How to determine the price of an add on?

[RichardKYA]

Hi guys,

I'll start by saying that I am not a professional/full time developer, it's just become bit of a hobby over the last couple of years, so I'm still very much a novice.

I started writing an add on for my site a few months ago because I couldn't find anything like what I wanted and I also wanted to learn more about code and XF itself.

My add on has been coming on nicely and I've recently been considering selling it in on here, something that wasn't my actual intention, but I think it could be useful to others and I'm also curious to see what others think of it when it's done.

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure if I will sell it yet, but I started thinking, if I did, how do I determine what the price would be? I've looked at other add on prices on here, but they vary so much from add on to add on that it's hard to get any real gauge. I mean, do you determine it by it's function (as in, what it provides) or do you go by hours spent/lines of code, etc?

How do developers determine the cost of their work?

Any input would helpful

Thank you in advance

 

[Xon]

A dartboard works as well as anything.

 

[Kerby]

If you want to maximize your profit: Try to find out what most potential customers of your target group feel worth to pay for your addon.

If you just want to get something for your work: Compare with prices and features of other addons with similar amount of worth and coding hours (more features = more worth for customers and more features = more coding hours) and then try something like in the middle

And your price hasnt to be always the same. You can say at beginning its x.- and rise it later if you feel its needed.

 

[Terror]

why don't you share it for free with the community? you said you are not a professional and coding is your hobby?

 

[RichardKYA]

@Xon I just hit 180!

@Kerby That's good advice, like you say, I can always change the price if I want to

@Terror I think giving it away for free will be more of a headache in the long run

 

[Alpha1]

As I see it: the lower the price, the more support needs to be given and the more demanding people can be.
I also think that price should be somewhat in accordance with quality. If an addon is robust, then it can be priced differently than an addon that needs many fixes.
With XF2 coming up, xf1 addons are unlikely to get many renewal payments unless recoded for xf2.

 

[Snog]

Personally I look at what I feel the return on investment will be (based on coding hours and number of sales).

If I feel it's not going to be a very popular add-on, the price is usually higher to recoup the cost of development. If I feel it's going to be extremely popular the price is usually lower and volume makes up for the lower price.

That's worked out quite well for me.

 

[RichardKYA]

As I see it: the lower the price, the more support needs to be given and the more demanding people can be.

That's my thought exactly, I would rather have bit of 'higher' but reasonable price with the chance of less people buying it.

I also think that price should be somewhat in accordance with quality. If an addon is robust, then it can be priced differently than an addon that needs many fixes.

I think the quality is good, I've pretty much just looked at XF itself and I have done what I can to copy it's coding style, so I think it should be OK and I have been trying to test everything as much as I can as I have gone along so I can resolve any bugs there and then. Everything seems to be working as it should, but I don't think any code is ever truly bug free, so there's bound to be some somewhere lol

If I feel it's not going to be a very popular add-on, the price is usually higher to recoup the cost of development. If I feel it's going to be extremely popular the price is usually lower.

I think my add on has potential to be popular, I believe it has very useful features that could be applied in many ways and I think most forums could benefit from it, but hey, that's just my own opinion, and of course I'm going to think it's the greatest thing ever lmao

 

[Snog]

As I see it: the lower the price, the more support needs to be given and the more demanding people can be.

This can happen at any price level. You have to be prepared to set limits on what will or won't be done and stick to them.

 

[Liam W]

I've always wondered this, and my prices have always been arbitrary (although always a multiple of £5...).

Unfortunately, it's hard to figure out the value of an add-on... Sometimes I think it's too expensive, but lowering it would be too cheap.

Generally, I enter a price I feel comfortable with, then change the renew price and period if the price is too low/high.

However, it is very arbitrary with me, and it depends on what the add-on does (and if I think people will buy it at that price).

Liam

 

[Snog]

That's another thing to take into consideration, what does it do? In my case, little ditties that serve one function and were fairly quick to develop are free. It's the more complicated ones I charge for (with one exception).

 

[Kerby]

Ask two forum admins and two addon developers and let them preview your addon description with screenshots. They can advice you for the price. Then you have enough feedback to get a good price.

I would help you if needed. I like to analyze addons worthness, I do it anyway for new addon releases that could be interesting for my forum in a table since 2013. So I know the xf addon market

 

[RichardKYA]

I do need to write up a description and get some screenshots together, so I guess that would be a good start lol