-hours to create.
And if you use it and it provides a good function for you and your community - it is probably worth $5 to you.
So even a token contribution of $5 or $10 goes a long way to a "free" add-on - even if you are not required to purchase it on a purchase only site.
Pleading ignorance on how long something took to make is not an excuse. If "one" uses a plugin, it obviously adds quality, other wise "one" wouldn't be using it, or "one" is to lazy to disable the plugin.
i dont know, if you look at my description of development categories, something that clearly falls into the category 1 type development effort should easily be a $20 minimum type deal. if there were sufficient demand out there someone could actually make a decent living turning out 8-10 1hr quick turn items in a day at that rate.
@peregrine said:
even if they only get one purchase per week, it is more than many plugin developers have received in donations.
not enough to pay for the hosting of a website to support the transactions. What i pay in electricity to keep my servers running 24/7 would make you cry.
I've never been paid for a plugin, but i have been paid to support a plugin. They paid me a fair price to make the changes and get it working on their site, and the community benefited from the enhancements. Seems like a win-win to me.
@hbf said:
i know you're kidding, but that's called ransomware. pure evil.
Yes I am kidding of course I would never endorse such forceful tactics but I do see it often with software that is advertised as free yet at some point you have to pay of it stops working. Or online graphics generators that say they are free but after you design your image they ask you to pay for it to be able to save it.
They should say it is free to try, not download free software. There are levels of how free something is. If I like the software I end up paying for it. What I dislike is not getting lifetime upgrades of the paid software and having to pay again 2 years later only because they remodeled the entire thing.
People will do what they must to make their money back. Surely they should stop at rendering your computer NULL lmao !
If a plugin needs 10 hours of working (say one day), the minimum price shouldn't be less than 300$ and then you need to work on 30 plugins per month to cover any expenses of living, etc
I thought implementing a plugin is a second income, because otherwise 30 plugins per month for 1 year is simply impossible!
on the serious side, there are others that have free and paid versions of their plugins out there.
whos online followed that model. I got burned on that, downloaded free, it worked pretty well but had a few shortcomings, paid for the "pro" version and it was a dog. it was worse written than the free version (since more people contributed to that one) and i ended up re-writing major sections of the code to make it work. it still has bugs. i probably need to open the hood on it again. if you are going to charge upfront for a plugin, you better be ready to support it 100%. i wasn't made though, the $10 i paid saved me a lot of time over writing it myself from scratch.
@ahmedaladdin said:
If a plugin needs 10 hours of working (say one day), the minimum price shouldn't be less than 300$ and then you need to work on 30 plugins per month to cover any expenses of living, etc
I thought implementing a plugin is a second income, because otherwise 30 plugins per month for 1 year is simply impossible!
no one is making a living off of writing plugins. there isn't a large enough market.
I think people take for granted that the devs here are witty code mongers and they can write something up in 10 minutes. That does not mean it should be free or less money.It took them a long time to gain the required knowledge, that should count for something.
People need to ask themselves how much they would pay themselves to do it. They need to attempt to do it themselves so they can realize what is involved.
The best way to understand that is to make the effort to build a plugin they need or modify an existing one.
You seem to say you haven't got a clue as to what a plugin is worth to you
here is a simple test.
Disable the plugins that you have downloaded "for free" and not a made a donation to the developer.
if the users complain that the features they had are missing and want them back.
then the feature provided by the plugin is probably adding value to your site!
it is not rocket science and it is your choice and others choice if they want to donate to the developer for an existing plugin or pledge for a future plugin.
but feigning ignorance on the worth of a plugin, or what did it cost to develop or any other contrived way of trying to value it, is just a rationalization for not making any kind of donation. And backward thinking in my opinion.
$5 or $10 bucks donation out of someone's pocket is not going to cause adverse impact on the majority of forum admins. You can always seek out developers on the sites you mention and you will not know what the the plugin does until you try it on your site. This goes for anything and everything. Until you try something, you will never know it will work for you the way you want it.
