SplineEQ pricing poll

[solidtrax]

Hey Brother Charles, I do agree with most things you said, but not always things are as black & white as they appear to be.

A developer that starts to raise their prices because of great success might actually do this because his costs are also raised. For example, he might have started alone, but because of the big customer base he build up over time, he had to hire people so support tickets can be solved/answered in time. He might have started at home, but because he had to hire employees, he had to rent some space in an office building.

It's not always just greed. Sometimes there is a good explanation why prices get higher.

I'm only saying this is a possible explanation for higher prices, I'm not saying that it's the only reason. It's more than plausible that in some cases, it was indeed all about greed.

I want more... more... MORE!!!!

[A_SN]

I voted $29. I honestly think that $25 is more fair, but you didn't give us that poll option. Part of why I support Quinto of SKnote with such fervor, is that he creates fantastic plugins, for affordable prices, and he isn't slowly gouging his customers with increased prices. (Please don't think that I'm inferring that you want to gouge anybody's pocketbook.) I won't name them, but there were another couple of developers producing fine products, that "used" to be affordable, but slowly, over time, the prices continued to rise. As a matter of principle, I will no longer buy from those developers.

Is Adidas apparel really that much better than Wal-Mart's stock? Really? Is "Bench", and "North Face" really going to make one's life better than a $150 quality winter coat from a 'vanilla' clothier?

However, part of what makes products like SplineEQ so wonderful, is the good quality for an AFFORDABLE price. Yes, it's a very good plugin. Yes, I really like it. Greed is terrible. (I'm not inferring that you are being greedy) We observe it over and over. A product gets released; it develops a following, then the developer wants to raise prices.

You'll sell more by keeping it affordably priced and you will realize longer-term customer loyalty. We have enough larger companies selling high-ticket plug-ins. In many cases, gullible customers are paying for marginally better quality, fancier interfaces, a few bells n' whistles, and BRANDING. If every blasted plug-in keeps getting expensive, then there's no room for those of lesser means to acquire decent quality.

The average home producer is not producing hit records. Many are producing online tunes that are listened to by an eclectic demographic of listeners. These same home producers are not earning any revenue; they do it because they love making music and sharing their creativity. Suffice it to say, the average home producer can't really afford those high-tickets plug-ins.

Here's a new take the subject: Perhaps your pricing could remain the same, but for those who can afford to pay more, provide the option. Stillwell and Cockos offer their products on the honor system. It's been working for them . . . . So, maybe a combination of 'base price' and option to donate more if the customer feels it's worth it; or can afford to.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I've donated to Martinic on quite a few occasions now. Each time he improves his organ VSTs, I show my sincere appreciation by donating another few $$. It's never a large amoutn at any one time, but every little bit does help and it addds up over time. If I do this, perhaps there are other honest men and women who feel the same way. The point is, I'm not being forced to; I'm doing it because of sincere appreciation.

Maybe this hoaky ol' preaher is out to lunch on this though . . .

Thanks Brother Charles, I think you're right. I didn't propose the option of $25 because well I didn't see myself raising the price just for a few bucks, and it seems like a time-honoured tradition to have every price tag end in 9 (at this point you don't tag something $49 to make to sound like it's closer to $40 than $50, you just don't tag something $50 because it might sound closer to $59 than to $49 ).

I really didn't expect to come to this conclusion as a result of this thread, but this makes me feel like my original decision is vindicated. It's like, if there's a race to the bottom going on in pricing plugins then I started by crossing the finish line . I might make a similar thread when the next major version of SplineEQ nears completion, though I'm thinking somewhere around $49 might be good for something as fully featured as any other linear phase EQ? (i.e. zoom, M/S editing, whatever else that's on my list...)

[A_SN]

Hey Brother Charles, I do agree with most things you said, but not always things are as black & white as they appear to be.

A developer that starts to raise their prices because of great success might actually do this because his costs are also raised. For example, he might have started alone, but because of the big customer base he build up over time, he had to hire people so support tickets can be solved/answered in time. He might have started at home, but because he had to hire employees, he had to rent some space in an office building.

It's not always just greed. Sometimes there is a good explanation why prices get higher.

I'm only saying this is a possible explanation for higher prices, I'm not saying that it's the only reason. It's more than plausible that in some cases, it was indeed all about greed.

I want more... more... MORE!!!!

In my case I raised the price of Photosounder after a couple of years because it started as a simple program that could basically just turn images to sounds and vice versa, you couldn't do anything without an external image editor, now it does a heck of a lot more. That's a special case though, it's not such a good idea to shift the focus of a product over the course of its public existence (which is one reason why I'm doing a rewrite, to start anew with a precise focus on what it's gonna be and do), but in the case of Photosounder it happened naturally as more things were being developed.

Though I won't lie, there's always the aspect of profit maximisation, you'd have to be a fool to work hard at something and not try to make as much money as you can out of it.

[A_SN]

I've thought long and hard about it and I've chosen to follow Brother Charles' advice of raising it to $25 (which is also pretty consistent with the poll results), but I won't raise it for nothing, I'll do it when I release version 1.1 which will feature a vertical zooming option, a much large interface and editing area, revised graphics, a gamma setting for the visualisation and no more memory leaks (I don't think anyone noticed but if you fiddle with the delay/resolution knobs long enough the memory usage will grow and grow, so I fixed that, now each instance only takes ~42 MB + about 13 MB shared between all instances and now when an instance is closed it frees those 42 MB which it didn't even do before).

As for when this is going to happen well all of what I just said is mostly done except for the zoom (but even then most of it is ready) but right now I'm getting lost in some details so I don't know, it's a matter of a few weeks.