yggdrasil Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 (edited) <p> This thread is in no way to say Modules Garden modules are bad, so please don't take it that way. Some modules do work and others are very buggy but my main complain about their modules is that they don't follow WHMCS design lines, in some modules they change completely the WHMCS fonts.</p> <p> Either way this post is not about their quality but how they are doing business. If you are thinking about getting some modules, please be aware what you are actually paying. First of all, its nice they offer an open source version but their pricing is just ridicolous high.</p> <p> Their modules look fine at first look but what some people are not realizing is the renewals. Modules Garden since 2013 has slowly and silently started to rise pricing in their updates. In some modules which where around 100$ to buy, and renewal was 29$, they silently raised to 39$, then to 49$ and now to the same price the module costs to buy !!! This reminds me of the lunatic of Hostbill with their pricing. What is wrong with Polish companies lately? Can't they do math? How in the world can you charge a renewal/support price which is 100% the cost of the purchase price?</p> <p> The maximum amount most companies charge per year is 25% of the purchase price. I know see they listed most of their modules as yearly modules. Now you could say, what is 100$ bucks a year for a software but that is the problem. They have to follow EU regulations which it seems they are completely ignoring. Some of the modules did not had 1 single change in over a year, so what exactly are they charging? Renewal? Renewal of what? If they where not updated since release !!! And we are talking about modules here. If WHMCS as a whole costs 100$ a year to renew, it's a bit ridocolous to pay 100$ a year for every single module you have. If you own 10 Modules Garden modules, you would be paying 1000$ a year just in modules, and bugged ones that don't even work that great and will probably break more things that solve.</p> <p> How can they base their business on developing for WHMCS but yet trying to charge more than what WHMCS costs? That does not make sense. Its like if you are making accessories for a car and your product costs more than the whole car. I don't appreciate how they did this either. How about sending their customers an email about price increases and publishing that on Twitter or in the blog? Its funny when companies only post good things and decide to silently ignore what does not sound that great. That shows dishonesy. If you think your products are great and that is the real value, you would have no problems advertising the price increase.</p> <p> They seem to promote all their modules all the time but yet I newer read anywhere they raised prices. This is not a straight way to do business. Sorry. While I understand they need to make money, I don't thing many people are going to start paying 100$ a year per 1 single module that does 1 single thing in WHMCS. I would rather pay 500$ to a developer on Freelance and have it done like I want, including source code and its my own module for ever rather than have an encoded yearly module which costs me the same to maintain as WHMCS does. And then I</p> <p> Googled where exactly are their price increases mentioned and only found this: They actually think people make money because of their modules. I'm not sure if I want to cry or laugh. Please tell me which software makes me money without working and investing on my part. If that is the case all I need is buying one of their modules and let the checks come in </p> Edited June 19, 2015 by yggdrasil 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbit Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 It's quite simple, you don't need to pay for another year of support, right? If some specific module hasn't been updated for a year, then don't pay the next yearly support for it and you'll have no problem. Setting a price for any product is not something you just throw out of your head and if you have any idea about running a business you should already know that having a team of programmers does not allow you to just setup any price for modules and support. If you need a custom module, order it somewhere, pay the full development price and you'll get a full support/guarantee for it - but still only for a year or so, right? I don't really care for ModulesGarden but your post is is full of incorrect reasoning. It's quite funny that people have no problem paying 50$/y for a simple shared web hosting service and yet they do have a problem with paying 40-50$/y for software extensions. And we're talking about business people here, more or less... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kian Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 (edited) Either way this post is not about their quality but how they are doing business. If you are thinking about getting some modules, please be aware what you are actually paying. First of all, its nice they offer an open source version but their pricing is just ridicolous high. Giving an open source version of your software is a very serious question. I'm a WHMCS developer too and in past I get in touch with some Hosting Providers and Web Agencies intrested in deobfuscating WHMCS and modules. It sucks. I can't accept that a company that earns more than 50.000$ / month makes such a lame thing to get a very cheap software for free. Open source versions must be expensive because you can do a lot of profitable things with it. The original developer is not a cow with free milk. I personally decided to stop giving my modules as open source even if they're willing to pay me a lot of money. You can't belive how many times I've found my own modules re-branded and sold in WHMCS App store and it drives me crazy when I contact them to explain that they're not allowed to do this. The answer is always the same "You gave us the open source version so now this is our software" No way! I sold you the open source version and not the right to resell my software, the copyright or the fact that you can copy some parts of it in other modules! This is very annoying because people don't read contracts and I don't want to waste my time for them. Giving an open source version of your software is a very risky decision so it must be profitable for a developer or it's not worth. Their modules look fine at first look but what some people are not realizing is the renewals. Modules Garden since 2013 has slowly and silently started to rise pricing in their updates. In some modules which where around 100$ to buy, and renewal was 29$, they silently raised to 39$, then to 49$ and now to the same price the module costs to buy !!! This reminds me of the lunatic of Hostbill with their pricing. What is wrong with Polish companies lately? Can't they do math? How in the world can you charge a renewal/support price which is 100% the cost of the purchase price? You know what, I'm selling 2 of my modules 95€ / year. Yep, it's 107$ / year (before you ask yes, they buy them) and the reason behind this is very simple. It costs time to maintain your project, answering tickets, writing documentation, changelogs, patch notes, release new versions, provide updated informations, screenshots, videos, fix bugs, add new features etc. It's a full time job with a lot of responsibility. Clients are needy and time consuming. They don't just buy the software and go away. They want new features, they ask you a lot of questions and cryptic things. Most of times they call you on Skype before buying for 1 or 2 hours and after too. At some point they also start to ask you off topic questions about WHMCS and talk about their business etc. I personally stopped to keep going on with cheap prices. It's not worth. It's not the software itself that is expensive, it's all the "environment". My standard rate is 40€ / hour. You understand that when a client calls me on Skype for 2 hours I'm already wasting 80€. When I spend 1 hour to figure out that a client reported me a bug that was not a bug I wasted 40€. Long story short 100$ / year for a module or for the upgrade/support service of WHMCS is even too cheap! The maximum amount most companies charge per year is 25% of the purchase price. I know see they listed most of their modules as yearly modules. Now you could say, what is 100$ bucks a year for a software but that is the problem. They have to follow EU regulations which it seems they are completely ignoring. Some of the modules did not had 1 single change in over a year, so what exactly are they charging? Renewal? Renewal of what? If they where not updated since release !!! And we are talking about modules here. If WHMCS as a whole costs 100$ a year to renew, it's a bit ridocolous to pay 100$ a year for every single module you have. If you own 10 Modules Garden modules, you would be paying 1000$ a year just in modules, and bugged ones that don't even work that great and will probably break more things that solve. No way. You are not buying a copy of Windows 7! You're buying a software AND a service for updates and support for 1 year. When you need help for Windows you don't call Bill Gates or a developer of Windows. You can write in some forums or call a non-technical person of customer care. On WHMCS, Modulesgarden etc. you directly speak with the senior developer It costs! How can they base their business on developing for WHMCS but yet trying to charge more than what WHMCS costs? That does not make sense. Its like if you are making accessories for a car and your product costs more than the whole car. I don't appreciate how they did this either. How about sending their customers an email about price increases and publishing that on Twitter or in the blog? Its funny when companies only post good things and decide to silently ignore what does not sound that great. That shows dishonesy. If you think your products are great and that is the real value, you would have no problems advertising the price increase. It really doesn't matter. Wordpress is free but some plugins cost more than 600$. Magento is free too but some templates cost 2500$. You can't compare things in this way. I would rather pay 500$ to a developer on Freelance and have it done like I want, including source code and its my own module for ever rather than have an encoded yearly module which costs me the same to maintain as WHMCS does. And then I Freelance is the craziest place of the universe where you can find a lot of horrible developers that work for indecently low rates. When you want to create a module it's obvious