It still doesn't negate the fact that you are probably using add-ons from the download section, and I am sure not one developer would be opposed to you sending a donation (and it might renew their energy to produce more or enhance.). Just because you were able to download for free and get a good run to experiment with it, doesn't mean you can't send a donation, or that you shouldn't. It is out of support for the community, that one make a monetary donation, plugin or theme donation (if they have no other means of supporting community except by asking questions on the forum).
And I don't think anyone expects to make a living off of plugins and themes to pay all life's expenses. But any monetary donations, will do no harm to to the giver or the receiver.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
As a consumer, I absolutely detest free plugins with "premium" versions available for a charge. At the very least it seems to be purposefully gimping software to make a buck. If you are going to sell software, just sell it. Create a few free plugins if you want to advertise for your premium plugins.
In the end, I don't think this community will ever be able to give a plugin developer a decent living. Whether or not it should is a completely different discussion.
@hbf@vrijvlinder@peregrine you guys are amazing, masters and teachers and I personally appreciate your contribution in any question I post within the forum. I wish you all the best and you have been always very supportive and I learned a lot from you.
Lots of valid points in this discussion, definitely one of the most interesting in the past few months. Since I was mentioned a couple of time, I would like to give my feedback.
@peregrine, @hbf
Selling plugins for Vanilla is a side of a side of a side income, for the reason indicated by @hbf: the market is too small, and mostly formed by hobbyists, who are experimenting with the flexibility offered by Vanilla/Garden and cannot, or do not want, nor plan to spend on their system. The customers who have a significant budget go for the hosted version, because it has tons of features, it works out of the box and they don't have to worry about maintenance.
Regarding the cost of producing a plugin, there are two elements to consider:
1. Development
I haven't worked on anything that took less than five days of work (roughly 40 hours), between design, development, testing and documentation. Around here, such amount of time, billed on an hourly basis, is worth between $2700 and $3700, depending on the consultant's skills and experience. Someone in the past suggested that such rates are exaggerated, because "developers are not worth what they think they are worth", but I can assure you that those are common market rates, and it's easy, for a mid-senior, to get them.
2. Support
I fully agree with @hbf that, if you sell a product, you better be ready to support it 100%. The cost of support has to be added to the one indicated above, and it could easily become a money drain, if the product is not robust enough and requires continuous bug fixing. Customer don't like, and don't want to pay for support, especially for a product that they paid (and they shouldn't). Their money was 100% good, your product should be the same.
A man once told me "creating a product is nothing, the real job is supporting it". It's absolutely true. Selling something cheap and then refusing to give free support "because it was cheap" is a bad strategy, it simply doesn't work.
If a plugin needs 10 hours of working (say one day), the minimum price shouldn't be less than 300$
Now you know that, often, the minimum price to completely give away the ownership of a plugin would have to be much higher than that.
@hgtonight
I agree about the free plugins with premium versions. The free software, often, is nothing more than "crippleware". It also makes little sense for the developer, because they are two versions to maintain, test and support. Besides, the developer's interest is completely shifted towards the premium version, which is the one that generates the cash. The only plugin I created in two version has been the Logger, then I realised that it made little sense and I switched to an "only free" and "only paid" model.
Finally, the answer to the underlying question: did I get rich selling Vanilla plugins? Not at all. As already said, the market is not ripe for it. Vanilla/Garden is an excellent framework to work with (my company's main project is going to be a Garden application), but the chances of getting a good revenue stream from the sale of premium themes and plugins is slim.
Design and development of a new set of functionality with varying complexity
Which means "create something that does something of some complexity". Ironically, I know more than one person that would give you such specifications and ask for a precise deadline and budget.
Something something something... Dark sided.
@businessdad said:
Something something something... Dark sided.
that's why i say -- if you want a quote, plan on paying for it. at least in my world it's not even worth looking at if they aren't willing to shell out a 20 spot.
Answers
Or you may provide something that is with limited functionality for free and paid for the full functionality.
My speciality is tooo far from this field and my figures sometimes are from freelancer and odesk, where you can get anything for any price without even negotiation, but the result sometimes is disappointing and expensive when you pay again for fixing. So the conclusion is clients will roam around and will realize that they should pick the quality of work first.
