I charge people £600 a month to advertise on my forum, and yet someone sells me a $40 add-on and wants a free advert. I'm not buying your add-on. All you developers that charge extortionate branding free fees, feel my hate 
Bugger Off with your Branding
- Thread starter JamesBrown
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I am not happy about branding by add on developers either but do not care too much. On the other hand it is one of the few options for them to gain visibility. You could look at the branding as a cash rebate - you get charged less if you can live with the branding (whereas with clothing customers even pay a fortune over brandingless clothes to have Nike, Adidas or Dolce & Gabbana branding on the items they buy 
). If ad space on your forum is so expensive you should probably have no issue simply paying the branding free fee (respectively the add on at full price, depending from how you look at it) and reuse the space for a paid advertisement - would pay off within a couple of days.
PS: I do however have doubts if the branding of add ons does have any measurable effect on the sales of said add ons. Would be interesting to know.
). If ad space on your forum is so expensive you should probably have no issue simply paying the branding free fee (respectively the add on at full price, depending from how you look at it) and reuse the space for a paid advertisement - would pay off within a couple of days.PS: I do however have doubts if the branding of add ons does have any measurable effect on the sales of said add ons. Would be interesting to know.
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not a single member of my forum cares about developing xf/xf addons/nor anything else.
a link back from my niche to your xf dev site adds little/none value from seo perspective.
it's nofollow anyway
so, yes, jamesbrown is right. just stop. it doesn't help you and we don't want it.
a link back from my niche to your xf dev site adds little/none value from seo perspective.
it's nofollow anyway
so, yes, jamesbrown is right. just stop. it doesn't help you and we don't want it.
I think this is the case for 95? 99% of forum visitors?
But its been the norm forever and everyone's just used to it, so, it stays the norm.
At the same time, because I know none of my users care, it also doesn't bother me much that its there.
Maybe its some big backlink thing building page rank for when the random person searches Google for "forum _________" whatever.
Everyone is free to define what they want to sell their addons for just as much everyone is free to decide what they are willing to pay.
When you don't display any branding links on your website It is disappointing to find out that the addon you installed, has a branding free option that costs an impossible amount, like many hundreds. If this is advertised in advanced then its easily ignored. If its only known after the fact, then its a bit disappointing. Its like the real price tag is hidden. I don't think its a good sales strategy because it erodes trust. But maybe I'm wrong and it works to jump customers with highway robbery.
When you don't display any branding links on your website It is disappointing to find out that the addon you installed, has a branding free option that costs an impossible amount, like many hundreds. If this is advertised in advanced then its easily ignored. If its only known after the fact, then its a bit disappointing. Its like the real price tag is hidden. I don't think its a good sales strategy because it erodes trust. But maybe I'm wrong and it works to jump customers with highway robbery.
It's easy: Just buy branding free. It's not that add on developers would make a fortune typically.
Is this the case? The ones I stumbled upon were typically at equal to 1 to 2 times of license fee for the branding free option (one time purchase) if I remember correctly. Sometimes even less.
Fully agreed but on the other side one could (and possibly should) ask for the cost before buying if branding free is important.
For what it is, it's cheap, mate But that has nothing to do with branding free fees
Funny though, Xenforo's very best, highest quality addons don't come with a free advert. Well done to you guys, you know who you are.
So if money grows out of your ears b/c your forum is so successful: Why not simply pay the branding free fee, if you want the add on and no branding?
It is dead simple: The add on costs let's say 120$. If you accept a mention in the footer it is discounted and costs just 40$. Where is your problem?
You are always fee to pay someone to code the add on you want as an alternative or code it yourself. Possibly more expensive.
It is dead simple: The add on costs let's say 120$. If you accept a mention in the footer it is discounted and costs just 40$. Where is your problem?
You are always fee to pay someone to code the add on you want as an alternative or code it yourself. Possibly more expensive.
You're missing the point, but then you are famous here for that .
It's not a matter of whether I can afford it or not, it's whether I want free adverts cluttering up a footer. I don't.
So essentially you want free branding free, as the option for branding free is there but you just don't want to pay for it. It is "you get what you pay for" I guess. While I personally don't like branding it is absolutely fine and legitimate for add on devs to have this within their add ons, the more when they are offering a branding free mode. The add ons are an offer you can take or not - as said before: If you don't like them and it is cheaper to pay someone to code that add on instead of paying for branding free: go for that. Else it is obviously more economical to pay for branding free.
