Resource pricing for XF 2.0

[sbj]

Obviously from the standpoint of a customer, I would lie if I said that I like to pay. Who likes to spend money? Of course it would be awesome if there were more and more free addons and that we don't need to pay extra fees for paid addons.

But I think it is unfair and unrealistic if license holders of paid addons get for free a rewrite of that paid addon they own.
I think it is totally fair to pay an extra fee for the update for 2.0. It would be unfair to devs to expect otherwise.
Even though I would welcome any dev offering this for free, I totally expect a fee for the update and it is justified.

I very much hope every addon author does charge and in some cases raises the price of their addons for XF2.

We lost several good devs over the course of XF1 because they charged too little for it to be sustainable for them.

I don't agree with this at all. In most cases I don't think it is fair to raise the price of their addons or that several people charged too little.

If you look at other platforms, the prices here are totally fair, and in my opinion in many cases overpriced. Now this sounds suprising but I think most addons on XF are overrated when you compare them with the market on other platforms.

If we look at codecanyon.net, you can see plugins/addons for all the different platforms out there. And if you compare the stuff with the addons here, you will definitely see that in many cases that the scope of xf addons can't be compared to what you find there, cause the scope there is full-developed feature-rich stuff for the same price or in many cases for less. Which means the stuff here is in general overpriced actually.
And you also can compare other forum software markets (vb, ipb, etc.), prices are the same as here.

I think as customers we are allowed to expect value, and how many addons are out there in the scope of Brogan's addon? Probably around 20. They are worth it definitely. But how about the major rest? There are so many addons out there that offer 1-3 features and they demand 10+$.

Again, let's look at codecanyon, so people can see what I mean.
Calendars are popular across all platforms, so it is a good case to compare it.
Let's look at php scripts for example. And look at the prices; go through each of them for their features. For example this one. Now show me addons here which can compete in matter of features with this for 14$.

So I think devs should also point the finger at themselves, too, from time to time. Cause overall the quality what is provided here does not fit the standard in the open market. The quality here is much less than on other platforms... Sorry to say, no hard feelings. No rant or accusation, it is my observation.

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

I don't agree with this at all. In most cases I don't think it is fair to raise the price of their addons or that several people charged too little.

If you look at other platforms, the prices here are totally fair, and in my opinion in many cases overpriced.

I am totaly agree with you.

 

[sbj]

Yearly renewal is about the only way to make it fruitful to continue development into a new major version (XF 2.0).

I used to LOVE coding for XF (and would love to do so again for XF 2.0) but unless you have renewal fees its simply not worth it in the long term.

I think there is another option which is not used at all around here. Obviously yearly renewals are better than one-fee payments for devs to make money, but I think devs could actually earn more with a different approach while at the same time making customers more happy and satisfied.
I'm not a developer or own a business, so definitely you guys would know it better. But if I were a developer, I would do my business differently than the standard approach.

From my own experience and from what I've noticed from other users is, that the expactations of customers never fit with what they find in reality. What does this mean? I mean often we purchase addons, not because we are 100% satisfied with what we purchase and which can fulfill our needs; but because we expect the addon evolve in time, to mature, to become what we expect them to be. And this is fatal. I know, I know, you will say that it is our fault if we act like this, but in most cases there are always major/minor things lacking in a product. So naturally we assume that the dev will make progress with his product to satisfy the customer. But in most cases this doesn't happen. Once the product is out, the bugs solved and here and there some features added, the product doesn't see any updates anymore (generally). Now the customer is left with a product which doesn't fulfill his needs, although the product covers some parts, for him some stuff are important but that are missing. Here begins my approach.

If I were a dev, obviously I would sell licenses in exchange for a fee. So a one-time payment for the license. Now I wouldn't go the route of yearly renewal approach once a license is sold.
I would go the "crowdfunding-extensions" route, which I will explain. Basically said: core product + extentions funded by all license holders.

Now as described above, mostly customers need little to major features they miss in the product. But because the dev doesn't include those stuff, we have to ask for custom development and this is always expensive because now 1 guy has to pay for everything. And custom stuff needs also to be updated whenever the product is updated. So it isn't a good solution in the long run. Or we have to rely on the mercy of dev who will then add stuff how his gusto likes.

That is why devs should use the "crowdfunding-extensions" route. Basically they get paid for each feature they add to their product. But with the difference not by a single person, but by all license holders. Which makes the costs for each individual much less AND at the same time people get what they want AND devs get money in return. So a win-win-win.