that you have to look for a senior PHP developer experienced in WHMCS, SQL, Smarty and so on. It can't cost you less than 30$ / hour but on Freelancer you can find tons of Chinese and Indians (it's a fact) that work for 5$ / hour with no experience of WHMCS. There's no room for others. How can we beat a guy that work for 5$/hour? But you should ask yourself what you get. The development of a module is a big thing. Most of times when things get too complicated they leave you with uncompleted and buggy project. Then you have to find a real developer and pay 30-50$ / hour to get the job done. You can't imagine how many times I've been asked to complete projects started on Freelancer but usually I always refuse because the code is just a pile of sh*t out of the logics of WHMCS. One time I've found module that was using a senseless 50MB SQL library just to connect and send queries to database! I'm saying this not because I've problems with Chinese, Indians and Freelancer but because with time they're feeding the idea that our job is worth 5$ / hour, that a module can't cost 100$ / year, that WHMCS can't charge you 100 $ / year for support and updates. Googled where exactly are their price increases mentioned and only found this: They actually think people make money because of their modules. I'm not sure if I want to cry or laugh. Please tell me which software makes me money without working and investing on my part. If that is the case all I need is buying one of their modules and let the checks come in In fact they're right. I'll give you an example. 5 clients of mine use their NicIT module to register .it domains. If you combine the money they earn from registering .it domains you reach the phantasmagoric amount of 400.000 $ / year. Not to mention modules that allow you to save time with your accountants. They're priceless. Some modules do work and others are very buggy but my main complain about their modules is that they don't follow WHMCS design lines, in some modules they change completely the WHMCS fonts. I can agree with you only with this. I don't like it too that they create a completely different style for their modules but it's not a big deal. I mean it's not a critical point. Anyway recently I find hard to believe that there's so much hate for such small price changes. I'm not a millionaire but damn I can afford to pay 50$ / year more for WHMCS support and updates, 100 $ / year for a module that increase your income or that allow you to save time (time is money though). How fragile is your business if you can't adapt to this? Please notice that I'm talking in general and not directly with you so don't get offended. Edited June 19, 2015 by Kian 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlinpa1969 Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 I Dont have a problem paying the yearly maintenance if the Modules actually did what they were advertised to do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yggdrasil Posted June 19, 2015 Author Share Posted June 19, 2015 (edited) Giving an open source version of your software is a very serious question. I'm a WHMCS developer too and in past I get in touch with some Hosting Providers and Web Agencies intrested in deobfuscating WHMCS and modules. It sucks. I can't accept that a company that earns more than 50.000$ / month makes such a lame thing to get a very cheap software for free. Open source versions must be expensive because you can do a lot of profitable things with it. The original developer is not a cow with free milk. I personally decided to stop giving my modules as open source even if they're willing to pay me a lot of money. You can't belive how many times I've found my own modules re-branded and sold in WHMCS App store and it drives me crazy when I contact them to explain that they're not allowed to do this. The answer is always the same "You gave us the open source version so now this is our software" No way! I sold you the open source version and not the right to resell my software, the copyright or the fact that you can copy some parts of it in other modules! This is very annoying because people don't read contracts and I don't want to waste my time for them. Giving an open source version of your software is a very risky decision so it must be profitable for a developer or it's not worth. I don’t agree. If you are a company making 50,000$ a month and you buy encoded software, I would get all of those people fired. What happens when the developer drops dead? Or just goes out of business or just decides never to update the module again? If you think a company will put their hands on a encoded software like that, good luck. I hope you realize the IonCube obfuscation is just to slow down piracy, it does not stop someone from getting your code if they really want. And open source is not the same as giving someone the source code. WHMCS will give the code away for any modules if you sign a non release agreement as well. If you know WHO you are giving the code, companies, you will know from where the piracy came in case of leaks and trust me. Companies want the source code because in particular with WHMCS, 99% of developers don’t ever update their modules again or are gone after releasing them. Of course they can’t resell your code or re-use it. That is not the point. A