The Unpopular Opinion Why Non-Subscription Pricing Can Win

The Unpopular Opinion: Why Non-Subscription Pricing Can Win ![rw-book-cover](https://wsrv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwpproducttalk.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FWPPT-Podcast-Creative-1.png&w=512&h=512) ## Document Notes > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [wordpress-pricing, subscription-alternatives, plugin-development] > author: WP Product Talk > source: YouTube > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw > date created: 2024-12-19 10:00 > > # 🏷️ Title: The Unpopular Opinion: Why Non-Subscription Pricing Can Win >  ## 🧰 Action Inbox - [H1] Consider mini-plugin approach for simple solutions — optimize for happiness first #pricing - [H2] Evaluate support complexity before pricing model — day-one support only strategy #development - [H3] Test quantity over complexity business model — 48+ plugins vs 2 complex ones #strategy ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - [Business Bloomer](https://businessbloomer.com) - [Checkout Summit](https://checkoutsummer.com) ## 📝 Summary - WooCommerce developer Rodalfo shares his successful non-subscription plugin business model - Why one-time pricing can work for simple, single-purpose "mini plugins" with minimal support needs - Key stakeholders: WordPress plugin developers considering pricing models - Risks: Leaving money on table vs. optimizing for personal happiness and business simplicity - Bottom line: Non-subscription pricing viable for specific plugin types with right constraints ## 📖 Main Content Rodalfo challenges the WordPress ecosystem's conventional wisdom that subscriptions are the only viable pricing model. His approach centers on "mini plugins" - simple, single-purpose solutions requiring minimal ongoing support. Unlike complex platforms that justify recurring revenue through continuous value delivery, these plugins solve specific problems with 200-2000 lines of code, designed for "99% of support requests to come on install day only." The model relies on quantity over complexity, with 48 plugins generating $10k annually as a side business. Key constraints include unlimited website licenses, one-file architecture, and intentional feature limitation to avoid maintenance overhead. This contrasts sharply with traditional subscription models but reflects growing subscription fatigue among customers. ## 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=0) — [H1] Introduction to Non-Subscription Pricing - Key idea: Challenging WordPress ecosystem's subscription-first mentality - Evidence: "Subscriptions are king. Recurring revenue is the only path and anything else is framed as a mistake" #### ⏱️ [00:03:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=225) — [H2] Rodalfo's Background and Philosophy - Key idea: Civil engineer turned WooCommerce specialist focusing on simple solutions - Evidence: "I'm not a developer... my motto is let's publish simple code snippets for 99% of people like me" #### ⏱️ [00:05:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=323) — [H1] Personal Hatred of Subscriptions - Key idea: Both vendor and customer subscription pain drives business model choice - Evidence: "Yesterday someone denied me a refund for renewal that I forgot to cancel... I hate churn" #### ⏱️ [00:08:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=495) — [H2] Mini Plugin Definition - Key idea: Plugins requiring few hours of coding with 99% of support on install day - Evidence: "Mini plugin requires just a few hours of coding... 99% of support requests come on install day" #### ⏱️ [00:10:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=630) — [H3] Single Pain Point Solutions - Key idea: Each plugin solves one specific problem without maintenance requirements - Evidence: "Single feature, hopefully two settings, something that does not require maintenance" #### ⏱️ [00:12:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=765) — [H2] Quantity Strategy - Key idea: 48 plugins generating revenue through volume, not complexity - Evidence: "I have 48 plugins. I don't have two... I try to push on quantity purchases" #### ⏱️ [00:15:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=920) — [H1] Katie's Counterargument - Key idea: Leaving money on table by not charging recurring fees - Evidence: "At Barn 2, 66% of our revenue is renewals now... your personal opinion might be making you leave money on the table" #### ⏱️ [00:18:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=1090) — [H2] Revenue Without Stress - Key idea: Generated $10k last year with minimal effort as side business - Evidence: "Last year I made 10k and I basically did nothing except publishing some extra mini plugins" #### ⏱️ [00:21:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=1295) — [H3] 37signals Once Products Precedent - Key idea: Even major companies tried one-time pricing but abandoned it - Evidence: "Once.com campfire and writebook products are totally free now" #### ⏱️ [00:24:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=1460) — [H2] Maintenance Reality Check - Key idea: "No maintenance" may be unrealistic but can be minimal for simple plugins - Evidence: "WooCommerce changes things... but hopefully time would be covered by future new sales" #### ⏱️ [00:27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=1635) — [H1] Pricing Evolution - Key idea: Started too low but increased based on demand and complexity - Evidence: "I was pricing these things at $9 or $14... now no plugin is more expensive than $49" #### ⏱️ [00:30:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=1845) — [H3] Unlimited License Model - Key idea: No tracking overhead by allowing unlimited website installations - Evidence: "Those $40-50 plugins... are for unlimited websites... which is crazy" #### ⏱️ [00:33:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=2010) — [H2] Most Popular Plugins - Key idea: Payment gateway conditionals and sales reporting are top sellers - Evidence: "Payment gateway conditional toggles... sales by state report which is huge in the US" #### ⏱️ [00:36:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=2185) — [H1] Entry Point Strategy - Key idea: Mini plugins serve as entry points to higher-value offerings - Evidence: "Small plugin could be an entry point for WooCommerce membership or something else" #### ⏱️ [00:39:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw?t=2350) — [H2] Handling Redundant Products - Key idea: Easy to discontinue without subscriber obligations when core duplicates features - Evidence: "If plugin becomes redundant, just stop selling... don't need to send email to subscribers" ## 📚 References - [Business Bloomer](https://businessbloomer.com) - [Checkout Summit](https://checkoutsummer.com) - [37signals Once Products](https://once.com) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Non-subscription pricing can work for simple WordPress plugins that solve single problems with minimal ongoing support needs - The key is designing "mini plugins" that require only day-one support and no maintenance, allowing for quantity-based business models - While this approach may leave money on the table compared to subscriptions, it optimizes for developer happiness and business simplicity ## 📰 Newsletter **Breaking the Subscription Mold: A Fresh Take on Plugin Pricing** WordPress developer Rodalfo is proving that one-time pricing isn't dead with his 48-plugin empire generating $10k annually. His "mini plugin" approach focuses on simple, single-purpose solutions that require minimal support - challenging the ecosystem's subscription-first mentality. The secret? Designing plugins that need support only on installation day, using quantity over complexity, and optimizing for happiness over maximum revenue. While traditional wisdom suggests subscriptions are essential, Rodalfo's model offers an alternative for developers seeking business simplicity. Key takeaway: Consider what pricing model aligns with your lifestyle goals, not just revenue targets. Resources: [Learn WordPress](https://learn.wordpress.org/), [Developer Docs](https://developer.wordpress.org/), [WP-CLI](https://wp-cli.org/) ## ✅ Action Items #### WordPress - Plugins: Evaluate mini-plugin marketplace opportunities, support complexity guidelines - Community: Share alternative business model case studies, pricing strategy discussions #### DevRel - Education: Workshop on pricing model trade-offs, business sustainability options - Developer experience: Simple plugin development best practices documentation ## 🧪 Hypotheses - Mini plugins with single-purpose functionality require significantly less ongoing support than feature-rich alternatives - Quantity-based plugin portfolios can generate sustainable revenue without subscription complexity - Developer happiness optimization leads to better customer experiences than pure revenue maximization - One-time pricing models work best for products requiring minimal ongoing value delivery ### 📊 Methodology - Comparative analysis of support ticket volume between simple vs complex plugins - Revenue per hour analysis comparing one-time vs subscription pricing models - Customer satisfaction surveys comparing subscription vs one-time purchase experiences ### ❓ Questions - How does plugin complexity correlate with support requirements over time? - What's the optimal portfolio size for quantity-based plugin businesses? - Can AI tools reduce the competitive advantage of simple customization plugins? ### 🔮 Future Research - Long-term sustainability of one-time pricing as WordPress ecosystem matures - Impact of AI on demand for simple customization solutions - Scalability limits of quantity-based plugin development approaches ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Reconsider subscription-first mentality for simple plugin development - Policy: WordPress.org marketplace could better support alternative pricing models - Education: Business model workshops should cover non-subscription alternatives - Funding: Investors may undervalue sustainable lifestyle businesses optimizing for happiness ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment Reading level estimate: 8th Grade Level #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Plugin portfolio screenshots, revenue dashboards - Improve: Pricing model comparison charts, support request volume graphs #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: Podcast format discussion with multiple perspectives - Improve: Audio summaries of key pricing strategy insights #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Clear definitions of "mini plugins" and business model terminology - Improve: More analogies comparing subscription vs one-time pricing trade-offs #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Step-by-step plugin development approach discussion - Improve: Hands-on pricing calculation worksheets, plugin complexity assessments #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Revenue comparisons, decision framework for pricing choices - Improve: ROI calculations, support cost breakeven analysis #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Community discussion format with multiple viewpoints - Improve: Peer feedback mechanisms for pricing decisions #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Individual business model reflection opportunities - Improve: Self-assessment tools for pricing strategy fit #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Business ecosystem thinking about plugin portfolios - Improve: WordPress marketplace lifecycle analogies ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Clear heading hierarchy, descriptive timestamps - Improve: More detailed alt text for visual examples #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Standard video player controls, logical tab order - Improve: Jump-to-section shortcuts for long-form content #### Contrast and readability - Present: Good text contrast in video player interface - Improve: High contrast mode support for embedded content #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Responsive video player at various zoom levels - Improve: Scalable transcript formatting #### Media and captions - Present: Full transcript available for video content - Improve: Time-synced captions, downloadable transcript options #### Forms and interactions - Present: Simple comment submission interface - Improve: Error handling for comment validation ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: US and European business perspectives represented - Improve: Examples from diverse global WordPress communities #### Inclusive language - Present: Avoids technical jargon, explains business concepts clearly - Improve: More inclusive examples of developer backgrounds #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Well-structured conversation with clear sections - Improve: Content warnings for business stress discussions #### Representation - Present: Alternative viewpoints on traditional business wisdom - Improve: More diverse voices in business model discussions #### Psychological safety - Present: Respectful disagreement about business approaches - Improve: Clearer framing of personal vs universal business advice ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Deductive strength: Clear logic connecting plugin simplicity to reduced support needs - Inductive strength: Personal experience generalized to broader principles with appropriate caveats - Causal reasoning: Well-established links between subscription complexity and administrative overhead - Analogical strength: Good comparisons between different pricing models and their trade-offs #### Fallacies - Appeal to personal preference: Rodalfo's subscription hatred drives business decisions, acknowledged limitation - Survivorship bias: Success story may not generalize without considering failed attempts #### Tone of voice - Overall tone: Conversational and balanced, with respectful disagreement and multiple perspectives presented ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: No problematic denial patterns observed - Attack: No attacks on opposing viewpoints or accusers - Reverse victim/offender: No victim/offender role reversals present - Emotional cues and rhetoric: Honest discussion of personal preferences and business trade-offs ## 🎯 Conclusion Rodalfo's mini-plugin approach demonstrates that non-subscription pricing can work for specific types of WordPress products, particularly simple solutions requiring minimal ongoing support. The key insight is optimizing for developer happiness and business simplicity rather than maximum revenue extraction. While this model may not suit all products or developers, it offers a viable alternative for those seeking sustainable lifestyle businesses with lower administrative overhead. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix ### 📚 Literature Split Pad Purpose: Stage CEE units that become Literature notes. Split level: H3 ### [H1] Mini plugins require minimal ongoing support when designed properly > [!quote] [The Unpopular Opinion: Why Non-Subscription Pricing Can Win](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw) by [[Rodalfo]] via [[WP Product Talk]]. Published 2024. Accessed 2024-12-19. > "99% of support requests come on install day only" Simple plugins solving single problems with minimal settings reduce long-term support burden. [view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAw-wsEOLtw#H1) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_mini_plugin_support ### [H2] Quantity-based plugin portfolios can generate sustainable revenue > [! --- ## Full Transcript [00:05] Pricing in WordPress often feels like a [00:08] settled debate. Subscriptions are king. [00:11] Recurring revenue is the only path and [00:14] anything else is framed as a mistake. [00:17] But that narrative leaves out the [00:18] founders who are actually thriving by [00:20] doing the opposite. Today, we're digging [00:23] into why one-off pricing model can work [00:26] and what most people get wrong when they [00:28] dismiss it and the trade-offs that you [00:30] need to understand before choosing your [00:32] own path. [00:38] This is WP Product Talk, the place where [00:41] every week we bring you insights, [00:43] product marketing, business management [00:45] and growth, customer experience, product [00:48] development, and more. It's your go-to [00:52] podcast for WordPress product owners by [00:55] WordPress product owners. And now enjoy [00:58] the show. [01:04] >> Hi, I'm Katie Keith [01:07] >> and I'm Matt Cromwell. [01:09] So before we start, huge thanks to [01:12] Fremius for stepping in as our exclusive [01:14] growth partner. Fremius takes care of [01:17] selling and licensing your software so [01:19] that you can focus on building amazing [01:21] products. [01:22] >> And a quick favor uh before we jump in [01:25] with our guest uh can you take a quick [01:28] second and help us out a little bit with [01:30] uh just by clicking that subscribe [01:31] button if you're on YouTube right now. [01:33] Uh why? Because we are on a road to hit [01:36] 10,000 YouTube subscribers. It's the [01:38] easiest way for you to help us to hit is [01:40] to just hit the subscribe button and uh [01:43] it only takes a second and it makes a [01:44] big difference. So, thanks so much. [01:47] >> And today we have Rulo with us to [01:50] discuss whether it can ever be a good [01:52] idea to sell products without a [01:54] subscription. [01:56] >> Hey, [01:56] >> hey, Ro. [01:57] >> Hello. How you doing? [01:59] >> Well, welcome and thank you so much for [02:01] being here. Uh, please tell everyone a [02:03] bit about yourself. [02:05] >> Right. I'd say that everyone knows me as [02:08] Ralfo in the WordPress ecosystem. No one [02:11] knows about my surname, which is me. if [02:13] you're really interested in that. [02:16] Otherwise, I've been in the WordPress [02:18] WCommerce space since 2012. [02:22] Uh, as a, you know, over the years [02:25] became a WooCommerce expert, uh, [02:28] specialized myself into posting [02:31] snippets and tutorials on my business [02:33] Bloomer website. And now after all these [02:36] years, I managed to also get into the [02:39] plug-in business. and now I have 48 of [02:42] them. So that's what we're gonna talk [02:45] about today. Uh but also, you know, [02:48] trying to do some other impactful stuff [02:51] like conferences and memberships and you [02:54] know, getting the whole um WooCommerce [02:58] work together uh hopefully on my website [03:00] or whatever it is as long as we can work [03:02] together uh towards a better future. [03:12] Nice. That's great. Well, I'm excited to [03:14] jump into the topic because I think it's [03:16] uh it might be for our audience a little [03:18] bit controversial uh honestly. So, I'm [03:22] hoping that you can uh uh educate folks [03:24] on how you make this work for yourself. [03:26] So um let's jump in and uh and talk [03:29] about uh first first up I think what's [03:32] really important is um uh if you are [03:35] here watching um anywhere that we're [03:37] live feel free to use the comment [03:40] section to ask your own questions and [03:42] your own comments. We'd love to uh to uh [03:45] make you part of the show essentially. [03:47] Um, Rodalfo, um, tell us a little bit [03:49] about how you ended up choosing to build [03:52] a product in the first place and why you [03:55] chose to not do subscriptions, [03:59] >> right? We could be here talking for [04:01] about 10 years, but I'll try to be [04:03] brief. [04:05] Uh, first of all, uh, many of you know [04:09] probably that I'm not a developer. like [04:12] I don't understand anything beyond PHP, [04:16] JS, uh CSS and HTML. So if you come to [04:21] me and talk about CI/CD, composer, [04:25] Docker, uh GitHub integrations and now [04:28] like NTPs and agents and I go crazy like [04:32] that's not my field. I am a civil [04:35] engineer like nothing to do with it. So [04:38] my [04:40] uh say motto on business blur was let's [04:44] always [04:45] uh publish like simple code snippets for [04:50] the 99% of the people like me who might [04:54] want to customize their WooCommerce [04:57] website and make it better and convert [05:00] it faster. And um you know I've probably [05:04] posted about over 500 code snippets up [05:09] to today and this is growing because I [05:12] try to do it once a week anyway. And um [05:16] then on top of this I've always hated [05:20] subscriptions and with these I mean I'm [05:23] not a good sub subscription customer. Uh [05:28] like yesterday someone denied me a [05:31] refund for renewal that I forgot to [05:35] cancel for example. This is you know [05:37] driving me crazy. And also I don't like [05:40] to sell subscript subscriptions for the [05:42] same reason. I don't want people to [05:46] contact me because their card is expired [05:48] because they forgot to renew because uh [05:52] you know for several reasons I hate [05:55] churn. So it's both as a vendor and as a [06:00] customer like subscriptions is something [06:03] that I really cannot stand [06:07] and then I said you know what I mean [06:10] there must be a way to make this a [06:13] viable [06:15] uh business without subscriptions or is [06:19] there a viable [06:21] way to do it? I mean, I'm still [06:23] searching for the for an answer, but [06:25] hopefully today I'm going to give you [06:27] some context. [06:29] >> Yeah. [06:29] >> About my, you know, the way I work and [06:33] how I do it and, you know, why it is [06:36] still, it still makes sense at the end [06:38] of the day. [06:39] >> Yep. Love it. I actually saw you post [06:41] that on X or Twitter the other day that [06:44] you didn't get the um them to reverse [06:47] that um subscription charge. Did they [06:49] Did they get back to you? Um, [06:51] >> they did and we're still dealing. We're [06:54] still