If you want branding free but don't want to pay for it: Face reality.
Out of interest: Did you go for the branding free option of XF itself?
With the current market for forums, and XF in particular, copyright on the bottom makes less sense than it did ~15 years ago, or at the peak of vBulletin.
That said, most resources are sold at a price where they are not sustainable long term, especially when you account for things outside of product development itself. Paying for branding free is generally fairly cheap and if I am actually willing to use a developers products, I am likely going to pay for branding free on a site that makes enough to cover it's own costs.
Bigger issue is when developers have branding for each product, or do not try to minimize the display of the copyright. If it's longer than XF's or takes up multiple lines that is generally a problem
.
That said, most resources are sold at a price where they are not sustainable long term, especially when you account for things outside of product development itself. Paying for branding free is generally fairly cheap and if I am actually willing to use a developers products, I am likely going to pay for branding free on a site that makes enough to cover it's own costs.
Bigger issue is when developers have branding for each product, or do not try to minimize the display of the copyright. If it's longer than XF's or takes up multiple lines that is generally a problem
.Absolutely. There are add ons that s/o made for himself and then shares with the community. Those are often free or cheap, but not too surprisingly somewhat limited in terms of support and the implementation of features that the author himself does not need. For the most part the renvenue generated will not cover the time and effort involved.
There are add ons that are developed for a broader audience and typically paid. Yet still, even if they are considered expensive within the range of XF add ons I can barely imagine that many of the devs can generate a sustainable income from them, simply b/c the market it relatively small. Also, sometimes the code quality and quality assurance seems pretty dubious at best.
There some excellent free add ons and some excellent paid add ons and some developers whom I'd blindly trust regarding the quality - but even if their add ons are typically not at the lower end of the price range they won't make a fortune and realistically there are probably other areas for good devs that are more interesting from an economic perspective.
On the other hand using a bunch of paid add ons becomes expensive quickly, at least for non commercial forums and it would become righteous impossible when add ons would be more expensive. Sometimes I do have already the feeling that certain add ons are pretty expensive compared to the value or functionality they may add to the forum and the yearly maintenance fees for add ons are vastly more than what the maintenance for XF costs (let alone what XF charge as maintenance for their own add ons). A bit of a dilemma. A branding free fee, as little as I like it, helps at least a little bit to escape that dilemma.
When @JamesBrown says he sells a single add space on his forum
I wonder how many add on devs even create that amount of monthly revenue from their add ons. So his attitude seems a bit greedy, even if I see the general issue.
Absolutely. Some devs vastly overdo the branding thing in my opinion, especially in relation to XF's own branding and what they deliver in comparison.Bigger issue is when developers have branding for each product, or do not try to minimize the display of the copyright. If it's longer than XF's or takes up multiple lines that is generally a problem
I definitely agree with the clutter created by some add-on developers. There are some who put a newline for each add-on as branding all in caps and you have those who care more like DragonByte that just mentions multiple products once: "Parts of this site powered by add-ons from DragonByte". Branding is okay but at least be a little bit reasonable if you are going to do it.
No I just don't want adverts in my footer. If an addon is worth it I'll buy it, I buy more than most, I just think that having to pay again to remove an advert is not on, especially when sometimes it costs much, much more than the add-on itself.
That I can afford it or not, has got nothing to do with it, so I don't know why you keep mentioning that. Oh I get it.. It's you just missing the point again.
Essentially, with some add ons there are two products/variants:
• a cheaper one with branding
• a more expensive one without branding
Or rather "branding free" is an optional feature with some add ons that you have to pay for. You simply want the more expensive product for the cheaper price respectively the optional, paid feature for free. That optional feature is - as you claim - absolutely essential to you, yet still it is not important enough that you are willing to pay for it. Can't help you with that, possibly no one can.
• a cheaper one with branding
• a more expensive one without branding
Or rather "branding free" is an optional feature with some add ons that you have to pay for. You simply want the more expensive product for the cheaper price respectively the optional, paid feature for free. That optional feature is - as you claim - absolutely essential to you, yet still it is not important enough that you are willing to pay for it. Can't help you with that, possibly no one can.
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You charge £600 a month and a developer should give it to you for free?
Is that fair?
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