addons cost too dang much!

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electrogypsy

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look, i fully support the author of an addon to charge money for their product, but i mean, damn, i look at the resources page now and 90% of all the good addons charge ridiculous prices.

the latest of which is jaxel's new addon that is 200 dollars. 200!!! that's just plain insane. that's 60 dollars more than xF itself costs.

aside from that though, even 30 bucks is pretty darn pricey, and several plugins cost more than that.

one of the (small) things i liked about vBulletin was that the community seemed more interested in making vB a better product with their plugins than they were in making tons of money. it seems to me the resources section is plagued by overpriced plugins without much in the way of features, and very poor support. heck, most "developers" disappear entirely after a while, and I've gotten burned several times so far.

personally, i just think the prices should be more regulated. but seeing how the xf staff are no where to be seen, this seems like a pretty unreasonable request. i don't think it's fair to have to sink the price of an xF license several times over for a few basic addons to functionality.

also, i don't understand why anyone would pay for such expensive plugins when the xf staff haven't been heard from in several months. xf might not even be around in six months. why buy a plugin no one is going to support in a year from now?

i know everyone's probably going to hate on me for this post, but this is just my opinion. again, i fully support an author's right to make a living off their products, the pricing just seems a little out of control to me.
 
The only real way to value an add-on is whether you could get something similar coded for that price or cheaper. Jaxels is only for a limited number of sites - and I assume it has that value for those. I don't need it, and he gives away the others (like utilities), which I do use.

I'd say 2/3 of my add-ons were free and the others from $5 to $30.

That certainly does not seem expensive. Comparing it to the forum price is not fair simply because the price of XF was set assuming they would sell 10's of thousands of copies of it.

If and when XF really takes off (after the lawsuit, probably), SOME add-on authors may be able to charge less because they will sell more units. But, realistically, it's hard to provide support for stuff which is sold for $5 or $10 - when a customer emails you once, you just lost all your profit (time).
 
look, i fully support the author of an addon to charge money for their product, but i mean, damn, i look at the resources page now and 90% of all the good addons charge ridiculous prices.

the latest of which is jaxel's new addon that is 200 dollars. 200!!! that's just plain insane. that's 60 dollars more than xF itself costs.

aside from that though, even 30 bucks is pretty darn pricey, and several plugins cost more than that.

one of the (small) things i liked about vBulletin was that the community seemed more interested in making vB a better product with their plugins than they were in making tons of money. it seems to me the resources section is plagued by overpriced plugins without much in the way of features, and very poor support. heck, most "developers" disappear entirely after a while, and I've gotten burned several times so far.

personally, i just think the prices should be more regulated. but seeing how the xf staff are no where to be seen, this seems like a pretty unreasonable request. i don't think it's fair to have to sink the price of an xF license several times over for a few basic addons to functionality.

also, i don't understand why anyone would pay for such expensive plugins when the xf staff haven't been heard from in several months. xf might not even be around in six months. why buy a plugin no one is going to support in a year from now?

i know everyone's probably going to hate on me for this post, but this is just my opinion. again, i fully support an author's right to make a living off their products, the pricing just seems a little out of control to me.

Do you have any idea of how long it takes and what kind of work was involved with jaxel 's mod that you mentioned that costs 200 dollars? I do not think that you do.

Anyway, about the price, that is a relative thing. You think they are overpriced, other thinks that they are not. But the market itself is the best judge of that imho.

Regarding the free mods at vb and the idea of making the product better, I don''t think that that has anything at all to do with that. There you are not allowed to sell mods, hence why everything is free there. If they change that policy, then you will see how a huge decrease in free mods there too.

And I see no reasons as to why anyone would hate you for expressing your thoughts. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion/s.
 
The only real way to value an add-on is whether you could get something similar coded for that price or cheaper. Jaxels is only for a limited number of sites - and I assume it has that value for those. I don't need it, and he gives away the others (like utilities), which I do use.

I'd say 2/3 of my add-ons were free and the others from $5 to $30.

That certainly does not seem expensive. Comparing it to the forum price is not fair simply because the price of XF was set assuming they would sell 10's of thousands of copies of it.