haggling. At the moment, they're [06:57] offering me 50% [07:00] uh refund, which I mean makes no sense. [07:03] It's either yes or no to me. [07:05] >> I counter uh that email saying, "Right, [07:09] I'll be okay with the refund minus fees. [07:11] What about that?" Given that I expressed [07:15] the intent of cancelling it and stuff. [07:19] So, we'll see. Hopefully I won't I won't [07:21] need to na to name names at the end of [07:23] this, but it just drives me crazy. [07:26] >> Yeah. No, I hear you. I think there's a [07:29] lot of folks out there who sympathize [07:31] with the pains of subscriptions and [07:33] folks like me that have like built our [07:36] whole business model around [07:38] subscriptions. I'm constantly talking [07:40] about best practices when it comes to [07:42] helping your customers to want to uh [07:46] renew every year um and to make it a [07:49] positive experience overall. Um but so [07:52] the idea of charging once and hoping for [07:55] the best to me is super scary. Um yeah, [07:59] but uh but I'm excited to jump in and [08:01] talk about that a little bit. Katie, [08:03] what's your take overall on what Rodalfo [08:06] is doing? [08:08] I think it depends very much on the [08:11] product. So give WP is a good example of [08:15] where you're providing a lot of ongoing [08:18] support and value and update. It is a [08:20] whole platform. To me, it would be kind [08:23] of crazy to charge a low one-off cost [08:26] for that type of product because of that [08:29] ongoing value. How could you possibly [08:31] afford it? Um, but I don't think that's [08:34] what Rulo is doing. So Rula, could you [08:38] talk a bit more about the types of [08:39] plugins you're selling? And actually, [08:41] what would your opinion be on if G, a [08:44] platform like G did have that? [08:48] >> Yeah, good questions. I mean what we're [08:51] talking today is not about huge [08:55] platforms that we can compare to SAS or [08:59] you know featurerich plugins because [09:03] that makes it impossible to manage makes [09:07] it impossible to make it better. Uh [09:10] makes it impossible if you were just you [09:13] know lifetime offer well unless it's [09:15] well priced by the way. Um, so it makes, [09:20] you know, absolutely no sense whenever [09:23] it's something that really basically [09:27] adds so many features and gives you so [09:29] many benefits in in this case for a [09:32] WooCommerce website or whatever it is. [09:34] So my rules [09:38] for developing what I call my mini [09:43] plugins because otherwise they it [09:45] wouldn't be feasible from a business [09:48] point of view and also for you know for [09:51] me like I'm not again a plug-in [09:53] developer so I don't understand much of [09:56] what you know what's going on behind the [09:58] curtains. I'm only able to start from a [10:02] code snippet and turn it into a mini [10:06] plugin. Now, what is a mini plugin? To [10:09] me, a mini plugin is something that [10:11] requires just a few hours of coding. [10:14] Hopefully, just a couple of them. And [10:18] we're 99% and we go back to that thing [10:22] that we said a few seconds ago. [10:25] My goal is that 99% of the support [10:29] request requests come on install day. So [10:34] products like huge products like give [10:37] WPP or Barnu plugins or whatever it is [10:40] like you would get constantly you know [10:43] support requests from customers over [10:45] their lifetime. In my case, I'm trying [10:48] to develop many plugins that only [10:50] require [10:51] a reply when the customer has just [10:54] purchased it and say, "Oh, it doesn't [10:56] work." So that that's the you know the [10:59] maximum kind of support that I want to [11:01] give to potent to to new customers. [11:04] >> Yeah. [11:05] >> And also they will solve a single pain [11:10] point. So they will come with a single [11:12] feature and hopefully you know two [11:16] settings and [11:19] something that does not require [11:21] maintenance. So this is unlikely [11:24] unlike any other big plug-in out there [11:27] which you would need to be there you [11:29] know constantly adding new features or [11:31] improving the performance or adapting to [11:34] the new you know technology. In my case, [11:38] I code it once and I forget about it. [11:40] Hopefully, unless WooCommerce duplicates [11:43] >> which has just happened [11:45] and uses it's a plugin. It's a mini [11:49] plug-in that uses as few lines of PHP as [11:52] possible. So I think I have some of them [11:54] they're like 200 lines and you know [11:57] that's what I you know what I'm proud of [12:00] this mini plugins and also I put [12:03] everything into one file and in this way [12:07] I have my packaged uh mini plugin that I [12:11] can then sell for a low lifetime price. [12:16] And at the end of the day it makes sense [12:18] because we're talking about quantity in [12:21] this case. So I have 48 plugins. I don't [12:24] have two. [12:25] >> Oh wow. [12:25] >> And I try to push on quantity purchases. [12:30] >> And making my life easier and uh you [12:35] know at the end of the day we will see [12:37] this in two or three years time if it [12:39] was a viable business. So far so good [12:43] given that this is not my main source of [12:46] income and I don't put 100% of my time [12:50] onto many plugins, but I'm pretty happy [12:54] about it. [12:55] >> Yeah, I think that's key that they are [12:57] simple plugins that don't require a lot [13:00] of maintenance or ongoing support. So [13:02] that's a good argument for how it is [13:04] viable for you to sell small plugins for [13:07] a small low one-off cost. And I'm going [13:10] to distinguish that from what I would [13:12] call lifetime licenses in the modern [13:14] sense, which like at Barn 2, we charge [13:17] 3.5 times the annual price of a lifetime [13:20] because we've calculated how long people [13:22] need support and all of that and it's [13:24] profitable. I'm so we're not talking [13:26] about that. We're talking about actually [13:28] the old uh theme forest code canyon [13:31] model really where it might be $39 or [13:34] something for lifetime. and you're [13:36] saying yes, it's viable because it's [13:38] small and it doesn't need a lot of [13:39] support and maintenance. However, I [13:42] would argue that that is about what you [13:45] can afford to do. That is not [13:47] necessarily a good argument to maximize [13:50] your income because for example at Barn [13:53] 2 we used to have some very small single [13:56] function plugins like Woo Commerce [13:59] discontinued products for example that [14:01] just adds a discontinued stock status. [14:03] We we've now sold that to Kestrel um who [14:06] now have our smaller plugins. But even [14:08] with a small plug-in like that that [14:10] doesn't need a lot of maintenance or [14:12] support, you can still get an annual [14:15] amount of say 49 a year instead of [14:17] oneoff release updates to declare [14:20] compatibility with versions of Woo [14:22] Commerce. Maybe you don't add new [14:24] features, that's okay, but you keep it [14:25] running smoothly and then you can build [14:28] up that renewable ongoing revenue. And [14:31] at Barn 2, 66% of our revenue is [14:35] renewals now. So I feel like your [14:39] personal opinion might be making you [14:41] leave money on the table. Is that fair? [14:44] >> Yeah, I think that's that's really fair. [14:47] Um I mean I'm coming from, you know, my [14:51] view that I hate subscription. So [14:55] >> what I've tried to do here is to build a [15:00] you know kind of a sideb uh product [15:03] because I mean again I'm I'm doing other [15:05] stuff during the day. Uh so I'm trying [15:08] to build you know a spin-off uh where I [15:11] don't want to have you know admin. I [15:14] don't want to waste time on admin first [15:16] of all. I don't want to waste time on [15:17] updates and support. And you know to me [15:21] this is super lean. is super fun [15:24] >> and I'm not stressing over [15:28] >> support requests that drive me crazy and [15:31] I just issue refunds like after 5 [15:33] seconds. I'm much faster now than I used [15:37] to be a couple of years ago. But I [15:39] learned that uh along the way. So if [15:41] someone says, "Oh, this is not good. Uh [15:44] can I get a refund?" Yeah, just take it [15:47] and forget about it and move to the [15:49] next. Um, but I'm definitely and [15:53] definitely leaving money on the table. [15:56] Uh, and that's that's for sure. I mean, [15:59] even the fact that I'm not selling [16:01] subscriptions if one day someone comes [16:04] over and say, I want to buy business [16:05] bloomer, like how am I going to price [16:08] it, you know, how am I going to uh [16:11] basically define what the the sale price [16:14] could be if I don't sell subscriptions, [16:16] but at the same time, I don't care. So I [16:19] I come from a point of view where I [16:21] don't rely on this to uh you know to [16:25] build 100% of my income. [16:28] But also if I had no other choice than [16:33] just selling mini plugins and you know [16:36] just concentrate on this I would [16:38] definitely like think better and I would [16:40] definitely say hold on this is [16:44] potentially scalable and trust me [16:47] without subscript subscription is still [16:49] something that could scale. Yeah, [16:52] >> I think I was taking a look at some of [16:55] my stats the other day and honestly [16:57] again I don't check them and only [17:00] because I'm on this show. I went and [17:03] took a look at the lifetime sales and [17:05] like last year like I made 10k and like [17:10] I basically did nothing except for you [17:13] know publishing some extra mini plugins [17:16] and making it an actual [17:18] >> uh revenue stream and you know with that [17:22] said uh subscriptions are great and [17:26] healthy for a business but at the same [17:29] time I'm trying to spend [17:31] way more time on the decision of whether [17:35] that's a great mini plugin or it's not a [17:38] great fit. Because if it's not a great [17:40] fit, I'm going to drop it and I'm going [17:42] to concentrate on something that can be [17:44] coded fast that can be supported just on [17:47] day one and then that I can forget about [17:50] it. [17:50] >> Yeah, it's it's really fascinating. Um [17:53] there is actually we have some great [17:54] comments that we should highlight here [17:56] soon. Um but um the there is one [17:59] precedent out there that uh we were some [18:01] of our co-hosts were talking about this [18:03] before the show a while back. Um there's [18:06] that uh that company I forget the name [18:09] of the company behind it. Once once.com [18:11] once uh was selling uh products for a [18:15] onetime fee uh for a while they have two [18:18] products there. I think it's um [18:20] >> campfire. [18:21] >> There's a writebook. It's a book [18:22] publishing um platform and also campfire [18:26] and it's like a um a group chat um kind [18:30] of like slack alternative and um they [18:33] were only and the whole like the whole [18:34] once initiative was like exactly what [18:37] you're saying. You know, subscriptions [18:39] are such a bad customer experience [18:41] sometimes. Uh people forget about them. [18:43] Um and uh nobody loves to deal with that [18:46] kind of thing. and we all have [18:47] subscription fatigue. Like I can't even [18:49] count all the subscriptions I have going [18:50] right now. Um and um but we went and [18:55] checked out the site again and those two [18:58] products are totally for free now. [19:00] They're not selling them anymore at all. [19:02] So in some ways um I think it's the [19:06] who's the help me out. Who's the who's [19:08] the folks behind once.com? I think [19:11] Signals. [19:11] >> Um [19:12] >> sorry, say it again, Ralpho. [19:14] >> 37 Signals. Exactly. Exactly. 