Here are a few additional details to give you an idea of the range of product prices: over 100 of the extensions available on the Store are free, and many more can be purchased for less than $50; still others cost several hundred dollars, with the most expensive product currently listed on the DNN Store costing $9,200. In fact, even different versions on the same product can vary by several hundred dollars.
As the Store is a marketplace for 3rd party extensions, the price of products sold here is completely determined by the vendors who list their products on the Store, so we asked the developers of several popular products to explain how they determine their prices:
DNN SHARP
We spent a great deal of time and resources working on our pricing and on licensing options. The first reason for this was the fact that there’s no standard model in DNN. So we had to reach out to customers, listen, negotiate, and finally standardize, but we are very happy with where we are today because we can answer to a variety of clients. Our licensing options are suitable to consultants, small biz owners, web app developers, enterprises and others.
Once we found a model that worked, we just reused it over and over again. It might sound a bit strange, but we had more clients complaining that our pricing is too low, which sent the wrong message. That’s because they looked at each product individually, and so did we. Brainstorming again, we came up with App Sharp and Web Sharp, which are basically the same individual products bundled together, so we have much a bigger product that made sense both in terms of integrated functionality and pricing.
To sum it up, there are two parts in our pricing. There’s the product price, which is a combination of development cost, operations, market price and psychology. The other part is the support which our clients value highly. There are so many possibilities with our modules, and without good support they would be dissipated, but it can get quite time-consuming to come up with solutions to all requirements that come to our support team.
Again, we analyzed and discussed with our clients and concluded that it would send a bad message to include pricing for everyone to cover those really complex support cases. So instead, we came up with premium support options. We did it on the same grounds, to try and satisfy a wider audience, so we started with 2 options: time based and incident based.
I’m sure there is a science in relation to pricing, but what worked for us was constant experimentation and negotiation to find the right balance.” – DNN Sharp
SMITH ECOMMERCE STORE
“Here at Smith Consulting, we take a detailed and dedicated approach to pricing our products. Whether it be software or services, we believe in fair pricing, while still remaining competitive across our industry. It is a delicate balance of science and art.
We first take into consideration the cost of the product. While software doesn't require packaging or shipping costs, we still have to factor in our materials. That can be anything from equipment, office fees, rent expenses and utilities. We have to account for the labor spent not only on developing and QA for our modules, but the support that our customers have come to know and love.
We have to also analyze our sales trends based on previous years and project the realistic number of licenses we can expect to sell based on what our customers are willing to pay, and what other similar vendors are asking their customers to pay.
The final determining factor is what is included with a module license. We offer three months of free upgrades from the date of purchase for all of our customers. We have an aggressive release schedule and our customers can get the latest software with the latest features at no extra charge. And all of our modules come with free support through our help desk, which includes answering basic questions and pointing users in the right direction. For more hands-on support, we offer what we call Premium support, which includes phone support and logging in to your portal to configure settings and troubleshoot. We have a fully staffed on-site team ready to answer any questions from pre-sales to complex configurations.” – Smith Consulting
EVENT PLANNER and REGISTRATION
"The price is determined by time and effort that has gone into developing the module. The Event Planner was first launched in 2010, and since then we have released many new versions with increasingly complex features (Razor script support, responsive layout, multi-user registration, etc). As we have released new versions we have adjusted the module price to reflect the feature set that is supported.
Our licensing model works on a portal basis, so depending on the license type you purchase (portal or host) you can either install on a single portal or multiple portals on a single DNN instance. Included in the license price is access to all the module resource material as well as first class support and life time upgrades to new versions of the module. Imagine never having to pay to upgrade your module again! The licensing fee also contributes to future product development and research into new features." - NA Development
Thanks to DNN Sharp, N A Development, and Smith Consulting for sharing this information! We hope this article has shed some light on how developers determine the prices of the products they sell here on the DNN Store, and we hope this brings attention to some things to look for when making a purchase on the Store. However, price is only one consideration when choosing a product; here are some additional criteria for choosing a product on the DNN Store.
