Previously I worked in a WordPress plugin development company, resigned from that organization & now developing few plugins myself. My initial thought was make a premium version of that plugins & sell that.
Recently, I can see too many discussion about plugin yearly license & license key based restriction etc.
After reading multiple discussions in different communities, planned to completely avoid premium version & make the free as fully functional one without any limits.
But now my question is how I can make revenue because I need to pay the bills. Additionally, I need to prepare documentation, I have to answer questions in support forum etc. Yes, I can accept donation. But is that enough to pay my bills?
Has anyone here had experience with generating revenue from a free plugin? Are there alternative models I could explore? I’d appreciate any insights!
Here are a few possibilities I’ve already identified:
- Priority support
- Offering services
I’d love to hear if anyone has more ideas or strategies to make this sustainable. Thanks in advance!
Don’t be afraid to create a useful plugin that is free to use (and maybe a donate option?) but also create a premium version that you are able to use to contribute to the work you put into the plugin. Relying on donations only will get your gas money (maybe) or a beer and thats about it.
People may gripe about premium versions, but unless a project is large enough that a developer base can maintain it as open source and offer it for free, it needs to be supported. Its why there are thousands of stale plugins that were abandoned and the companies offering premium and free versions are still thriving. The platform that people build these plugins on also have a free / premium version – [wordpress.org](http://wordpress.org) vs wordpress.com. People have to eat and pay the bills. There is nothing morally wrong with getting paid for what you do.
If you want to go the route of having only a free version of the plugin, the easiest way to make revenue would be to charge for support, ANY support. Offer it free but as-is, then if people need support you charge per-hour or per-ticket.
You can also have a free version but stipulate in the license that it’s free for non-commercial use only, commercial users need to pay a license fee. I’m developing a plugin right now and this is the approach I’ll be taking, the whole plugin is free for non-commercial use but if you’re making money as a user using my plugin I should be making money as a developer. You could enforce this with a licensing system or go the WinRAR route and use the honor system.
You need to offer Freemium ie both free and paid. No one is going to donate.
Professional developers don’t usually complain that they have to pay for plugins. I am more than happy to pay for acf pro, gravity forms, polylang, WP rocket etc.
I use polylang, and you can look at their pricing. It’s quite aggressive. But it solves so much issues that I just price it into my end price. I also have 25 comlianz lisences, only use 7. It is still good deal for me and helps me save client more money than it costs.
As a dev I rarely open support tickets, the plugins that I use, I know the plugins because I am recurring user and already familiar with their functionality.
But getting me to buy that premium plugin is harder, as I will need to get my money’s worth and it needs to solve something I need.
Paid plugins make my life easier and it is cheaper for my client in the end to use a good non free plugin that for me to develop the functionality.
Though I will complain about freeium ad spammy plugins that is breaking everything in ten ways and more and will actively remove you from all sites that are under my control.
Users who build sites for themselves with small budgets complain about subscription model.
I would think back and look who was the main target group that bough in 80% of revenue with 20% of overhead, when you were working in the plugin development place. Was it corporate clients, developers, sing end users?
Cool but as a dev I don’t mind paying pro but have it life-time and unlimited installs. $80-$90 isn’t too much for a useful plugin.
I’ve been using WP and building websites for 15+ years. If the plugin is good and there is solid support, I have no issue paying $79-$100 per year for it. If the plugin helps my business, I’ll make that money back quickly.
The idea of freemium (mentioned above) is ideal. It allows me to see what you offer and decide if I want to invest.
I’m curious what the group thinks of this idea. I have a plugin I’m working on. I hate the idea of creating 2 versions. one free and one premium (currently best way to get exposure and get paid). I just want one plugin to maintain. I plan to release it fully free but as delayware with sections that i would otherwise consider to be premium im going disable action for about 5-10 seconds when you go to that section and pop up a notice that says “thank you if you are enjoying this plugin, please buy a lifetime site license to remove this message for this site”. Pay for a license and the pop ups go away.
I find as long as the free version can give a user good features that make the plugin useful, you’ll be able to set features in a pro version that users will want to upgrade to.
Build a community with the people you are trying to help, trying to help solve their problems with your plugin. While they are not going to compensate you directly, they might offer you the support and feedback needed to get into that position where other people or companies would be more than willing to support you financially in order to use you plugin. What I am trying to say is to build trust.
You’re listening to people who aren’t going to lay you to begin with. Devs don’t mind paying for licenses. We have dozens of developer licenses for the plugins we like to use. It’s not cheap, but we manage nearly 100 sites, so it’s worth it.
The free version should have just basic functionality with the paid version having full features and access to support. Consider a developer license if it’s something most sites will use.
Site owners that DIY don’t pay for anything, target devs.
I don’t know if you could insert ads which would credit back to you.
Offer customization consulting work? Custom themes, custom variations of features which are in your plugin?