47 [19:17] signals. Yeah. [19:18] >> They're the ones behind it. And I think [19:20] that they [19:21] >> probably just decided that um it was [19:24] better as maybe a lead genen type of [19:27] thing rather than um an actual revenue [19:30] stream for them. Uh but they are a [19:32] product company for sure. And like you [19:34] said, you have other revenue streams [19:36] that are your primary and I think that [19:38] 37 signals. Exactly. Ian's in the [19:40] comments. Thanks Ian. 37 Signals base [19:42] camp. Exactly. Um, [19:46] so, um, I I it is interesting to me [19:49] still overall and I do think of it a [19:51] little bit more in the lifetime license [19:53] camp a little bit except for the caveat [19:55] that you're saying that these are more [19:56] like solving one particular problem. Um, [20:00] and there's definitely potential though [20:02] that uh WordPress core at one point [20:04] might solve that problem by itself. Um, [20:08] or that Woo Commerce might solve that [20:10] problem by itself. Um or um as we see [20:14] core start to embrace AI in a really [20:18] serious way, folks might solve all these [20:20] problems with AI on their own. Um so I I [20:24] think that might be um a future you got [20:27] to take seriously too. So [20:30] >> yeah, but I mean already my code [20:33] snippets on the website, they're getting [20:35] way less traffic than they used to get [20:39] couple of years ago. So it's it's [20:41] obvious that people are getting these [20:43] fixes [20:45] out of Chad GPT cloud and so on and [20:49] that's fine to me. Uh however like the [20:54] other 95% of the people mostly merchants [20:58] and people who don't want to deal with [21:00] you know DIY code and you know probably [21:03] putting something on their life website [21:05] that is not secure enough and they don't [21:08] even know what they're you know what [21:10] they're writing. uh then that's still a [21:13] good audience still good at target [21:16] market and I think especially when [21:19] dealing with ecommerce websites I mean [21:22] you can't really afford to you know put [21:26] a a wrong comma somewhere on your custom [21:29] code and break the whole site so you [21:32] need to be super careful [21:34] >> um what I wanted to add is that for the [21:38] wants uh products [21:41] I mean those you know campfire and the [21:43] other one I mean they were really [21:46] complex [21:48] >> if we want to call them plugins right I [21:50] mean definitely they were excuse me [21:53] definitely they weren't 200 lines of [21:55] code they were super [21:59] uh you know difficult to come up with [22:02] and loads of files and loads of screens [22:05] and UX and UI and so on. So they were [22:07] really you know uh difficult to come up [22:12] with from you know my point of view [22:14] remember I'm not a developer. So I think [22:16] that that's why they it also they failed [22:19] in some way which is [22:22] >> they're they were giving them too much [22:24] hassle in require um in regard to [22:28] support for sure in regard to people [22:31] wanted to customize those because you [22:33] know they they said take the code do [22:35] whatever you want with it and people [22:37] then they were getting in touch with [22:38] them. So my view is that if someone gets [22:42] back to me and I wanted to go back to [22:45] Katie's uh opinion from earlier which is [22:49] you're you know you're leaving money on [22:52] the table. You know I want many plugins [22:54] that do not require support. But maybe [22:58] what I could do is that if someone [23:01] wanted a another support, you know, some [23:05] other help, I could then, you know, ask [23:08] them to buy a support package and that [23:11] would probably make a little bit more [23:13] sense because I'm trying to sell them [23:17] the the plug-in. I'm trying to I'm [23:19] expecting that the support is only on [23:21] day one, but if the support comes back [23:24] on day 200, then I've lost basically my [23:28] money. So I I basically [23:31] um wasted, you know, one one sale. So [23:35] what I could do is offering, you know, [23:37] support packages or just limiting the [23:41] sale to, you know, one month support or [23:45] whatever it is. I mean there are so many [23:46] things that I could do but but I don't [23:48] have the time to [23:50] >> uh think about or to experiment [23:53] uh about and you know I could actually [23:56] make it definitely a viable business. [23:59] Now imagine if instead of 45 48 49 [24:04] plugins today I had 490 [24:09] which is totally doable because I have [24:11] 490 code snippets on my website already. [24:14] So I just need to refine those at a you [24:17] know a setting screen and some cool you [24:21] know differentiation from the raw code [24:24] snippet and make it into a plugin. could [24:27] definitely have 500 plug mini plugins [24:29] now for sale and imagine I mean if that [24:34] was the case it could definitely be a [24:37] viable business if I stuck with you know [24:42] the first day support and the low and no [24:47] maintenance [24:49] code. [24:50] >> Yeah. Yep. [24:53] >> Interesting. Yeah. It's I wonder how [24:55] realistic no maintenance is because Woo [24:58] Commerce changes things as you said, but [25:01] I suppose it could be minimal if it's a [25:03] simple plug-in [25:05] >> and hopefully your time in doing that [25:07] maintenance would be covered by your [25:08] future new sales if not subscription. [25:11] So, it could still be viable if it was [25:13] simple. [25:14] >> But let's move to some comments now. So, [25:17] um Ian says, "Charge more Red Rulo." [25:21] Very specific advice. [25:24] If you're only going to charge once, [25:25] then maybe maybe a little bit more [25:28] >> could do. Um Ian also asks, "Would you [25:31] be as concerned with subscriptions if [25:33] the refund policies were as generous on [25:35] renewals as initial purchases?" I was [25:38] thinking the same thing when you were [25:39] talking about your hatred of [25:40] subscriptions. Just offer good terms. [25:43] Offer no questions asked refunds and [25:46] don't make it difficult. So it's not [25:48] necessarily an argument not to do [25:51] subscriptions if you are generous with [25:53] refunds. [25:54] >> Yeah, of course. Um lately though there [25:57] is this kind of a trend of you know [26:00] offering partial refunds or refunds [26:02] minus fees or whatever. You know each [26:05] each company is different. Now this one [26:08] I dealt with a couple of days ago. [26:10] Apparently in their TNC's they have a no [26:14] renewals refund policy. So, I mean, you [26:18] never know what you're going to get to [26:20] be honest whenever you you purchase a [26:23] subscription product in the WordPress [26:26] ecosystem. Each one is different. Um, [26:29] also pricing. I mean, that that's a big [26:33] thing. Like I started this three years [26:38] agoish [26:39] and like you know I I don't come from a [26:43] business [26:44] background not even a plug-in [26:46] development background so I was pricing [26:48] these things are like $9 or you know $14 [26:53] and then I realized hold on this is not [26:56] going to work. So uh over the you know [27:00] the last few months I increased and I'm [27:04] trying to connect with Ian now uh tried [27:07] to increase my pricing uh first based on [27:11] demand [27:13] and second also based on the complexity [27:16] of the plugins. So there are some [27:17] plugins that require 200 lines, some [27:20] others that will require 2,000 lines. So [27:22] it took me longer to get them developed [27:25] and therefore it's going to cost a [27:27] little more. But still, it's not gonna, [27:29] you know, at the moment, no plugin is [27:32] more expensive than $49, I think. Um, so [27:37] yeah, I mean, I'm so skeptical about [27:40] subscriptions for different reasons. [27:42] Yeah, [27:43] >> this thing keeps coming back. And as a [27:46] vendor, I would wouldn't definitely want [27:48] to deal with people emailing me or [27:51] sending tickets to say, "Oh, I forgot or [27:54] this is not fair or you said this and [27:57] now you're doing that or um I don't want [28:00] to use this any longer or and you know, [28:04] deal with churn and deal with all this [28:06] kind of stuff." So, for now, I feel like [28:09] I'm still having fun. I still like I [28:12] don't need to worry too much about [28:14] figures. [28:15] >> Yeah. [28:16] >> And that makes me feel good. [28:18] >> Yeah. I love that perspective honestly [28:21] because there are we do talk with a lot [28:24] of product um builders and creators who [28:28] um their livelihood depends on their [28:30] success and uh it can get not fun under [28:34] those circumstances. And I really think [28:36] that when it when things are not fun, [28:38] they start to make bad choices that are [28:40] probably sometimes bad for the customer. [28:43] Um, and uh, that that definitely changes [28:46] the dynamic a ton. um being able to do [28:49] something because you love it and you [28:51] want to do it um is a is a luxury not [28:55] everybody has honestly but I think that [28:58] it it changes the nature of the way that [29:00] you uh uh build out your product and [29:02] build out your your um customer base and [29:06] I'm sure it changes a ton your tone with [29:09] your customers when they reach out. I'm [29:11] sure you are much happier to talk with [29:12] them um than uh than if you weren't [29:15] having fun. So I appreciate [29:18] >> No one likes defensive support. [29:20] >> Yeah. [29:21] >> So um Ian says that Kestrel's terms also [29:24] say they don't refund renewals, but they [29:26] do anyways because sick emoji. Well, why [29:30] don't you just say that you do renewal [29:31] refunds then and not annoy people who [29:34] read those terms. [29:36] >> It's you know it's I'm I'm torn about [29:38] it. Um, in general, like we definitely [29:41] tried to crack down on our renewal [29:44] refund rate a lot. Um, because we were [29:48] sending multiple emails in advance of [29:51] the