Let's give an example, where I am selling an add-on for 25$. Ok, for 25$ you get my core product with some usage and features. Now I would let my customers make demands in what they are looking for in new features or changes or additions. Then I would take the most 5 popular suggestions and try to implement them. Let's say 5 minor updates, let's say 20 hours of development in total (4 hours each).
So basically I am creating extensions to the product. Now usually when someone is quoted for custom 1 feature, he has to pay by his own for the whole development cost. But with this approach all costs are divided by everyone.

So version 1.0 costs you 25$. -> 1000 licenses sold
Version 1.1 (5 new additions) costs you 5$. -> 100 extensions sold
Version 1.2 (1 major addition) costs you 1$. -> 250 extensions sold
Version 1.3 (3 additions) costs you 2$ -> ...
....

Obviously the costs for extentions should be as low as possible but also not too low. So the crowd can fund the costs together while everybody is spending less money and while the dev gets paid properly for his time.

If you are happy with the core product, no need to buy the extensions. You also don't need to pay yearly for renewals, where you know mostly you don't get what you want, so for why are you paying the yearly renewal? But with this approach you get your feature developed and you only pay peanuts compared to what it would cost you if you had to pay the development on your own.
I mean 1$? Cmon, thats nothing. You can easily spend that money and you get what you want. At the same time the developer gets paid for the development time. Cause when 250 people buy the extension for 1$, that makes in total 250$. So the dev got paid for his time, the people got what they want, and each person only spend 1 dollar from his pocket. Everybody is happy.


If you go the yearly renewal route, it doesn't cover the real time. For example often there are no updates for over 1 year. But you paid the yearly renewal. So you paid for something but you didn't get sth in return what you deserved. Or sometimes a developer updates like crazy his addon. Like 50 new features within a month. When the yearly renewal is only 5$, now this time the developer didn't get what he deserved.

With my approach all sides get what they deserve. If the dev is delivering, he gets much out if it and in return the people get their features. If the dev sleeps, no money for him. If you don't need anymore new features, no need to pay more.

 

[Mouth]

purely because moving them to XF 1.x -> XF 2.0 looks to be a total rewrite from the ground up.

That appears contrary to what Brogan has said recently.

 

[EQnoble]

At the end of the day you either need something or you don't and you can either afford it or you can't and justifications being what they are...everything else is irrelevant and in this case also a self serving argument unique to every single admin/site.

That appears contrary to what Brogan has said recently.

Not really, from what I understand it is a complete rewrite focused on feature parity. That means it can effectively do the same things with minor changes but the entire framework the site is built on has been redesigned.

 

[RobParker]

Obviously from the standpoint of a customer, I would lie if I said that I like to pay. Who likes to spend money?

That's a false economy though. Pay £20 a year and get an awesome addon that stays updated, etc. Pay nothing for an awesome addon that slowly has more problems and the developer eventually quits as they have bills to pay.

Also the non-direct effect of this is that if there's a strong incentivised ecosystem (stealing Apple-ey words here ) then the general quality and range of all addons will eventually be better.

I'd rather pay.

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

@RobParker its not about paying its about reducing price for plugins, who are overpriced.But developers decide what is price of plugins and they try to protect active time for developing plugins and wants money for it.This is dead end.

 

[sbj]

That's a false economy though. Pay £20 a year and get an awesome addon that stays updated, etc. Pay nothing for an awesome addon that slowly has more problems and the developer eventually quits as they have bills to pay.

In this ideal scenario obviously all people would choose to pay.

But from my experience selling paid addons doesn't hold back developers from disappearing/quitting. Actually from my observations, there are more problems/drama around paid addon creators than about free addon creators.
Cause if you download a free addon, your expectations are already low. It is free, you don't expect much. If someone quits or the addon gets problems, you didn't lose anything. But with paid addons you expect quality and service. And if that is lacking, now you have a probem and it annoys you more than those free addons. Cause you paid and the developer ditched you all. That is much worse I think.
I don't want to give any names, but this kind of behaviour happened a lot here. So paying 20 bucks doesn't guarantee you anything. It gives you the false-satisfaction of easing your mind.

I'd rather pay.

I'd rather learn coding .

 

[Mouth]

I think the poor features and state of the XF Resource Manager contributes greatly to not only the general quality of add-ons but the time spent by decent developers.
There is sooo much XF could do with RM to make it better and more appropriate, if only for their own eco-system of add-ons, that make it easier and more useful for both developers and end-users.
You see it all the time, as soon as a add-on becomes decent, the dev has to take it elsewhere to be able to manage it, abandoning RM. It speaks volumes about the general support and state of functionality XF gives these dev's, or the integration with other tools that make it easier for all of us.

