[wp-hackers] selling a premium plugin

[Andrew Nacin]

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 5:30 AM, Baki Goxhaj <banago at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > Why not? This is a very good model. Offering a free version of a plugin
> > gets people using it. A premium version can then contain more features or
> > offer things like premium support.
> >
>
> From what I know the guys at WP.org got Ajax Comments out of repo for this
> reason.


No. Not at all. The freemium model is an excellent model and many plugins
leverage it.


> Because the free version is just only or mainly for advertising the
> premium one and does not add any value as is. I'm trying to put forward
> what
> has been going on - I don't have anything against that model personally.


That's not what freemium plugins are doing. They're offering a free version,
and also offering paid support or premium features. Power to them.

What happened to WP Ajax Edit Comments is simple. The plugin author decided
that Version 3.1.x would be the last free release. That was more than a year
ago. The plugin page then pointed to a site that offered version 4.0. That's
not a freemium model, that's abandoning the free plugin all together. The
plugin page said this and was eventually de-listed:

> Please note: updates are no longer free:
> Please note that Version 3.1x will be the last free release.
> To receive updates and support, please visit <link>

This discussion has been had on wp-hackers many times before. I suggest
participants first read through a discussion from December. (That'd be
December 2010, about 10 weeks ago.)

Look for the subject "Premium plugin protection," which spanned 116 emails
over 4 days:
http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2010-December/thread.html

Mailing list archives are a wonderful thing.

Cheers,
Nacin