If and when XF really takes off (after the lawsuit, probably), SOME add-on authors may be able to charge less because they will sell more units. But, realistically, it's hard to provide support for stuff which is sold for $5 or $10 - when a customer emails you once, you just lost all your profit (time).

that's a very reasonable and realistic answer that i hadn't really considered. thank you, i'll be thinking that over for a while.

i really do hope xf gets everything sorted out with the lawsuit thing.
 
also, i don't understand why anyone would pay for such expensive plugins when the xf staff haven't been heard from in several months. xf might not even be around in six months. why buy a plugin no one is going to support in a year from now?
Well, from experience I can tell that I'm satisfied with every paid addon I purchased, not only because the quality is good, but the support is also awesome. So even XF's future is uncertain you would still get good support for addons.
 
Do you have any idea of how long it takes and what kind of work was involved with jaxel 's mod that you mentioned that costs 200 dollars? I do not think that you do.

Anyway, about the price, that is a relative thing. You think they are overpriced, other thinks that they are not. But the market itself is the best judge of that imho.

Regarding the free mods at vb and the idea of making the product better, I don''t think that that has anything at all to do with that. There you are not allowed to sell mods, hence why everything is free there. If they change that policy, then you will see how a huge decrease in free mods there too.

And I see no reasons as to why anyone would hate you for expressing your thoughts. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion/s.

i definitely understand the amount of work involved, and i try to appreciate that. as for not being able to sell mods on vB, that's not really true, almost all the mods there have a "premium" version you can buy with enhanced features (a very similar model to some of the addons here on xf). but honestly, most of the time even the premium versions aren't as expensive as addons have gotten here on xf.

as for expressing my thoughts, sure, i guess im just used to everyone jumping down my throat with something as controversial a topic as this.
 
Well, from experience I can tell that I'm satisfied with every paid addon I purchased, not only because the quality is good, but the support is also awesome. So even XF's future is uncertain you would still get good support for addons.

just out of random curiosity, would you mind sharing what addons you're using?
 
Addons are ridiculously cheap compared to what they're worth.

I'd much rather Jaxel had charged £200 for xenporta and fully supported it.

When you think a monthly server bill for a medium site is a few hundred quid, you've probably spent less than that in total on your XF + Addon licenses.
 
It's quite normal to let someone make a custom addon. A few hundred bucks for some custom work is just normal.
So a few bucks for an XF addon is real cheap in my opinion.

I rather pay say $30 for an addon then make one of my own :)
 
I've purchased two(?) of Jaxel's add-ons. XenUtilities and XenPorta. Don't remember what I paid for either but certainly XenPorta is essential for CMS front page for XenForo forum. If I paid $200, it was worth it. That's 2-4 hours work if I was paying by the hour to have someone build it and they'd likely want 20-40 hours, $1,000 to $2,000.
 
You'll see that almost all the addons I've listed in my addons tutorial are free.
In fact it amazes me so many addons are free.

$30 is £18.50 to make it easier for me to assess.
That's about 2/3 of an hour of a coder's time. 40 mins. Far as I know these coders can spend several days making one of these addons. Then support is very time consuming on top.

But by UK standards $30 / £18.50 is dead cheap - pocket money level. You can earn that in 3 hours cleaning work on cars or a house, or babysitting.

People earn USA about a third more than we do here. So I expect earning $15 an hour is about right for cleaning or babysitting.
 
I've purchased two(?) of Jaxel's add-ons. XenUtilities and XenPorta. Don't remember what I paid for either but certainly XenPorta is essential for CMS front page for XenForo forum. If I paid $200, it was worth it. That's 2-4 hours work if I was paying by the hour to have someone build it and they'd likely want 20-40 hours, $1,000 to $2,000.
XenUtilities and XenPorta are free addons.
 
Every resource I've posted has been free and almost every resource I use has been free as well.

The only time I really pay for something is if I need to get something made that doesn't already exist and I either can't make it myself or don't have the time to.

All I know is that I've spent way less money with Xenforo than I have when I was on vBulletin.

A lot of stuff I used to pay for when I was on vBulletin is already built-in xenforo by default.

If anything, xenforo itself is cheap and the addons are cheaper than the one's on vBulletin.