company asking open source is because they don’t trust their business to you. Simple. Why should they? Would you eat a sandwich someone found on the street? No. Why would a company that earns 50,000$ install some PHP code from some unknown developer where you can’t see what the code does? From all I know, you could put some very nasty things inside that PHP that know is running in the company server. I’m very sure companies are willing to pay the open source price for their own security and privacy. That was not actually the issue I pointed out here. You know what, I'm selling 2 of my modules 95€ / year. Yep, it's 107$ / year (before you ask yes, they buy them) and the reason behind this is very simple. It costs time to maintain your project, answering tickets, writing documentation, changelogs, patch notes, release new versions, provide updated informations, screenshots, videos, fix bugs, add new features etc. It's a full time job with a lot of responsibility. Clients are needy and time consuming. They don't just buy the software and go away. They want new features, they ask you a lot of questions and cryptic things. Most of times they call you on Skype before buying for 1 or 2 hours and after too. At some point they also start to ask you off topic questions about WHMCS and talk about their business etc. I personally stopped to keep going on with cheap prices. It's not worth. It's not the software itself that is expensive, it's all the "environment". My standard rate is 40€ / hour. You understand that when a client calls me on Skype for 2 hours I'm already wasting 80€. When I spend 1 hour to figure out that a client reported me a bug that was not a bug I wasted 40€. Long story short 100$ / year for a module or for the upgrade/support service of WHMCS is even too cheap! Well, you are doing something very, very wrong then. Why does someone need so much support? Is your software buggy? Does your usage and install documentation is nonexistent? There must be something wrong, if the software works, they will usually require almost none support. Either way, you just mixed selling software with something completely different. If you are doing all that, of course I expect you to charge for that. If you are giving someone Skype support for 2 hours, charge him or her. If you are working in helping them out for 2 hours, charge them. I never said that should be included as part of your software. However, if you did not update your software for 1 year, not a single line, you still want to charge them a renewal for not actually doing anything? In addition, if I ask for support because the software has bugs and I even tell which bugs and errors are in the module you want to charge for that? You should pay the customer instead for sending you the feedback in the first place. I’m sorry but if a developer is selling a flawed module, they sold a defective product, so expect people asking support and telling you it’s not working. If they are asking support for configuration or train them on how to use it, just charge them. They ask many questions. Of course they do. That is part of every business and you will have tons of people asking the same thing repeatedly, this is why companies have FAQ and documentations so you can point them out to those pages. If you want to do business on the Internet, expect many stupid questions as well, it’s part of the business and you can’t expect to receive money without actually taking care of presales. I never said you should waste your time, but did you consider the time the other party is wasting as well when they contact you for support? They rate may be much higher than yours and I don’t think you expect to pay them for losing their time either or they are contacting someone just for fun. No way. You are not buying a copy of Windows 7! You're buying a software AND a service for updates and support for 1 year. When you need help for Windows you don't call Bill Gates or a developer of Windows. You can write in some forums or call a non-technical person of customer care. On WHMCS, Modulesgarden etc. you directly speak with the senior developer It costs! EXACTLY !!! And I hope you realized that Microsoft charges one time for buying Windows 7, they don’t charge for updates. I hope you realize that you just pointed out exactly what I said before. Microsoft is giving updates EVERY Tuesday of every week and for free!!! If I want to upgrade to Windows 8, I will pay the upgrade. I don’t have to pay again every month or every year to keep using Windows 7. If Modules Garden was Microsoft they would have launched Windows 7, and then ask every year the same price again and not even giving 1 single update. I do not have a problem with SaaS software, but every single SaaS software I use, has constant updates and support. In addition, by support I mean real support, not waiting 3 days to someone replying to a simple question. Modules Garden is not even close to that. They try to sell their modules as SaaS but they are not doing the work you are supposed to do with that. In my book you pay someone money in exchange of work, not for sitting around. It really doesn't matter. Wordpress is free but some plugins cost more than 600$. Magento is free too but some templates cost 2500$. You can't compare things in this way. Freelance is the craziest