Bottom line - any working plugin that was created - took more than $5 of man-hours to create.
And if you use it and it provides a good function for you and your community - it is probably worth $5 to you.
So even a token contribution of $5 or $10 goes a long way to a "free" add-on - even if you are not required to purchase it on a purchase only site.
Pleading ignorance on how long something took to make is not an excuse. If "one" uses a plugin, it obviously adds quality, other wise "one" wouldn't be using it, or "one" is to lazy to disable the plugin.
@hbf said:
even if they only get one purchase per week, it is more than many plugin developers have received in donations or pledges.
no one is looking to get rich on this (if they have realistic expectations. but donations do help put food on the table.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
@v
i dont know, if you look at my description of development categories, something that clearly falls into the category 1 type development effort should easily be a $20 minimum type deal. if there were sufficient demand out there someone could actually make a decent living turning out 8-10 1hr quick turn items in a day at that rate.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
Yes with a notice in the settings page that failure to donate will render the plugin useless and crash your computer ....
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
not enough to pay for the hosting of a website to support the transactions. What i pay in electricity to keep my servers running 24/7 would make you cry.
I've never been paid for a plugin, but i have been paid to support a plugin. They paid me a fair price to make the changes and get it working on their site, and the community benefited from the enhancements. Seems like a win-win to me.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
i know you're kidding, but that's called ransomware. pure evil.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
Yes I am kidding of course I would never endorse such forceful tactics but I do see it often with software that is advertised as free yet at some point you have to pay of it stops working. Or online graphics generators that say they are free but after you design your image they ask you to pay for it to be able to save it.
They should say it is free to try, not download free software. There are levels of how free something is. If I like the software I end up paying for it. What I dislike is not getting lifetime upgrades of the paid software and having to pay again 2 years later only because they remodeled the entire thing.
People will do what they must to make their money back. Surely they should stop at rendering your computer NULL lmao !
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
If a plugin needs 10 hours of working (say one day), the minimum price shouldn't be less than 300$ and then you need to work on 30 plugins per month to cover any expenses of living, etc
I thought implementing a plugin is a second income, because otherwise 30 plugins per month for 1 year is simply impossible!
on the serious side, there are others that have free and paid versions of their plugins out there.
whos online followed that model. I got burned on that, downloaded free, it worked pretty well but had a few shortcomings, paid for the "pro" version and it was a dog. it was worse written than the free version (since more people contributed to that one) and i ended up re-writing major sections of the code to make it work. it still has bugs. i probably need to open the hood on it again. if you are going to charge upfront for a plugin, you better be ready to support it 100%. i wasn't made though, the $10 i paid saved me a lot of time over writing it myself from scratch.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
no one is making a living off of writing plugins. there isn't a large enough market.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
I think people take for granted that the devs here are witty code mongers and they can write something up in 10 minutes. That does not mean it should be free or less money.It took them a long time to gain the required knowledge, that should count for something.
People need to ask themselves how much they would pay themselves to do it. They need to attempt to do it themselves so they can realize what is involved.
The best way to understand that is to make the effort to build a plugin they need or modify an existing one.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
@ahmedaladdin
You seem to say you haven't got a clue as to what a plugin is worth to you
here is a simple test.
Disable the plugins that you have downloaded "for free" and not a made a donation to the developer.
if the users complain that the features they had are missing and want them back.
then the feature provided by the plugin is probably adding value to your site!
it is not rocket science and it is your choice and others choice if they want to donate to the developer for an existing plugin or pledge for a future plugin.
but feigning ignorance on the worth of a plugin, or what did it cost to develop or any other contrived way of trying to value it, is just a rationalization for not making any kind of donation. And backward thinking in my opinion.
$5 or $10 bucks donation out of someone's pocket is not going to cause adverse impact on the majority of forum admins. You can always seek out developers on the sites you mention and you will not know what the the plugin does until you try it on your site. This goes for anything and everything. Until you try something, you will never know it will work for you the way you want it.
