Background:
I’m not a PHP developer. Well, I kinda am, but it’s not my main language. I’ve been working on WordPress sites (mainly with WooCommerce) for a few years. I’ve developed a couple of small plugins. All very specific to a single site.
This time I got a request for an e-commerce I work with for which I did not find an existing suitable plugin. Well, since I like to do it anyways I’ve just developed the plugin myself.
Plugin is finished and already in production. So at least I know it solves an existing problem.
But I would like to keep on improving this plugin and make some recurring revenues with it.
If anyone here did that I have a couple of questions:
1. What was your first step after having a functional plugin to get your first customers?
2. I’m thinking about creating a free version of the plugin (cutting on the features of course) to post on the WordPress.org repository. Did you do it? Is it worth it?
(Also it seems to be an effective way of getting feedback on bugs and/or features to add).
3. This is a niche plugin, so I’m not expecting a big market size. I would probably price it at 100€/yr. Would you think it’s sustainable?
4. I want to prepare a marketing plan. What seemed to work best for you? SEO, Paid ads (where?), affiliates, trying to get reviewed on blogs?
5. Where would you sell it?
(I would prefer on my own shop, but I would like to hear some opinions).
And finally: Is it still worth it? I mean, I enjoy developing plugins for WP and if it’s possible to make revenue from this (recurringly) I’ll keep on coming up with some more.
PS: Depending on how this all goes I may make a post documenting the journey for anyone trying to get on the same boat as me.
Thanks!
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If you have products that someone needs, you should list them on marketplaces. Otherwise they will just pile up in your computer.
No one can tell u how successful a product will be. There are plugins making millions while others make nothing. If you really want to do research, check on competitors and try to find out how they are doing
1. I already had customers from my network
2. I haven’t done this with my personal plugins but I have released free versions of pro plugins as part of an organization, a free plugin can be a great source of clients, but free users can be very demanding for the fact they are getting free plugins. So you will have to deal with unreasonable people demanding you fix unrelated issues on their site, but it will definitely give you more battle testing than other way.
3. 100 euros is high, but if it is a quality plugin that will have a direct effect on the website I think it’s fair
4. The best is to network, see if you can get the company you originally built it for to talk to their network, give them a referral bonus. Write a blog post on the problem you are solving
5. I would set up your own shop. Trying to stand out on marketplaces is tough and most people on their are racing to the bottom
Is it worth it? Maybe, there are more lucrative things you could probably do with PHP, but if you like WordPress and have the skills there are a lot worse ways to spend time
My agency used to distribute numerous plugins. The free versions had downloads in the q00s of thousands. The number of users that upgraded to the pro versions was tiny in comparison. The support required for the free versions was overwhelming. After 4 years of maintaining those plugins I shut it down. It was profitable, but barely and it certainly was not worth the work that went into it.
If you don’t have a way to support users, you need to think about how you’re going to do that. Bad support is a good way to get had reviews, which will kill your chances.
Check out the WordPress marketplace! You wanna get your plug-in listed their ASAP.
Another user said 100 euros is high. It’s not. Some cost more, and depending on the businesses need it’s worth it.
If you find the way let me know too 🙂 I have a Mermbership Plugin which i released 2 months ago which for sure beats the hell out of Memberpress and others when it comes to setting up, and UI/UX it also has a free version on the repo aaaand guess what … after 2 months (where i invested in google ads facebook ads, i tried to promote it on as many channels i could for free) … i have 0 reviews, Less than 10 downloads, my website has 0 visits for the last few weeks and i’m basically at a stand still because i have no idea how to promote this thing which i 1000% for sure know is better than what’s out there.
I have a TON of ideas of integrations and new features for it, but i invested more than 1000 hours into building this thing and i’m at a point where i just don’t want to spend any more time on it until i get some downloads and feedback because if i only take 10$/hr (which i don’t i usually charge for development, i charge way more) i already have 10k worth of development invested in it + servers for my site + the ads that i did …
My conclusion in all this … it’s hard to get noticed because people are so imune these days to marketing and they’re so used to the things that they’re already doing they just don’t care enough to try something new.
I really don’t know if i should be continuing with this or just scrap the whole thing and call it quits 🙁
I’m not sure how others feel about it, but Freemius is one of the bigger plugin licence providers that I know of.
Basically you add some code to your plug-in that helps protect it from being shared so the pro version will only run on a website that your customer puts on the Freemius dashboard.
It allows you to sell an upgrade in the free version, as you can have the free version have a free license key (not that I would recommend that), and then provide a smooth upgrade via their platform.
I don’t know the costs, but I’ve seen several smaller plugin builders use it probably because it’s a massive shortcut to building your own plugin licensing platform.
My story is somewhat similar to yours. I build a plugin for a site because I couldn’t find good one on plugin directory. Then I released it to public and gained few thousand users. Plugin was kinda limited in its scope but download kept on growing so I did some more work and created a Pro version out of it. Pro version is out for 5 months now and its doing ok and I am excited about the future prospect.
1. Release the free version on WordPress directory and that would be your initial test. If you get good downloads and think that Pro version might work, only after that, start building Pro version. (This is what I did)
2. Absolutely worth it. Actually this is one of the best thing you can do. Nothing comes close to this approach. You get free marketing and at the same time you will know if your product is feasible.
3. Pricing wise, you will have to price it similar to plugin that is similar to yours. You will have to do some research around this.
4. Only marketing for me right now is [WordPress.org]) free plugin
5. You sell your plugin from within your plugin interface of free version. You can also create your own website. I am using freemius as it handles so many stuffs. I have become a fan of this service. Make sure you check them out.