place of the universe where you can find a lot of horrible developers that work for indecently low rates. When you want to create a module it's obvious that you have to look for a senior PHP developer experienced in WHMCS, SQL, Smarty and so on. It can't cost you less than 30$ / hour but on Freelancer you can find tons of Chinese and Indians (it's a fact) that work for 5$ / hour with no experience of WHMCS. There's no room for others. How can we beat a guy that work for 5$/hour? But you should ask yourself what you get. The development of a module is a big thing. Most of times when things get too complicated they leave you with uncompleted and buggy project. Then you have to find a real developer and pay 30-50$ / hour to get the job done. You can't imagine how many times I've been asked to complete projects started on Freelancer but usually I always refuse because the code is just a pile of sh*t out of the logics of WHMCS. One time I've found module that was using a senseless 50MB SQL library just to connect and send queries to database! I'm saying this not because I've problems with Chinese, Indians and Freelancer but because with time they're feeding the idea that our job is worth 5$ / hour, that a module can't cost 100$ / year, that WHMCS can't charge you 100 $ / year for support and updates. I agree but you can also get decent developers as well and they offend go the extra mile solving bugs and problems. You may charge 40 euros the hour but I could pay a US developer 120$ and he will do in one hour what you did in 10, without bugs, without issues and without a single problem and even send me nice documentation like if it was done by a commercial company. I do not even understand how they did it that fast. If someone is charging, more is because they can code faster and better. You are not actually paying more. Work smarter not harder. Also, I hope you realize that Modules Garden are not US or UK developers. They are Polish developers. I even had to explain them where some bugs are and I’m not even a developer. Some of their modules where not even tested before launch and by tested I mean someone actually clicking buttons and checking if they work, even opening a console in a browser shows 404 links because some developer is liking to some CSS which does not actually exist in the module. Their quality is just close as Chinese software and even worse than those than Indian guys. If you think Modules Garden is in the 30$ hour then I will tell you that I hired very experience Russian coders for that price tag and they blow away every single Modules Garden developer in quality and price. So yes, while you may get cheap developers, you can also get very good ones. In addition, I am very sorry to say this, but I have experience with at least 5 Poland software companies so far and I have experience with many, many more, from almost every continent and country. Cheap countries tend to have terrible developer’s and I actually agree with you based on my experience. But if you think Modules Garden is in the big league, they are not even close to France, Germany, UK, Spain or other EU countries in quality, but yet they want to charge more than companies in those country. Their pricing is in the UK/US range but their quality is in the Indian one. For those prices they want I will just get top notch US and UK quality. You can charge whatever you want, but it’s the market that decides pricing. You could say you are worth 200$ the hour, but are you? If nobody is willing to pay you that, you are not. Modules Garden pricing is ok for what they do. It’s not ok in a leased price model because they are not actually doing anything after launching a module. Just go and look on their changelog. In fact they're right. I'll give you an example. 5 clients of mine use their NicIT module to register .it domains. If you combine the money they earn from registering .it domains you reach the phantasmagoric amount of 400.000 $ / year. Not to mention modules that allow you to save time with your accountants. They're priceless. I can agree with you only with this. I don't like it too that they create a completely different style for their modules but it's not a big deal. I mean it's not a critical point. Anyway recently I find hard to believe that there's so much hate for such small price changes. I'm not a millionaire but damn I can afford to pay 50$ / year more for WHMCS support and updates, 100 $ / year for a module that increase your income or that allow you to save time (time is money though). How fragile is your business if you can't adapt to this? Please notice that I'm talking in general and not directly with you so don't get offended. I cannot even start to reply to how flaw your thinking is here. You actually think they earned 400,000$ because of your software? You must be very dumb then, why ddidn’t you use the software yourself to earn the 400,000$? If you actually think its your software and not the probably hundreds of thousand of dollar they invested in marketing, support, and everything else, then you must thing that its your code that is actually giving people money? A module, in this case your software is a tool. Its completely worthless on its own. I’m very sure they would earn that money without your module as well and you know why? Because they probably