It still doesn't negate the fact that you are probably using add-ons from the download section, and I am sure not one developer would be opposed to you sending a donation (and it might renew their energy to produce more or enhance.). Just because you were able to download for free and get a good run to experiment with it, doesn't mean you can't send a donation, or that you shouldn't. It is out of support for the community, that one make a monetary donation, plugin or theme donation (if they have no other means of supporting community except by asking questions on the forum).
And I don't think anyone expects to make a living off of plugins and themes to pay all life's expenses. But any monetary donations, will do no harm to to the giver or the receiver.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
As a consumer, I absolutely detest free plugins with "premium" versions available for a charge. At the very least it seems to be purposefully gimping software to make a buck. If you are going to sell software, just sell it. Create a few free plugins if you want to advertise for your premium plugins.
In the end, I don't think this community will ever be able to give a plugin developer a decent living. Whether or not it should is a completely different discussion.
Search first
Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.
Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.
@hbf @vrijvlinder @peregrine you guys are amazing, masters and teachers and I personally appreciate your contribution in any question I post within the forum. I wish you all the best and you have been always very supportive and I learned a lot from you.
Ok, so I have created a web page which explains one of the GREATEST MYSTERIES OF ALL TIME
http://homebrewforums.net/plugin/page/customplugins
enjoy.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
You have summarized this discussion in a very good way. Good luck
Lots of valid points in this discussion, definitely one of the most interesting in the past few months. Since I was mentioned a couple of time, I would like to give my feedback.
@peregrine, @hbf
Selling plugins for Vanilla is a side of a side of a side income, for the reason indicated by @hbf: the market is too small, and mostly formed by hobbyists, who are experimenting with the flexibility offered by Vanilla/Garden and cannot, or do not want, nor plan to spend on their system. The customers who have a significant budget go for the hosted version, because it has tons of features, it works out of the box and they don't have to worry about maintenance.
Regarding the cost of producing a plugin, there are two elements to consider:
1. Development
I haven't worked on anything that took less than five days of work (roughly 40 hours), between design, development, testing and documentation. Around here, such amount of time, billed on an hourly basis, is worth between $2700 and $3700, depending on the consultant's skills and experience. Someone in the past suggested that such rates are exaggerated, because "developers are not worth what they think they are worth", but I can assure you that those are common market rates, and it's easy, for a mid-senior, to get them.
2. Support
I fully agree with @hbf that, if you sell a product, you better be ready to support it 100%. The cost of support has to be added to the one indicated above, and it could easily become a money drain, if the product is not robust enough and requires continuous bug fixing. Customer don't like, and don't want to pay for support, especially for a product that they paid (and they shouldn't). Their money was 100% good, your product should be the same.
A man once told me "creating a product is nothing, the real job is supporting it". It's absolutely true. Selling something cheap and then refusing to give free support "because it was cheap" is a bad strategy, it simply doesn't work.
@ahmedaladdin
Now you know that, often, the minimum price to completely give away the ownership of a plugin would have to be much higher than that.
@hgtonight
I agree about the free plugins with premium versions. The free software, often, is nothing more than "crippleware". It also makes little sense for the developer, because they are two versions to maintain, test and support. Besides, the developer's interest is completely shifted towards the premium version, which is the one that generates the cash. The only plugin I created in two version has been the Logger, then I realised that it made little sense and I switched to an "only free" and "only paid" model.
Finally, the answer to the underlying question: did I get rich selling Vanilla plugins? Not at all. As already said, the market is not ripe for it. Vanilla/Garden is an excellent framework to work with (my company's main project is going to be a Garden application), but the chances of getting a good revenue stream from the sale of premium themes and plugins is slim.
You can wake up now, the monologue is over.
My shop | About Me
I just posted it to resolve the confusion. I have no aspiration of churning out php code.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained
I love the last point:
Which means "create something that does something of some complexity". Ironically, I know more than one person that would give you such specifications and ask for a precise deadline and budget.
Something something something... Dark sided.
My shop | About Me
that's why i say -- if you want a quote, plan on paying for it. at least in my world it's not even worth looking at if they aren't willing to shell out a 20 spot.
Vanilla Wiki, Tastes Great! 31,000 viewers can't be wrong. || Plugin Development Explained