 

[Slavik]

If we look at codecanyon.net,

You cant compare apples for oranges. Codecanyon often has *beyond* terrible code and people throw up code there to an audience of tens of millions, usually on the hope a bunch of "surge" purchases when it gets listed pays off some dividend.

XenForo obviously doesnt have that level of exposure, so the prices will need to reflect that assuming you want devs capable of providing high quality, feature rich addons to stick around.

 

[sbj]

You cant compare apples for oranges. Codecanyon often has *beyond* terrible code and people throw up code there to an audience of tens of millions, usually on the hope a bunch of "surge" purchases when it gets listed pays off some dividend.

XenForo obviously doesnt have that level of exposure, so the prices will need to reflect that assuming you want devs capable of providing high quality, feature rich addons to stick around.

I haven't compared apples and oranges. I compared addons (synonym for plugins) and I even picked out php based addons to make the comparison better. I also picked the segment calendars and not something completely irrelevant for forums. I think there is no rational ground where you can say that I can not make the comparisons. You didn't even say an arguement for why I can't. Anyway.

And I agree, XF doesn't have that level of exposure, which is why I am not comparing the amount of downloads/purchases.

And the accusation of that it has often beyond terrible code is possible. I mean you as a dev can comment on that, I can't. But on the other hand I listed the most popular addons in that section (you can also check whatever section you want and list by popularity), which is a good indicator for the quality of a product. And many of them have hundreds of reviews. So, it basically is an approval of quality by trusting the comments and popularity. It is like your app addon. I can't comment on your coding, but I know you have a good reputation and you are popular. So basically that is enough to know how good your product is on a basic level.
In addition to this as a regular customer I don't care about the coding, as I wouldn't know the difference. What I care are the features of an addon. And there are tons of addons with tons of features over there. Nothing you can find here. And you even have selection (like 20 different calendars) with different features while here you have not much of a selection (but this has to do with the exposure, nevertheless as a customer it is not my problem).

Also the prices already reflect that. As I said, compared to the open market what is delivered here, most stuff is overpriced already. And even if codecanyon is not enough of an example, you can check out IPB or Bulletin's addon market, where the prices are the same as here.

And yes, all of us would like that high quality devs stick around, but not by threatening the customers here. That they will leave unless we pay more for them. As I said, the community already acknowledges all of those high quality devs. You or Bob or Chris or any other name you want to throw out. Not sure what else you expect from us.

 

[king8084]

I dont care if they rewrite add on or not, they not see extra money from me for any add on.

that is beyond dumb, xenforo add ones are already ridiculously cheap, if you wont pay the author for his trouble to re-write the entire mod then can you go back to that pathetic land-waste which is VB?

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

Codecanyon often has *beyond* terrible code and people throw up code

that is true

 

[Xon]

That appears contrary to what Brogan has said recently.

My add-ons tend to integrate tightly with XenForo and are quite sensitive to structural changes.

Just from the publically released information on the query builder and new templating bits; these enough to invalidate large parts of every add-on I've written. Sometimes the rewrite may be simple (changing the templating IF statements for example), but otherwise it be a case of throwing out the code I've written and starting again.

 

[RobParker]

@RobParker its not about paying its about reducing price for plugins, who are overpriced.But developers decide what is price of plugins and they try to protect active time for developing plugins and wants money for it.This is dead end.

Addons are MASSIVELY under-priced. We can have a big debate about worth/value, etc but at the end of the day I guess we'll disagree. It's not helped by the fact that XF itself is very under-priced and that sets some kind of artificial ceiling on addon prices that it's hard to break through.

 

[Bespoke]

Whether or not XF add-ons are overpriced depends on the perspective of the buyer and their needs.
Some add-ons do seem to demand a high price but when you look at the amount of features they provide, the quality of their code, and most importantly their support level, then it all falls into perspective.
Large quality add-ons take time to create. A lot of time, especially when coded by one person. The price of these quality add-ons reflect the relatively limited amount of sales they can expect from the smallish XF community. In most cases we are looking at hundreds of copies rather than thousands. Sales also depend on how well the coder is known and their position within the community.
On occasion an ad-on might be priced high in order to limit the type of customer it caters to. Some prefer to limit the number of sales in such a manner in order to potentially only have to deal with a more professional and less demanding type of client.
If a forum needs or requires a specific set of features provided by an add-on then a relatively high price is not going to be a deal breaker. Occasionally you can find a free version or a similar add-on at a much lower cost, however if your forum is more than just a small hobby then it would be wise to ensure the code is up to scratch before using it.
There are many good quality add-ons here but also way too many that are very poorly written. Reviews do not always reflect quality as there are many poorly written add-ons that have good reviews. The reviewer obviously likes the add-on but whether or not said add-on is suitable for your forum is an entirely different matter.