created a huge company around selling those IT domains and they spend even more money than you can imagine, and mayube they are even losing money because in my experience companies are mostly giving domains away for free and not actually making anymoney with them but just trying to get signups. Your reply here is just the same Modules Garden gave to someone on Twitter, they actually think their modules is the one giving people money and so they can to tax thm and get a cut of the hard work of other people. So based on your logic, if I use your software and make money I’m suppose to give you a % of my earnings? If this is what you are saying, then I wonder if you are willing to do the same. What about if Microsoft charges you 10% of every module you sold because you are coding on Windows? Hey, they are the ones making you earn money because you are using Windows, or how about the computer brand you are typing right now wants also a monthly fee because if it was not for their computer you would not be making anything either or your ISP tells you have to pay them now 10 Euros for every hour you work, because like you said if you charge 40 euros, they could argue you are using their Internet to make money online. This is NOT what SaaS software is. I’m shocked that so many developers think it’s a tax systems. That company is making money with my software so I deserve part of their earnings. NO! SaaS is not that. SaaS does not even work for WHCMS modules because they are so simple that it would be dumb to upgrade them every week. I pay thousands and thousands of dollars every year on software, this includes software on my laptop (upgrades), software on servers, and leased software as SaaS. I’m happy to pay them and each one has their model. What I’m not happy is if someone is making a 100$ PHP script and thinks they can now move to a SaaS model similar to that 1,000$ a year software renewal. I hope they realize they are just some PHP files with a few lines of code. That other software is giving me 1 hour support replies and updates every single week. Not even close. If you want my monthly or yearly money I expect to get something in return. I don’t expect anyone to work for free for me but I certaintly don’t expect to give my money away either for nothing. Money is the exchange for something of value in return. It's the compensation of work. If you didn't do any work, why do you want my money? Edited June 19, 2015 by yggdrasil 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kian Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 I don’t agree. If you are a company making 50,000$ a month and you buy encoded software, I would get all of those people fired. What happens when the developer drops dead? Or just goes out of business or just decides never to update the module again? If you think a company will put their hands on a encoded software like that, good luck. If you are a reliable developer as soon as you realize that you no longer want to support a project you release the open source version to all your customers. It's really that simple. Good developers always do this. I hope you realize the IonCube obfuscation is just to slow down piracy, it does not stop someone from getting your code if they really want. The point of Ioncube is to make things more complex so that purchasing the script is more cost-effective instead of cracking it every time you release a new version. And open source is not the same as giving someone the source code. WHMCS will give the code away for any modules if you sign a non release agreement as well. If you know WHO you are giving the code, companies, you will know from where the piracy came in case of leaks and trust me. Companies want the source code because in particular with WHMCS, 99% of developers don’t ever update their modules again or are gone after releasing them. The point here is that this decision is not up to you. It's up to the developer. Everytime a client asks me "I need the code open source because I don't know if you're reilable and if there's something evil in your code" I always answer "Then don't buy my module. If you don't trust me you shouldn't buy". I'm tired of wasting my time with this. I refuse to pay the consequences of the attitude of bad developers. I'm not them so don't treat me like that. I understand your point of view but I'm the developer and this is my policy. You are the client and you can refuse to buy. Of course they can’t resell your code or re-use it. That is not the point. A company asking open source is because they don’t trust their business to you. Simple. Why should they? Would you eat a sandwich someone found on the street? No. Why would a company that earns 50,000$ install some PHP code from some unknown developer where you can’t see what the code does? From all I know, you could put some very nasty things inside that PHP that know is running in the company server. I’m very sure companies are willing to pay the open source price for their own security and privacy. That was not actually the issue I pointed out here. Like I said before this is not my problem. It doesn't matter to me if you earn 500, 5000 or 50000$ / month. The module costs the same for everyone. Don't pretent me to be your slave just because you have a lot of money. I'm not required to check your incomes. Don't