How do you release your plugins into the wild?

[Morphoice]

Ahoi from Europe.
I’ve been making Plugins for a couple of years now using HISE and faust, more serious over the past two years with a JUNO-6, a CS-80 and a Simmons SDSV emulation which I tried to get to sound as close to the original as possible. That alone was some journey, but actually releasing them into the wild is a whole other one.

Would love to hear about your journeys, how and where do you release your work, where do you sell or even advertise it? Do you work with eg Pluginalliance or any of those companies? What are your experiences with them? Do you offer them for free? Do you charge? How do you set your prices?

I found Gumroad to be quite easy and so far went with a pay what you want model, but out of thousands of downloads, barely anyone donates. I’ve been however approached by some bigger companies and wonder if that’s worth looking into. It seems as with everything everybody wants a piece of the cake as long as you bake it and do the hard work. Unfortunately for weeks I am rather busy with relations rather than making actual DSP, which is my actual forte.

How do you all cope?

[Benedict]

The world is habituated to a no-cost mindset these days - with the exception of the 'almost free but uber-Proful' mindset, which is probably worse. All in the middle of a #metoo mindset where most people are looking to ship the most sameful thing as everyone else, hoping to scrape a bit off Trailer Swift or some other big name.

So you do as you have and play the small numbers for a laff, or you get enough chatter to sell out to some WAD Pluginz outfit, OR you do some real work to build something that has no exact competitor. To be very fair, the latter is all but impossible these days as most 'buyers' (users is more accurate) are not open to new/genuine/strong tools as they only want insta-Proful one-knobbers despite the damage they do.

[Tiles]

If your goal is money, then don't offer a free version. Simple

The uncomfortable reality is that 'pay what you want' usually translates to 'mostly free' once you reach larger download numbers. People happily download free plugins, but only a tiny percentage will ever donate, regardless of quality.

The struggle you're having with Gumroad is a visibility problem, not a product problem. You can have the best DSP in the world, but if no one sees it, it doesn't exist. Bigger companies offer that visibility, but they take a huge cut.

So when you want to do the marketing by yourself, try to be as visible as possible. Be present at other market places, not just Gumroad. Post in communities, release presets, make a YouTube video about it, make Shorts, post on Facebook (be careful with spamming Facebook groups. You will most probably be banned after more than three or four posts a day, or even after your first post if you get reported), Bluesky, Reddit, here, and other musician communities, whatever you find.

But keep in mind that the market is completely oversaturated. There are simply too many plugins these days, and the pool of people actually willing to pay for specialized DSP is shrinking. This is something you absolutely have to consider.

[TechHaus]

I think for gumroad you need a cut down free version, LE / lite / etc.

Because folks want to demo a plugin first, especially when it is in beta likes yours is / was.
And they want to demo it for free. And once they already transacted for that plugin for free, it's weird to expect them to check out AGAIN for the same plugin.

So if you are using gumroad, go with a lite version as the free plugin, imo. And then the full plugin is paid only, not pay as much as you want.

(this is just one consumers' opinion)

[Morphoice]

Agree! Pay what you want didn't do much, out of thousands of downloads say 10 people paid a few bucks. It did buy me about three beers.
Everything is now a trial with full functionality for a fixed time period, no annoying noise ever 20 seconds etc.
if people like the sound for their production they can get a license/serial to unlock it full time.

[knob_monster]

Switch the marketing. If you call it a "Juno emulation by a human," they expect it for free. If you call it an "AI-Powered Analog-Modeling Node Wrapper," you can charge a monthly subscription and they'll thank you for it.

[Benedict]

Switch the marketing. If you call it a "Juno emulation by a human," they expect it for free. If you call it an "AI-Powered Analog-Modeling Node Wrapper," you can charge a monthly subscription and they'll thank you for it.

Sadly true and ties back to what I said. The problem is that most of the 'marketplace' is not earnest musicians looking for solutions but posers looking for distractions. This was pushed (and still is) by the big names. Even Reaper - which mostly behaves like a serious tool at the build-marketing level - mostly thrives in the public eye and therefore mind as a kind of novelty: 'the mostest featured/adaptable/impenetrable/techy etc'. Most using the tool probably never show any finished work - that includes those who post, then say it isn't complete when they get foodback (sic).

I don't think I have seen a new thing for ages. Ok so we don't really have any new tech like samplers or VST, which I saw in both cases. BUT we didn't have radical new tech for ages in other times and we still ended up with things that differentiated themselves enough to be cared about. All this regurgitating the past is not helping anyone. Make something actually useful by workflow and not just more #metoo clonez and IR de-rezonzterz tripe. I am holding on to QRange because despite other EQs, none are as practical to use. All the compressinators out there and I am again hanging on to AdHd Leveling Tool (paid) as it does a great job every time. Most things I try are tossed within an hour, paid or otherwise as they are novelties rather than really useful. Odd exception which proves the point still being DDMF Magic Death Eye, which feels amazing but between pricing and the workflow is a joke.

[VybeCodeDSP]

We actually just put together a cool free web app for exactly this type of thing, totally free, no advertising on the site and it's aimed at helping independent plug-in creators, soundset/sound designers release their new stuff, it's called Signalcha.in @ https://signalcha.in. We're working on a similar release platform for music releases as well, hoping to save artists time and money so they don't have to run around looking for a way to do it all in one place

Courtney

[Morphoice]

We actually just put together a cool free web app for exactly this type of thing, totally free, no advertising on the site and it's aimed at helping independent plug-in creators, soundset/sound designers release their new stuff, it's called Signalcha.in @ https://signalcha.in. We're working on a similar release platform for music releases as well, hoping to save artists time and money so they don't have to run around looking for a way to do it all in one place

Courtney

good idea, sadly all I get on your website is
✗ Anthropic 400: {"error":"No Anthropic API key"}

[VybeCodeDSP]

Yes, it's powered by your own Anthopic/OpenAI/Gemini API key, not our own (that would cost us a fortune unfortunately). We had considered eating the cost but after a few hundred tests and a few hundred bucks, it became clear that it was not feasible to release such a thing for free if we ate the cost lol. There should have been a pop-up that explained how to obtain the API key, no?

EDIT: Ah, ok I just checked it out - if a "guest" user logs in, it doesn't show the tutorial. I'm now integrating the tutorial for all users, guest and logged in. Thanks for the heads up!

EDIT #2: ok, I've added an overlay guide to help people obtain an API key to use

Courtney

[Morphoice]

i dont have an antropic key so i cant use it

[VybeCodeDSP]

i dont have an antropic key so i cant use it

Welp, we decided to cover the fees and add our own API keys for OpenAI and Anthropic AI models, so now everyone can use the system whether they have access to the API keys or not, guest accounts included


Courtney