In addition to these large and relatively higher priced add-ons, there are many smaller ones that provide one or two features for $5 or $10. These seem to fill the need of the hobby style forums but cannot be compared to a larger feature rich add-on. Just because a certain feature can be had for a small fee or even for free does not mean larger add-ons that include a similar feature should lower their price to match.

So whether an add-on costs $10 or $100 it really all comes down to quality, support, and most importantly the purchaser's feature requirements.

 

[sbj]

@Syndol 2.0
If it is ok I want to comment from my view.
I stated earlier that I am not talking about the large quality addons. We all agree (I agree with you) that those are not overpriced. They are worth the money, cause they bring a lot of features and support from the creator. So what you are saying is all and good, but you are missing the point here.
Cause those large quality addons are definitely the exceptions and the amount of them is low, very low. From 2000 addons, how many would you consider from that scale? I would say 20-40 which makes it 1%-2% of the total population. Only "handful" of addons are not overpriced actually, they are worth it and their relative high price is justified.
But the majority of the addons don't fall into this scale of large qualitative addons. You base your whole arguement on this small part of the addons world. For that small part all what you said is true.

But for the major part, for the most part, they are definitely overpriced. Above I showed a calendar addon/plugin/script for 14$. Look how much rich it is for 14$. I can't comment on its quality of coding, but 99% of users can't. So that point is completely irrelevant for us. We just care about what the addon might bring us while thinking about the level of support we will get. Obviously reviews and comments from other devs help us to know if the coding has quality or not, that's it. And compare those stuff with the stuff here. It is a difference like day and night. That one example I showed would be sold here for 50$ at least, which would be worth it. But again, there it costs only 14$. Now think about those calendars who cost there 50$... How much would they cost here?...
This is only 1 specific example. You can multiple this example by hundreds.

It is not helpful to run the discussion about the exceptions. Nobody is denying their value.

 

[Paul B]

That appears contrary to what Brogan has said recently.

Umm, I don't remember saying anything like that?

Add-ons will have to be rewritten for XF2.

 

[Bespoke]

stated earlier that I am not talking about the large quality addons.

Perhaps I did miss the point of this thread but comparing a $14 add-on that sells 1100 copies to a $50 one that sells 200 copies does not work either.
Lowering a $50 add-on to $14 will not sell an additional 900 copies. The XF community demand is just not there. It might not be worth $50 to your forum but if there is no competition and the quality of the add-on is there then giving it away is not the answer. The basic rules of supply and demand seem to take hold here.
Now one might say that lowering the price would be the "right" thing to do as it would surely benefit the community and who doesn't want to do that after all? Well, in the past the community was often quite demanding, aggressive, and unappreciative of the hard work that went into making quality free add-ons. That is one reason why some free add-ons became paid ones over time.
I'm not saying there aren't any over priced XF add-ons. There are many add-ons I would not touch with a ten foot pole regardless if paid or free but there are also some amazingly wonderful ones here as well and quality simply oozes out of them. Some of the $5 add-ons are over priced in my opinion.
Whether or not something is over priced depends on how badly you want/need it. Supply and demand dictates the rest.
Perhaps I'm still missing the point and if so then I apologize.

 

[wang]

Obviously from the standpoint of a customer, I would lie if I said that I like to pay. Who likes to spend money? Of course it would be awesome if there were more and more free addons and that we don't need to pay extra fees for paid addons.

You do not like to pay or spend money, I totally get that. But what about liking an add on after you downloaded and using it, or rating it and leaving a review? When was the last time that you did that? That does not cost anything at all, besides good manners. You do not like to pay, you do not like to thank the add on developers at all for all their hard work. It looks to me that you are out to only get and not give one little bit. Things do not work that way.

@RobParker its not about paying its about reducing price for plugins, who are overpriced.But developers decide what is price of plugins and they try to protect active time for developing plugins and wants money for it.This is dead end.

I am very sorry to say this ma'am, but you are saying things about stuff that you do not have the slightest understanding. I will refrain from saying how that makes you look like.

P.s. Can you please tell me what you are doing for a living?

In this ideal scenario obviously all people would choose to pay.

I'd rather learn coding .

That is a very good idea actually. Why do not you?