switch roles. Developers can do what they want with their scripts and they can release them as they wish. Clients can buy, go away, send feedback, request features, support etc. They are not allowed to "crack" your policy. Well, you are doing something very, very wrong then. Why does someone need so much support? Is your software buggy? Does your usage and install documentation is nonexistent? There must be something wrong, if the software works, they will usually require almost none support. Either way, you just mixed selling software with something completely different. If you are doing all that, of course I expect you to charge for that. If you are giving someone Skype support for 2 hours, charge him or her. If you are working in helping them out for 2 hours, charge them. Nop. 14 pages of documentation available in english and italian, modules available in italian, english and spanish, no critical bug. Keep in mind that here we're talking about support AND updates. Anyway this is a long story that is worth to explain. I try to make it short. In past I get used to release modules in the standard way for example let's say that the module costs 100$ one time + 25$ / year of support (not mandatory). First realease. People start to buy the module. After a while everyone start asking me to add new features based on their specific needs then I start to prepare quotes, develop, maintain and provide support for tens of different version of my original module. Long story short it was impossible for me to keep working on the original module not to mention that lot of times I was required to add very similar features over and over again. It was an insane approach. The result is that in the end you can no longer work on your module. I was tired of preparing quotes, maintain tens of projects and drop my ones. Said one day I decided to change my business model. Now I sell yearly licenses, people can ask me features that I almost immediately add in one big module. In this way I'm not forced to maintain tens of different projects but just one that is fully loaded with an incredible amount of features for everyone. I think that it's better for me because I can work with passion on one single thing. In fact for one of my modules I released 13 versions in 3 months. It's one release every 7 days and every version has lot of new features and clients love this because they can ask me everything. I never said that should be included as part of your software. However, if you did not update your software for 1 year, not a single line, you still want to charge them a renewal for not actually doing anything? In addition, if I ask for support because the software has bugs and I even tell which bugs and errors are in the module you want to charge for that? You should pay the customer instead for sending you the feedback in the first place. I’m sorry but if a developer is selling a flawed module, they sold a defective product, so expect people asking support and telling you it’s not working. If they are asking support for configuration or train them on how to use it, just charge them. I can agree with you on this. I think that there's a distinction between modules. If I develop a billing module it's clear that I can keep adding features for centuries so yeah, I can sell it with a recurring cycle. On the other hand if I develop a module that simply adds the EU Cookie Policy bar I should sell it with a one-time fee + support & updates (not mandatory). Anyway you understand that a developer can even decide to sell his script for 1.000.000 $ / year just for the usage license (no upgrades and support). It's crazy but we can refuse to buy it. They ask many questions. Of course they do. That is part of every business and you will have tons of people asking the same thing repeatedly, this is why companies have FAQ and documentations so you can point them out to those pages. If you want to do business on the Internet, expect many stupid questions as well, it’s part of the business and you can’t expect to receive money without actually taking care of presales. Of course there's no problem with this. I'm just saying that for obvious reasons you have to keep this in mind when you decide what's the right price of your script. I never said you should waste your time, but did you consider the time the other party is wasting as well when they contact you for support? They rate may be much higher than yours and I don’t think you expect to pay them for losing their time either or they are contacting someone just for fun. This is an exaggeration. It's like if I own a car dealer you are a doctor and you want to buy a Ferrari. Should I pay you for coming in my showroom to explain me what kind of Ferrari you want? No way. In that moment you're the client. EXACTLY !!! And I hope you realized that Microsoft charges one time for buying Windows 7, they don’t charge for updates. I hope you realize that you just pointed out exactly what I said before. Microsoft is giving updates EVERY Tuesday of every week and for free!!! If I want to upgrade to Windows 8, I will pay the upgrade. I don’t have to pay again every month or every year to keep using Windows 7. It's not so true. They release Windows XP then Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (...) and everytime you must pay in order