renewal to let folks know, hey, this [29:53] is coming. This is coming. Um, somehow [29:56] they're reading their like credit card [29:58] statements more often than they read [30:00] their emails. I'm not sure. [30:01] >> Um, [30:02] >> but um, but it's like, you know, this is [30:06] something that you use. this is [30:07] something that's on your website, we can [30:09] see it. It's on your website, we could [30:11] see it there. Um, and we and we know [30:13] you're getting value out of it. Um, and [30:15] we like gave you a heads up in advance [30:18] and and then the charge came because it [30:20] was supposed to. Um, and it it feels [30:23] like now for you to make us do [30:26] additional work um to give you money [30:28] back. um it just um it it feels not [30:32] quite like the balance is right um under [30:36] those circumstances. So I I really [30:38] sympathize with folks who say that they [30:40] don't want to do refunds on renewals in [30:43] general. Um I sympathize with Ralpho who [30:46] says I don't want to do renewals at all. [30:48] Um because both of those feel like kind [30:52] of like negative experiences overall. [30:54] Um, my goal has always been like I want [30:56] my customers to be happy to pay me [31:00] again. Um, and if I can't ensure that [31:04] um, then yeah, here's the refund. Leave [31:07] me alone. [31:08] >> Yeah, that's true. But it's frustrating [31:11] particularly that you can't get the um, [31:13] money back on the payment processor fees [31:16] for PayPal and Stripe if you do a [31:17] refund. So if you have sent them emails [31:20] to warn them, you think, come on, take [31:22] some responsibility, [31:24] which is what we referred to. [31:26] >> For sure. It gets worse. If you don't [31:28] respond to their refund request quickly, [31:30] then they'll just escalate it to a [31:31] dispute and now you have a dispute on [31:33] your record and that ends up making kind [31:36] of like you'll have a bad account [31:38] reputation with Stripe or PayPal if you [31:40] have too many disputes. Like it can get [31:42] it can get bad. So [31:45] >> true. [31:46] >> Yeah. I mean to that point like this [31:48] dispute and you know customers threaten [31:50] you threatening you basically. I mean [31:53] that that's something that never [31:55] happened to me in three years like [31:57] >> uh maybe once maybe once I I lost this [32:01] boot for some reason. Um but you know I [32:05] had quite a few purchases and you know [32:08] it's it sort of you know never happens [32:10] cuz people they pay that the first day [32:13] they know exactly how much it's going to [32:15] be and then they can totally forget [32:17] about it for the remaining 15 years [32:21] >> they're going to be using that product [32:22] and it's better for me too. Uh so that [32:27] that's that's the plan anyway. [32:28] >> Yeah. [32:30] >> Yeah. Yeah, it does sound nice not to [32:32] get disputes. So, it sounds like your [32:35] kind of pricing um amounts are largely [32:38] based on the complexity of the product. [32:41] My approach as a business person would [32:43] be to do it based on the perceived value [32:47] to the user, which is how much of an [32:50] impact is it going to have on their [32:51] sales if it's a Woo Commerce mini [32:53] plug-in. Um but then Joss in the [32:56] comments has um put forward a third [32:58] option which is to charge by usage and [33:02] he says that's a refreshing way to do [33:04] it. And then I thought of a fourth [33:06] option as well which is that a lot of [33:08] people with one-off costs will then [33:10] charge again for a major upgrade. So if [33:13] you did have to completely rewrite a [33:15] mini plug-in, you could actually charge [33:17] for that. [33:18] >> Yeah. [33:18] >> Uh do you have any thoughts about those [33:20] different competing models? Yeah, which [33:23] has happened by the way because then you [33:25] know WooCommerce at some stage they [33:27] rewrote their settings API and now [33:30] they're duplicating some jQuery stuff [33:33] that I use basically everywhere and you [33:37] know sometimes I need to redo stuff and [33:40] you know the idea of I think once also [33:44] used to say campfire version is version [33:48] one is today for sale you the day we we [33:53] develop version two, you'll need to buy [33:55] again. [33:56] >> Y [33:56] >> so that that's you know makes sense in [33:59] case you're going to refactor the whole [34:01] you need to refactor the whole thing. [34:02] But I'm trying once again to spend a lot [34:06] of time thinking before I develop [34:08] something and say is this going to you [34:11] know potentially change in the next two [34:13] four five years? If it does it's also [34:17] likely I'm going to drop it and forget [34:19] about it. I don't need to, you know, [34:21] keep selling it. I can just discontinue [34:23] it and I don't need again to worry about [34:27] people using it, you know, on old [34:29] websites. They're purchasing once and [34:31] it's fine and I don't need to to worry [34:33] too much about that as well. [34:35] >> Um, other things like if I had to charge [34:39] by usage, then I need a tracker. I need [34:42] something to track licenses or something [34:45] to track stuff like that which means [34:48] more coding more time [34:50] >> uh more things that can break and I [34:53] definitely don't want to do that. In [34:54] fact, I didn't say that those $40 $50 [35:00] plugins that I sell, they are for [35:02] unlimited websites as well. So you can [35:04] install it on as many website as you [35:06] like, which is crazy. And that's the [35:08] same thing about my [35:10] >> crazy business [35:12] >> which is if I had to track APIs, [35:16] licenses, installs and you know [35:19] connections I would just go completely [35:22] mental like that would definitely become [35:24] a business and would definely would [35:26] definitely need 100% of my time to [35:28] manage that and I don't want that. [35:30] >> So I've chosen all these things to make [35:34] my life easier. [35:36] >> Yeah. And you know other way of pricing [35:41] these things would be of course to [35:43] triple the price that that's something [35:46] that I've already done by the way. So, [35:48] you were saying you should charge by, [35:51] you know, the value that this plug-in [35:53] adds to WooCommerce. And I've done it [35:56] for some of them. Like, there's some [35:58] stuff that WooCommerce doesn't have and [36:00] it's very much on demand. And, you know, [36:04] the plug-in used to cost $19. Now, it's [36:07] $49. So, I do these things and I'm able [36:10] to do these changes also because there [36:13] are no active subscriptions. So, I'm not [36:15] going to mess with my active sub [36:19] subscribers and change the pricing as [36:21] loads of software companies are now [36:23] doing. Oh, next year price is doubling. [36:26] What do you want to do about it? I'm [36:27] like that that's crazy to me like you [36:29] need always to keep the legacy pricing [36:32] for the legacy customers if you are [36:35] going to increase your prices. So, lots [36:39] of things I could be doing, lots of, you [36:42] know, uh, options I could be going for, [36:45] but I just stick to my instinct and go [36:50] with simple features, lifetime pricing, [36:55] very little time for coding them, and [36:58] hopefully very little time for, you [37:01] know, for the admin part. [37:05] Yeah, I totally agree that you shouldn't [37:08] increase the price to existing [37:10] subscribers um for a WordPress plug-in. [37:14] So, if someone's got an active [37:15] subscription with us, we would never [37:17] change that. We use it as an incentive [37:20] for them not to cancel their [37:21] subscription because if they cancel, [37:23] they have to renew manually at the [37:24] current price. So, on the cancel page, [37:27] we give them a note to say, are you [37:28] aware that if you renew manually, it [37:30] might be more expensive and that kind of [37:32] thing. So, it's a bit of an incentive to [37:34] keep that active. Um, and you mentioned [37:37] simple plugins. Again, that leads to a [37:39] question from Ian, which is, "What is [37:42] your largest most complex mini plug-in [37:45] to help us think about what sort of [37:46] complexity we're talking about?" [37:49] >> Yeah. Um, so I think, uh, the most [37:54] complex is none of them. So once again [37:58] my my goal is trying you know to build [38:03] simple and lean plugins. So if something [38:05] is complex I'm not going to develop it [38:08] first of all or I'm going I'm going to [38:10] outsource it to someone else. [38:12] So that's the first thing and my largest [38:15] or probably [38:18] we're talking about most popular uh that [38:21] would be all my [38:24] payment gateway [38:26] conditional toggles. So you know disable [38:31] uh payment gateway by category or by [38:34] product or by shipping or stuff like [38:37] that. And lately the um sales by state [38:42] report which is apparently is huge in [38:45] the US. If you're selling to loads of [38:50] different uh states, you need to know [38:53] exactly how much revenue you made in [38:55] each one because each one has a [38:56] different tax rate and they need a [38:59] report every 3 months for the um [39:03] authority. And this plug-in is helping [39:06] them basically come up with the you know [39:09] a full WooCommerce report of all their [39:11] sales in the US. And also this applies [39:13] to other countries as well if you wish [39:15] to and gives them a nice table. Um so [39:19] after at the end of the day it's just [39:21] looping through the WooCommerce orders [39:24] and doing all the calculations and [39:26] giving you a table. I mean that's the [39:28] the most complex plug-in that I have. [39:34] >> Yeah. And we got a couple more comments. [39:36] Um, from Nillo, uh, as a customer, I [39:40] hate product subscription, but as an [39:42] author, I love subscription. Haha. Yeah, [39:44] that's the thing, isn't it? It's I [39:46] suppose the challenge to us subscription [39:49] people is to tie the subscription into [39:52] the customer's needs through things like [39:54] ongoing support and updates and actually [39:57] provide real value to them. Otherwise, [39:59] it is kind of a con, isn't it? [40:03] it is and like for me is as a customer I [40:08] hate subscriptions and therefore as an [40:10] author I don't do subscriptions which [40:15] logic [40:15] >> yeah it's it's it's logic in a way that [40:19] you know I try to respect the customer [40:23] given all the context that I'm doing [40:25] many plugins and it's not you know it's [40:28] a different business from a standard [40:30] plugin [40:32] Um but you know given that context then [40:35] I try to you know put myself into my [40:38] customers shoes and say listen I really [40:41] want to uh you know pay once get it [40:46] forget it and thank you so much maybe [40:48] one day I'll buy a