In the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting advice and comments from different people about the pricing strategy for my software. The thrust of both sets of comments is that I should charge more. Dipsy has made a similar comment to me on this blog before.
I’m not getting the same advice from everybody.
One person, who I’ve hired to help with link-building and a potential site revamp, says I should triple my price. His argument is that, in business, people don’t care whether they pay £20 or £75 for a software package as long as it does the job they want. I have some sympathy with this argument since the feedback I get from customers is that they love the ease of use. The alternative view though is that I charge a similar amount (more in some cases) to most of my competitors. whatever people say, I think a lot of the initial interest in a purchase is based on cost.
Someone else, one of my oldest customers, has said he thinks the product is good and the support excellent and he wants us to be around in the next few years to keep on supplying support. He’s recommended we start charging a yearly subscription for support.
The thing I like about both these ideas is the chance of more money 
My preference really is for a yearly subscription-based strategy. Any thoughts?
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My advice is to get as much advise as possible from people with experience, I would recommend joining a certain association that I joined recently. Granted the replies are slow, but what you do get is
extremely useful.
Having said this I think its nearly impossible to predict what the outcome will be, as its only guess work really. The changes I’m about to make are dependant on certain assumptions I made, like
people are looking for full masks, although this looks to be the case and you’ve said you think users would like this feature, whether this factor with increase sales isn’t certain.
There are statements which say, you need to install confidence in your products and the price shows this. Quality costs.
There’s also the current climate to consider, I know Sage aren’t doing as well, the financial times says there will be more cost cutting required as license sales are down.
Sage charge for support on a yearly basis, you can also buy program updates. For your program and sage accounts these don’t change much each year. Out of interest, Payroll is the better money strategy
and the legislation changes every year.
Another idea, could be to provide a cut down version which is REALLY simple to use and aimed at dummies. And have a pro or full version which you could charge more for, this is what Sage have done.
Heres a link which might be good.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html
Heres a better link.
Think I might do this for ideaspad.
http://www.dpdirectory.com/1artic30.htm
Excellent and very interesting links. The second link talks
about a path I want to follow this year. I’ve got a whole
load of extras to add to my package but it’ll be a Pro
version and the existing version will remain on sale.
The first link is real interesting and a good read. When
the Pro version is available I’m going to raise prices and
set up a subscription scheme. I’m not keen on asking too
many people for opinions because I agree with the
article at the first link – everyone gives a different
answer. When it comes down to it, I want more money to
stay in business so I’m going to charge more and see if it
works. If it doesn’t then I’ll change strategy.
All change for our products and prices I guess.
Oh, I saw your comment about Payroll software. I guess
if people buy this they need to keep up with the latest
version and legislation. This is good for repeat sales and
upgrades but I bet it’s a nightmare for deadlines. You
have to release in time for new payroll legislation/ tax
rates to be supported.
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