Pricing Strategy

Right now, I am only interested in Stratagem.

However, as you expand on your release I may be interested in other things. I don't think a subscription is a bad idea. I have done similar things with MyBB and SMF developers who are part-time coders (for plugins/apps) and need the income in order to find time to release their excellent work.

One thing which I would suggest is finding a way to appease your client base due to the time you've had away.

Building trust is very important. I am sure others will be grateful to see you return, but there will still be that worry about what if you disappear again. I realise that IPS don't always make things easy for third-party devs, but now you have full control over your sales and will heavily rely on clients to help spread the word. This is a very important area, which you should be aware of because it might come across as if there is a grey elephant in the room.

You've always been very prompt and helpful in the past; however, I got screwed over with two renewals back when IPS had the marketplace. Stratagem ended up being locked out of updates after you said you had left, which meant I couldn't get access to fixes for 4.7. I had to pay another developer to fix the issues with the mindset of collecting the data I had stored, so that I could use a different task manager.

Stratagem is brilliant when it works well, and I mean this when I say no other application comes close. My site team wouldn't use the other options due to missing features and what not, so I planned to pay a different third-party dev to build a new application that would fit my requirements. Your return changed this, I agreed to have the funds I paid put to account credit.

We all have difficulties in life and things we must navigate, I am very understanding and I hope you have success with this. If I made any suggestions, it would be the following.

• Half-year and yearly payments are more useful to clients, especially when there is value/discounts within it - although this is something that some might not be inclined to consider due to what I mentioned previously about leaving IPS/being away.
• Try to have some sort of roadmap which you can update, so that people can see you are back. (These updates are great, but some will want to physically see the progress in order to become interested again)
• Reach out to your existing client base with a newsletter of sorts, when you are close to releasing your apps etc - consider offering a loyalty discount for those who do want to support you (it works both ways)

Good luck, Michael.

9 hours ago, Joey Matthews said:

One thing which I would suggest is finding a way to appease your client base due to the time you've had away.

Building trust is very important. I am sure others will be grateful to see you return, but there will still be that worry about what if you disappear again. I realise that IPS don't always make things easy for third-party devs, but now you have full control over your sales and will heavily rely on clients to help spread the word. This is a very important area, which you should be aware of because it might come across as if there is a grey elephant in the room.

I have mulled over this very thought. my sudden departure probably did burn some bridges that i wont be able to rebuild easily if at all. I don't want to make excuses or anything, or even apologize. to me that sort of stuff is hollow words, all i can really do imho is just come back and do my best to make things right when and where i can. 

as for an appeasement, when i re-release the stuff, i was gonna issue a coupon code, that would reduce the monthly/quarterly packages by a fair amount. I am not sure what else to give tbh. if people want to talk to me, i am more than happy to voice chat with them on various platforms, to discuss my absence, how it impacted them, and what i can do to to address their grievances. 

9 hours ago, Joey Matthews said:

• Half-year and yearly payments are more useful to clients, especially when there is value/discounts within it - although this is something that some might not be inclined to consider due to what I mentioned previously about leaving IPS/being away.
•  

i might considered limited run of a 6/1yr packages, like i will have for the "lifetime".  I personally like monthly or quarterly subscriptions,it is how i have most of my subscriptions, even if it cost a little more than a longer term package would over the same period. 

9 hours ago, Joey Matthews said:

• Try to have some sort of roadmap which you can update, so that people can see you are back. (These updates are great, but some will want to physically see the progress in order to become interested again)
•  

i use stratagem for this, most of my apps should have its own stratagem project and i use it to list bugs i find or have others post bugs there, same with features/suggestions and what not. 

9 hours ago, Joey Matthews said:

• Reach out to your existing client base with a newsletter of sorts, when you are close to releasing your apps etc - consider offering a loyalty discount for those who do want to support you (it works both ways)

 

i will likely send out a mass email to that effect when i'm ready  

thanks for leaving me your feedback. 

Leaving feedback is something I am very happy to do, the main thing is you are back. Keep updating the clients you have and hopefully before you know it things will be back to how they should be around here. 👍