You should've just installed a free forum software like Vanilla Forums or MyBB if you can't afford anything.
 
Lol, this is one of those threads I'm surprised I haven't started (but wanted to start) myself, but knew / know why I didn't start one, because of the backlash it would cause lol. :P But anyway, I'm in good mood today so not going to be ranting nor whining per se, it's reality. lmao. But some like me, that had already spent/invested/wasted tons of their only money they had left, on forum software/ premium skins / host bills / domain names and renewals (prior to converting to Xenforo)..

Coming from vBulletin, where almost everything was/is free.. or built-in the core itself, which was vital tools needed to make community active, and encouraged my members to be active - to XenForo, where all them "vital plugins" I used before which were free are built-in core, are now Paid here and no money to afford them, it's frustrating and it sucks lol. I know though too, that not everything online is "guaranteed" as the "best software" to use either (example; vbulletin, phpBB etc), and money is always needed spent here and there, to get what you want or need done properly as well.

Everything online is a gamble, just like what forum software you use, the web hosting, the plugins, and any other thing that's "digital". I'm all for guys that charge for their things though, because that's their work/jobs. They code, it's their time spent on coding things, hence the cost as well. Just like web designers, design sexy web designs and expects or hopes to make money doing that line of work. Just for me though, a broke bloke, where my forum WAS my only income, and I havent made one red cent from memberships on the forum, and member activity dropped off charts since converting to Xenforo...

It's disheartening, and it sucks lol. Because I have no way to spend/invest money currently, to get things I really need to help my forum continue to grow again, and keep member activity alive like it was before, when using vBulletin and everything there was free or built-in core. I made decent money first two weeks, using vBulletin with the built-in payment API center - PayPal. (There is another thing that was helpful, wasn't just limited to PayPal payment options in payment API) Then 1,000.00 by end of month, and then the same for following couple months. Users LOVED the "built-in" reputation points, and that free plugin "DBTech Advance post thanks/likes" or whatever. They couldn't stop posting to get more "thanks" and "Likes" = which also added Rep Points to their accounts per each "like/thank" they got.

The giving active members, old/dead/inactive members threads to them, gave them more threads/posts to their accounts too, that they took over themselves to keep dead threads alive.. There was free plugin for that for vBulletin that changed thread starter, post authors, time and dates.. Which helped boost activity and "enthusiasm" in my community in general. That's lacking in "core" for XF, and just recently Chris released "change thread starter" which helps, but if adds more stuff, it might go paid. (Sorry I'm going off topic, still not ranting of course!! Lol! Just stating my thoughts, feelings, and such, that all. :) ) The whole livelihood of a forum, is the content, the discussions between everyone on forum, the things that help promote/drive activity within forum itself and etc. To me, the things that are needed to keep / encourage member activity and forum livelihood, should be a given/freely provided or built-in core itself.

Without that, it's dead and my as well tear down forums, and make static web site pages with no "interaction" at all / no discussion / no forums. And to me, and not sure what others feel about it, coming from vBulletin after spending most all the money I had (on hosting, premium skins, few premium plugins), since being on vBulletin software, to XF.. and finding all those "vital" resources as "paid", it's frustrating and disheartening. It made me feel like, throwing in towel on the forums itself, because without those "vital" resources I had before, and no money to get any of them in XF community, I see my community dying and it's been dying since converting over to XF from vBulletin.

Anyway, I'm not ranting/whining of course, it's Christmas, and I'm in good moods lol. Just saying from MY experience, perception, reality that happened to me, and etc...coming from vBulletin where things were free / built-in .. and had invested all my monies, to taking yet another gamble/risk in converting to XF, then seeing things as "paid".. it's like running into wall at 60 mph.. Dead stop/forum dying and dead, and no money. I should have just stayed with vBulletin though I guess.. :( Well, at least with this current forum I have now, I mean. Sorry for novel, but maybe I should have just NOT started with vBulletin then, and had used XF from get go, but like I said above there, it's all a gamble and you just don't know... until later on sigh lol.
 
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(If you can tell...I don't care. If I want to pay for it I will. If not, I won't. Capitalism!)
 
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