It’s not enough to create a premium plugin, set its price and chill out. You need to promote and sell it to collect revenue you deserve. Three following options may help you to find the way to promote your product and set a proper price to maximise your gains.
Develop a free version
One of the options is to develop a free version of the plugin first. That’s quite a handy method that allows boosting the popularity of the product on the start. Sometimes it is a challenging task to gain money from premium plugins at the very beginning of deployment. As soon as you get the audience, you can develop and sell the paid version with some extended functionality, quicker support and additional comfort in details. It may be hard and time-consuming to create two versions of the plugin, but this approach may bring the profit. The user can migrate to a premium plugin to achieve wider toolset. Otherwise, he may still be using the free version, which is an effective tool to promote both of your plugins.
Find the right place
It is important to find the right place to sell the plugin. It can be your own e-commerce site or a well-known marketplace, e.g. CodeCanyon. You can choose a famous resource because it is covered by a wide audience. The more people see the information about your plugin, the more the chance is that someone will pay for it. You don’t need to bother about logistics and selling: the website will handle all these tasks. On the other hand, this marketplace takes a really decent percentage from each individual sale. Check it out. Some of the developers may find this fee harsh. No less, no more, it’s a price for a chance to boost the popularity of the plugin in a fast way. Furthermore, you are bound to publish your premium plugin only on CodeCanyon, or your payment share will be even smaller. At the conclusion, this marketplace needs to approve your plugin before the publishing. They have an ability to set the price as high, or as low, as the company wants.
If you are trying to publish the product on your own, you are free from all those factors. But notice the fact, that it is now your responsibility to promote your plugin, sell it, deliver to the customers. You need to support and guarantee the process of buying, installing and further usage of your add-on.
Consider pricing and support
The pricing is always a delicate question. It can be hard to find the ideal balance between the revenue and a decent amount of sales. The cost mustn’t scare a customer away, but also it doesn’t need to be scanty. Sometimes it is handy to sell fewer plugins at an increased price. The reason is simple. It is easier for you to support fewer customers while your revenue stays the same.
It’s all up to you – any ideal pricing will require continuous testing, collecting statistics and deep analysis.
Profitable sale of your premium plugin will require a lot of work. Combine the ideas of the right selling place and reasonable price, give a user the ability to choose the tools and reap the benefits of your labour.