to get new features. Anyway here we're talking about end-users. Let's move on to their plans for business. SPLA Windows license, the one used by Hosting Providers, costs about 240€ / year per CPU. If you have 10 servers with 4 CPU each you pay 9600€ / year just for updates (not new features), basic support and usage. If Modules Garden (...) About all the Modulesgarden part let me make this clear. I'm not defending them. I've nothing to object to what you said about them even if I read with interest what you explained. I just wanted to discuss in general about modules, developers their policies and prices. I cannot even start to reply to how flaw your thinking is here. You actually think they earned 400,000$ because of your software? You must be very dumb then, why ddidn’t you use the software yourself to earn the 400,000$? Nah. Maybe I expressed myself poorly. When you have so many .it domains and there's a module that for just 100$ / year can automate everything, it's so damn worth! I'm not saying that a module prints money. Anyway let me say it. Basically everytime I've a new client that has to use their NicIT module I always have to add my own scripts to make it works properly. In fact I don't get why after so many years their NicIT module is still uncompleted. Some crucial features are missing even if they're listed in features page and documentation. A client of mine has been forced to buy the open source version in order to allow me to fix it. From that day I always remember to fix their module with my own code. This is the only experience I had with them. Side note: few days ago I've seen that probably they've fixed it after more than 3 years so wahoo Your reply here is just the same Modules Garden gave to someone on Twitter, they actually think their modules is the one giving people money and so they can to tax thm and get a cut of the hard work of other people. So based on your logic, if I use your software and make money I’m suppose to give you a % of my earnings? It depens. For example you have to give to Freelancer.com a % of your earnings, same with PayPal, Instagram API, Maxmind checks, money exchange services and so on. It really depens from case to case. I personally used this business model in past with an API service I developed (yep a SaaS). There was a "big brain" on a server of mine. Clients send an input and I give them an output. At the end of the month they had to pay for every single request. If you didn't do any work, why do you want my money? Royalties. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavalloComm Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 I had some modules from them, and they never worked right at all. I will be honest, I didn't have the time to ask for support on them, because I could clearly see they were build outside of the WHMCS format in Admin. I would have stuck with them, AND paid for the yearly maintenance, but they have NOW come out with yearly "subscriptions" - not maintenance. So if you have a module that works fine for you - they want to charge on a yearly basis anyways. I do not like that practice. I am ALL FOR paying for maintenance. (and it's a different tax write off actually in the US) - but a yearly subscription - no, I can't. What also turned me off a few years ago, was that WHMCS built a mod for me, a very simple one to allow for a billable item to have a payment type. It just saved some time when entering those types of items, otherwise you would have to NOT send the email for that invoice, go into the client, modify the invoice, then click send. Was really a timesaver, and WHMCS charged me $25.00 for that many years ago. Modulesgarden wanted me to pay $200.00 for it, and was just upgrading from 5.1 to 5.2. I declined, we went back to the old way of doing it, where we would generate the invoice from billable items, without "sending" and then going in and modifying the payment method the customer uses, and then sending the invoice. Kind of is a pain, but OK. - not for $200 for a small company for a mod that may not last anyhow. In fact, WHMCS gave us the unencrypted code to make the mod ourselves to work with the new version. That was a turn off completely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yggdrasil Posted March 1, 2016 Author Share Posted March 1, 2016 Try freelancer.com or a similar site. They will probably quote you $50 for that $200 as Modules Garden is by no ways cheap regarding custom development. And if you pay a developer, you own the code (its not encoded and its yours) so you can always pay someone else to fix it or make it compatible. In my experience, I'm using Modules Garden for more than one year now and some modules where not updated in full year. So the 99$ was like Kian said here, royalties, or in my case an extra tax. I mean nothing, they didn't even touched some modules I own in one year but I was charged the supposed upgrades & support renewal fees. I didn't get neither. Neither modules where updated with new or more features and neither support was of any help. All they do is tell you, yes sir you are correct this is a bug and will be fixed in the next release. A release which never came by the way. Not in a full year at least. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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