second one or maybe [40:50] one day I'll join your membership or [40:52] maybe another day appreciate the value [40:55] and I'll join your inerson conference. [40:58] So, it's an entry point and who knows, [41:02] you know, where that customer that [41:04] enters with $19, [41:07] you know, could get to. And you know [41:09] that's also one thing that we didn't [41:11] cover which we connect again we link [41:15] again with the ons uh way of thinking [41:18] now that they open source and they [41:20] basically release those products for [41:22] free because they're are entry points [41:24] for their main businesses for their [41:27] subscription businesses and you know for [41:29] me a small plug-in could be an entry [41:31] point for you know the WooCommerce uh [41:34] membership or something else. So, uh, [41:38] that's also something that it's worth [41:40] mentioning. [41:43] >> Nice. I I did want to follow up. Uh, [41:46] earlier Katie was talking about several [41:47] different ways that the onetime pricing [41:51] would make sense. And Rodal, you also [41:54] highlighted what Once was doing where [41:56] it's like you pay for the version. Um, [41:59] I've always really wanted to see a [42:01] WordPress product do that because I [42:03] actually think it's really uh a very [42:07] interesting idea. It feels like the [42:08] middle ground between what you're doing [42:10] and what subscription pricing folks do, [42:13] which is essentially like plan that [42:16] version one and maybe it's version [42:18] one.1, version 1.2, two, version 1.3, [42:22] like you're saying to folks, this is [42:24] what I built and it works and it will [42:27] solve your problems and you'll have [42:29] success with it and I'm going to support [42:31] it and you're going to pay 200 bucks for [42:34] it, let's say. Um, because it's not a [42:37] mini plugin. It's full functioning and [42:39] it it it's got a lot going on. Um, but [42:42] as soon as it gets to version two, um, [42:46] if you want to, um, benefit from the [42:49] features that are in version two, you're [42:50] going to have to pay for version two. [42:52] Um, I kind of like that as a middle [42:54] ground between the two. Um, I I think [42:57] the hard part is essentially it feels a [43:00] lot like version two ends up being a [43:02] whole new product. Um, and now you've [43:05] just told all of your existing customers [43:07] that that version one is kind of like a [43:09] legacy product that you're not going to [43:10] be developing on anymore. So, you're [43:13] trying to pitch to those existing [43:15] customers that they should pay you again [43:18] for a new product. Um, and you're also [43:22] telling the ones who don't pay you again [43:24] that you're not going to support them [43:25] anymore. So it even though I like the [43:28] idea, it also has obvious pitfalls as [43:31] well um that I that I think are could be [43:34] problematic. But um but I think if you [43:37] Ralpho if you have like if you have to [43:40] like let's take your per state um uh uh [43:44] plugin um if it becomes like well now [43:47] version two is going to be not only a [43:49] per state in the US it's per state in [43:51] Canada it's per state in um you know per [43:55] um [43:56] >> per city [43:57] >> yeah per or yeah whatever like you're [43:59] you're greatly enhancing it. Um I would [44:02] pitch that that's a new product on a new [44:05] product. Yeah, it's going to be a [44:06] different plug-in totally. [44:09] >> And you know, even the the conditional [44:12] payment gateways, there is one product [44:14] that does only conditional by category. [44:18] There is one that does only conditional [44:20] by product. While on the market, you [44:23] will get a plugin that can do loads of [44:25] different conditionals. So my my [44:28] thinking is that a store owner, a [44:31] merchant might only need one feature and [44:34] doesn't need the other 99. So I'm trying [44:36] to target those ones and if they do need [44:40] a second conditional or a second [44:42] feature, they'll be packaged into a [44:44] second plugin. [44:45] >> Yeah, I love the the conditional payment [44:48] gateway thing, too. I always wanted to [44:50] build something like that for Give WP [44:53] because um when people are choosing a [44:56] donation that's $1,000, let's say it's [44:59] $1,000, [45:01] the the uh credit card fees on that are [45:04] high, uh the nonprofit is going to pay a [45:06] big um uh credit card fee. So, if it was [45:10] like as soon as they choose $1,000 or [45:12] higher in the donation form, it switches [45:15] to a direct debit um payment gateway [45:18] only. like here's your only payment [45:20] options are these other um options that [45:23] are much more affordable and much [45:25] cheaper. Um that would be a really smart [45:28] way to anyway that's a if you want to [45:30] start building um I already solutions [45:32] forp there's an idea [45:34] >> I have a conditional for order total as [45:37] well so that's another another mini [45:40] plugin so there you go [45:42] >> nice [45:44] so we've got a question from Joss what [45:47] do you do with plugins that come [45:48] redundant or part of core you just close [45:51] them down because you don't have [45:52] subscribers to worry about [45:54] >> that's a really good. Actually, I have [45:58] two of them which have now become part [46:01] of core which is adding multiple [46:04] products to the cart with a a single URL [46:07] in Woo Commerce can now be done. But [46:12] the core thing comes with loads of [46:14] limitations. You cannot add products by [46:17] SKU for example. you cannot add uh [46:21] products multiple products to the cart [46:23] and redirect to a different page only to [46:25] the checkout. So basically I changed my [46:30] features, my settings in the existing [46:32] plugins and it's still selling which is [46:35] crazy to me because WooCommerce just [46:38] killed my plug-in. But I found a [46:40] different way to a different angle to uh [46:45] sell it. And if you know a plug-in [46:49] actually becomes redundant one day, just [46:51] stop selling because I don't need to [46:54] worry about it. I don't need to, you [46:57] know, send an email to all my [46:58] subscribers that I I'm stopping [47:02] development, [47:04] excuse me, and it will be deprecated [47:07] like team forest style when used to buy [47:09] teams and uh after two years. Oh, sorry. [47:12] This theme has been discontinued. What [47:15] are you going to do about it? And it's [47:16] like, oh, [47:18] now we have to switch theme. But in my [47:20] case, it's easier. plugins just, you [47:23] know, activate and deactivate and you're [47:26] done. So, I'm not worried at all. If [47:29] something goes out of business, I can [47:31] develop a new mini plugin and replace it [47:33] with something else. [47:34] >> I think that's smart and that reflects [47:36] what we're the message we're getting [47:38] from Woo, which is that where they are [47:40] adding more features to core, they're [47:42] trying to keep it simple so that plug-in [47:44] companies can add additional complexity [47:47] and um flexibility. So they're not, you [47:50] know, so that actually fits quite well. [47:54] Um, question from Ian. Did the mini [47:56] plugins come out of the snippets? Is it [47:58] a way for you to monetize your blog [48:00] traffic? [48:02] >> Absolutely. Yes. So the idea was that [48:09] um I was already monetizing my my blog [48:13] traffic by sending people to you know [48:15] online courses and memberships and um [48:19] stuff like that but I wanted to have [48:21] something in between because my [48:24] membership is above you know $500. So, I [48:28] want the product that could stand in [48:30] between the zero dollars and the $500. [48:33] And the mini plug-in was the perfect [48:36] uh product uh to to have. And in fact, [48:40] if you go to my blog post now, they're [48:43] all followed by the main call to action, [48:45] which is oh, I also sell plugin [48:48] uh about this code. Comes with extra [48:51] features with options that you can [48:53] control from the admin. And uh here [48:55] here's the screenshot. Here is the [48:57] video. And [49:00] one thing that I didn't mention and [49:02] which is also which also makes sense is [49:04] that the landing page, the sales page of [49:07] the mini plugin, [49:09] it won't make sense unless it's one [49:12] screenshot, [49:14] one two minutes video tutorial and three [49:17] FAQs [49:18] because otherwise it means it's too [49:20] complex, takes me too much time and the [49:23] questions from customers are going to be [49:25] a thousand which doesn't make sense. So [49:28] I think as many plugins in a in a big [49:33] way before writing the first line of [49:35] code is this going to cause troubles [49:39] payment gateways [49:41] uh blocks and you know stuff that is [49:45] constantly changing some stuff that is [49:47] delicate I'm not going to go with it I'm [49:51] just going to do simple customization [49:54] and if then WooCommerce releases a new [49:56] block then I'm going release a new [49:58] plugin saying, "Oh, this is compatible [50:00] with blocks." [50:02] >> Yeah, that makes sense. So, we wrap up [50:06] every show with a quick round table [50:08] question. What is your best advice for [50:10] anyone thinking about whether or not to [50:12] sell with subscriptions? So, in a [50:15] nutshell, what should this audience take [50:17] away with them from this conversation [50:19] today? So, Rulfo, what would be your one [50:22] piece of advice about that? [50:25] Well, um, I started as a game, so I [50:31] wanted to do something fun. I wasn't [50:34] into plug-in development and I started [50:36] doing plugins and just publishing that [50:40] and releasing that first plug-in and put [50:42] it up for sale and seeing the first [50:44] customer purchasing [50:47] uh, you know, that product gave me so [50:50] much like happiness. So what I would [50:54] recommend to people is that why don't [50:58] you try come up with a mini plugin [51:01] yourself? I've actually been working [51:03] with developers and whenever they have [51:05] an idea they come to me and they sell [51:08] their mini plugin on my website as well. [51:10] So you know the marketplace idea was [51:14] always still there and it's you know [51:16] behind the curtain. uh four or five of [51:19] them actually have plugins on business [51:22] bloomer. So I've been working with them [51:25] on a commission basis and I mean putting [51:30] up a mini plugin for sale on your [51:33] website is not difficult. Promoting it [51:35] is not difficult either. So why don't [51:38] you try [51:40] >> and then maybe one day you change your [51:42] mind and go for subscriptions for but [51:44] for now you know that's the easiest [51:46] thing that you can do. [51:48] and and you're you would tell them, "Oh, [51:50] you want to do subscriptions? Get off my [51:52] website. You're all done." [51:55] >> Exactly. [51:57] >> My best advice is um that I feel like [52:00] I've learned on this episode um is when [52:04] you're thinking about uh how you're [52:06] going to do um your pricing um according [52:09] to Ralpho, optimize for happiness. I I [52:13] love that. Um, I think there's lots of [52:16] ways to think through it. Optimize for [52:17] your own happiness. Um, optimize for the [52:20] happiness of your customers. Um, [52:22] optimize for the happiness of your [52:24] developers or your team if you have a [52:26] developer and team and whatnot. Um, but [52:29] I think it's a great question to think [52:31] about and one that a lot of folks don't [52:33] think about ever. Um, they think about [52:36] how do I optimize revenue? How do I get [52:38] the most money out of my customers? Um, [52:40] how do I uh be successful? um you know, [52:44] how do I make millions of dollars? Um [52:47] and uh and oftentimes we think that like [52:50] if we do those things, then we'll be [52:51] happy. Um but I think, you know, it's [52:54] it's such great advice to actually [52:56] think, no, let's talk about happiness [52:58] first and then make our decisions from [53:00] there. I don't know if that's always the [53:02] right choice, um but um it's something [53:06] that that everybody here can definitely [53:08] uh learn from. So I appreciate that, [53:10] Ralpho. [53:11] >> Thank you. Yeah, I suppose it depends on [53:13] what your goals are. So for me, I think [53:17] it's quite clear that subscriptions on [53:20] any type of plug-in is the best way to [53:22] maximize revenue. But Rulo has raised [53:25] some really interesting points about the [53:27] pitfalls of selling subscriptions on [53:30] your enjoyment of your business. Your [53:32] website has to be way more complex. Sell [53:34] a mini plug. You can just stick a PayPal [53:36] button on your site. You don't even need [53:38] proper e-commerce. Dead simple. You [53:41] don't have to worry about renewal [53:42] refunds. Disputes will be significantly [53:44] less. Uh there's lots of reasons. [53:47] Customer expectation for support. [53:49] There's so many reasons. So I would say [53:52] decide on what your hard lines are with [53:55] your business. Rulo did he doesn't like [53:57] subscriptions and that decision became [54:00] before any calculations. I think that's [54:02] a really good principle to apply more [54:04] generally because a lot of us are [54:06] building at least semi-lifefestyle [54:08] businesses. We want to be successful, [54:10] but we also want to build it around our [54:13] lifestyles. That's why many of us quit [54:15] our traditional jobs in the first place [54:17] and got into this and starting our own [54:19] businesses. So, decide on your hard [54:22] lines and build your business around [54:24] those. [54:26] >> Love it. [54:27] >> Well, that's a wrap. Rulo, thank you so [54:30] much for joining us. Where can people [54:32] find you online? [54:34] Well, they can find me on [54:36] businessbloomer.com, [54:37] Twitter, LinkedIn, u checkouts [54:40] summit.com, [54:42] and so many other places. I mean, if you [54:44] just Google rod for WooCommerce, you're [54:46] probably going to find just me. [54:49] >> I never met any other Rodalfo in in [54:52] WordPress to be honest. So, I'm still [54:53] waiting. But, uh, yeah, I mean, it's [54:57] been a pleasure. It was a great [54:58] conversation. And what I always say is [55:01] that you know spending an hour talking [55:03] about your business is always great. [55:06] It's something that you know we never [55:08] do. So if there are, you know, potential [55:12] uh guests for this show, I definitely uh [55:15] will, you know, would like to tell them [55:17] to come up and um be part of this and [55:22] it's so useful and I, you know, I took [55:24] notes and uh why not next year we might [55:27] be talking about, you know, a viable [55:29] business. [55:30] >> I love it. [55:31] >> Yeah, appreciate. [55:31] >> Or organizing events. I feel like you [55:34] deserve to do a bit of a plug for [55:35] Checkout Summit since it's new and [55:37] tickets are on sale. Do you want to say [55:39] what that is? [55:40] >> Yes. So, um, after all these years of [55:43] being online and, you know, I always [55:46] wanted to to do something in person for, [55:50] you know, WooCommerce developers and [55:51] agencies and freelancers. [55:54] Uh, so, you know, after talking to [55:56] WooCommerce and, you know, to different [55:59] people, I said, you know, I'm going to [56:01] do it. So in April 2026 [56:05] in Palmo, Sicily, Italy, I'm going to [56:09] run my first ever uh in real life [56:12] conference and uh that's checkout summit [56:17] and uh tickets are on sale now. Woo [56:20] Commerce are kindly uh you know [56:23] headlining the the sponsorship and uh [56:26] also potentially talking at it. got a [56:29] few the first four speakers and it's [56:32] going to be a good two days of fun, [56:34] relax and happiness as as Matt said as [56:38] well as well as great content and who [56:41] knows maybe you know in five months time [56:43] because there are five months left uh [56:46] I'll probably be talking about my mini [56:48] plugins and how it went and what's you [56:52] know what's the future of my business [56:54] but you know definitely the inperson [56:57] event is something that took me, you [57:00] know, so many weeks of working and I [57:02] couldn't concentrate on many plugins, [57:04] but I'm happy about it because the [57:06] inperson thing really makes me happy. [57:09] >> Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to it. [57:12] So, if you're enjoying these shows, do [57:14] us a favor and hit that subscribe button [57:16] on YouTube. It's literally the easiest, [57:19] freest way that you can support our [57:21] work. And special thanks to Fremius [57:23] again. And next week, Katie and Ian will [57:28] be talking with Kathy Darling uh about [57:30] blocks, boundaries, and breakthroughs [57:32] product development in modern Woo [57:35] Commerce. [57:37] >> Yeah. And thanks for watching everybody. [57:39] Bye [57:40] >> bye. [57:42] >> Thank you.  ## Highlights - **Sell Mini Plugins, Limit Support** - Build small, single-purpose “mini plugins” that solve one clear pain with minimal settings. - Limit support to install day and design for low maintenance to make one-time pricing viable. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli We could be here talking for about 10 years, but I'll try to be brief. First of all, many of you know, probably that I'm not a developer. Like I don't understand anything beyond PHP, JS, CSS, and HTML. So if you come to me and talk about CI, CD, Composer, Docker, GitHub integrations, and now like NTPs and agents, I go crazy. That's not my field. I am a civil engineer, nothing to do with it. So my motto on Business Bloomer was let's always publish simple code snippets for 99% of the people like me who might want to customize their WooCommerce website and make it better and Convert it faster. And, you know, I've probably posted about over 500 code snippets up to today. And this is growing because I try to do it once a week anyway. And then on top of this, I've always hated subscriptions. And with these, I mean, I'm not a good subscription customer. Like yesterday, someone denied me a refund for renewal that I forgot to cancel. For example, you know driving me crazy and also i don't like to sell subscriptions for the same reason i don't want people to contact me because their card has expired because they forgot To renew because uh you know for several reasons i hate churn so it's both as a vendor and as a customer, like subscriptions is something that I really cannot stand. And then I said, you know what, I mean, there must be a way to make this a viable business without subscriptions? Or is there a viable way to do it? I mean, I'm still searching for an answer, but hopefully today I'm going to give you some context about the way I work and how I do it and why it still makes sense at the end of the day. Matt Cromwell Yep. Love it. I actually saw you post that on X or Twitter the other day that you didn't get them to reverse that subscription charge. Did they get back to you? They did. Rodolfo Melogli And we're still dealing. We're still haggling. At the moment, they're offering me 50% refund, which I mean, makes no sense. It's either yes or no to me. I counter that email saying, right, I'll be okay with the refund minus fees. What about that? Given that I expressed the intent of canceling it and stuff. So we'll see. Hopefully, I won't need to name names at the end of this, but it just drives me crazy. Matt Cromwell Yeah. No, I hear you. I think there's a lot of folks out there who sympathize with the pains of subscriptions and folks like me that have like built our whole business model around subscriptions, I'm constantly Talking about best practices when it comes to helping your customers to want to, uh, renew every year, um, and to make it a positive experience overall. Um, but so the idea of charging once and hoping for the best to me is super scary. Um, yeah, but, uh, but I'm excited to jump in and talk about that a little bit. Katie, what's your take overall on what Rodolfo is doing? Katie Keith I think it depends very much on the product. So it give WP is a good example of where you're providing a lot of ongoing support and value and update. It is a whole platform. To me, it would be kind of crazy to charge a low one-off cost for that type of product because of that ongoing value. How could you possibly afford it? But I don't think that's what Rodolfo is doing. So, Rodolfo, could you talk a bit more about the types of plugins you're selling? And actually, what would your opinion be on if a platform like Give did have that? Rodolfo Melogli It's not about huge platforms that we can compare to SaaS or feature-rich plugins, because that makes it impossible to manage, makes it impossible to make it better, makes it impossible If it were just a lifetime offer. Well, unless it's well-priced, by the way. So it makes, you know, absolutely no sense whenever it's something that really basically adds so many features and gives you so many benefits, in this case for a WooCommerce website Or whatever it is. So my rules developing what i call my mini plugins because otherwise they it wouldn't be feasible from a business point of view and also for you know for me like i'm not again a plugin developer So i don't understand much of what's going on behind the curtains. I'm only able to start from a code snippet and turn it into a mini plugin. Now, what is a mini plugin? To me, a mini plugin is something that requires just a few hours of coding, hopefully just a couple of them. And we're 99% and we go back to the thing that we said a few seconds ago. My goal is that 99% of the support requests come on install day. So products like huge products like GIFif wp or barn 2 plugins or whatever it is like you would get constantly you know support requests from customers over their lifetime in my case I'm trying to develop mini plugins that only require a reply when the customer has just purchased it and say oh it doesn't work so that's the, you know, the maximum kind ([Time 0:04:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8188454d-47f4-48d5-91a7-96d90bcf3d45)) - **Subscription Frustration Shaped The Model** - Rodolfo hates subscriptions both as a vendor and a customer after bad renewal and refund experiences. - That dislike shaped his decision to pursue one-time payments for his plugins. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli And with these, I mean, I'm not a good subscription customer. Like yesterday, someone denied me a refund for renewal that I forgot to cancel. For example, you know driving me crazy and also i don't like to sell subscriptions for the same reason i don't want people to contact me because their card has expired because they forgot To renew because uh you know for several reasons i hate churn so it's both as a vendor and as a customer, like subscriptions is something that I really cannot stand. And then I said, you know what, I mean, there must be a way to make this a viable business without subscriptions? Or is there a viable way to do it? ([Time 0:05:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8fc96239-ccb3-49bf-a636-20d611ac663a)) - **Scale With Many Small Products** - Quantity of simple products can scale revenue without subscriptions. - A portfolio of many low-cost plugins can outperform a few complex subscription products for a side business. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli And also I put everything into one file and in this way, I have my packaged mini plugin that I can then sell for a low lifetime price. And at the end of the day, it makes sense because we're talking about quantity in this case. So I have 48 plugins. I don't have two. And I try to push on quantity purchases and making my life easier. And at the end of the the day we will see this in two or three years time if it was a viable business so far so good given that this is not my main source of income and i don't put 100 of my time Katie Keith Onto mini plugins but i'm pretty happy about it yeah i think that's key that they are simple plugins that don't require a lot of maintenance or ongoing support. So that's a good argument for how it is viable for you to sell small plugins for a small, low one off cost. And I'm going to distinguish that from what I would call lifetime licenses in the modern sense, which like at Barn 2, we charge 3.5 times the annual price for lifetime, because we've Calculated how long people need support and all of that. And it's profitable. So we're not talking about that. We're talking about actually the old theme forest code canyon model, really, where it might be $39 or something for lifetime. And you're saying, yes, it's viable because it's small and it doesn't need a lot of support and maintenance. However, I would argue that that is about what you can afford to do. That is not necessarily a good argument to maximize your income. Because for example, at Barn2, we used to have some very small single function plugins like WooCommerce discontinued products, for example, that just adds a discontinued stock status. We've now sold that to Kestrel, who now have our smaller plugins. You can still get an annual amount of say 49 a year instead of one off release updates to declare compatibility with versions of WooCommerce maybe you don't add new features that's okay But you keep it running smoothly and then you can build up that renewable ongoing revenue and at Barn 2 66% of our revenue is renewals now so I feel like your personal opinion might be making You leave money on the table. Is that fair? Rodolfo Melogli Yeah, I think that's really fair. I mean, I'm coming from, you know, my view that I hate subscriptions. What I've tried to do here is to build a, you know, kind of a side B product because, I mean, again, I'm doing other stuff during the day. Uh, so I'm trying to build, you know, a spinoff, uh, where I don't want to have, you know, admin. I don't want to waste time on admin. First of all, I don't want to waste time on updates and support and you know to me this is super lean it's super fun and I'm not stressing over support requests that drive me crazy and I just Issue refunds like after five seconds I'm much faster now than I used to be a couple of years ago but I learned that uh along the way so if someone says oh this is not good uh can I get a refund Yeah just take it and forget about it and move to the next um but I'm definitely I'm definitely leaving money on the table. And that's for sure. I mean, even the fact that I'm not selling subscriptions, if one day someone comes over and say, I want to buy Business Bloomer, like how am I going to price it? You know, how am I going to basically define what the sell price could be if I don't sell subscriptions? But at the same time, I don't care. So I come from a point of view where I don't rely on this to build 100% of my income. But also, if I had no other choice than just selling mini plugins and you know just concentrate on this i would definitely i think better and i would definitely say hold on this is potentially Scalable and trust me without subscription is still something that could scale yeah and i think i was taking a look at some of my stats the other day and honestly again, again, I don't Check them. ([Time 0:12:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a20a771e-e12f-456b-9812-11cc18e8b754)) - **AI Lowers DIY Traffic But Not Demand** - AI reduces traffic for simple code snippets, but many users still prefer packaged plugins. - Merchants avoid DIY code risks, preserving demand for ready-made plugins. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli Already my code snippets on the website, they're getting way less traffic than they used to get a couple of years ago. So it's obvious that people are getting these fixes out of ChatGPT, Claude, and so on. And that's fine to me. However, like the other 95% of the people, mostly merchants and people who don't want to deal with, you know, DIY code and, you know, probably putting something on their website that Is not secure enough and they don't even know what they're, you know, what they're writing, then that's still a good audience, still good good target market. ([Time 0:20:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d5b54009-5ba8-4ba7-b79b-f64650dbed36)) - **Monetize Support Separately** - If support beyond day one is needed, sell optional support packages or time-limited support. - Use add-on services to capture revenue without converting products into subscriptions. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli I'm trying to, I'm expecting that the support is only on day one, but if the support comes back on day 200, then I've lost basically my money. So I basically wasted, you know, one sale. So what I could do is offering, know, support packages or just limiting the sale to, you know, one month support or whatever it is. I mean, there are so many things that I could do, but, but I don't have the time to think about or to experiment about. And, you know i could actually make it definitely a viable business now imagine if instead of 45 48 49 plugins today i had 490 which is totally doable because i have 490 code snippets on My website already so i just need to refine those other, you know, a setting screen and some cool, you know, differentiation from the raw code snippet and make it into a plugin. ([Time 0:23:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f6c85cb1-d87a-46ca-a60f-80ecc78fd5e6)) - **Price By Complexity And Value** - Price according to complexity and perceived value rather than arbitrarily low figures. - Raise prices for more complex mini plugins but keep legacy buyers unaffected by changes. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli Of course um lately though, there is this kind of a trend of, you know, offering partial refunds or refunds minus fees or whatever, you know, each company is different. Now, this one I dealt with a couple of days ago, apparently in their TNCs, they have a no renewals refund policy. So, I mean, you never know what you're going to get, to be honest, whenever you purchase a subscription product in the WordPress ecosystem. Each one is different. Also pricing. I mean, that's a big thing. Like I started this three years ago ish and like you know I don't come from a business background not even a plugin development background so I was pricing these things like nine dollars Or you know 14 dollars and then I realized hold on this is not gonna work so over the you know the last few months I increased and I'm trying to connect with Ian now uh tried to increase my Pricing uh first based on demand and second also based on the complexity of the plugins so there are some plugins that require 200 lines some others that will require 2 000 lines so it Took me longer to get them developed and therefore it's gonna cost a little more but still it's not gonna you know at the moment no plugin is more expensive than 49 i think um, I mean, I'm So skeptical about subscriptions for different reasons. This thing keeps coming back. And as a vendor, I wouldn't definitely want to deal with people emailing me or sending tickets to say, oh, I forgot, or this is not fair, or you said this and now you're doing that, or I don't Want to use this any longer, or, and, you know, deal with churn and deal with all this kind of stuff. So for now, I feel like I'm still having fun. I still like, I don't need to worry too much about figures. Yeah. And that makes me feel good. Yeah. Matt Cromwell I love that perspective, honestly, because we do talk with a lot of product builders and creators who their livelihood depends on their success. And it can get not fun under those circumstances. And I really think that when things are not fun, they start to make bad choices that are probably sometimes bad for the customer. And that definitely changes the dynamic a ton. Being able to do something because you love it and you want to do it is a luxury not everybody has, honestly. But I think that it changes the nature of the way that you build out your product and build out your customer base. And I'm sure it changes a ton, your tone with your customers. When they reach out, I'm sure you are much happier to talk with them than if you weren't having fun. So I appreciate that. Katie Keith Yeah, no one likes defensive support. Matt Cromwell Yeah. Katie Keith So Ian says that Kestrel's terms also say they don't refund renewals, but they do anyways because sick emoji. Well, why don't you just say that you do renewal refunds then and not annoy people who read those terms? Matt Cromwell You know, I'm torn about it um in general like we definitely tried to crack down on our renewal refund rate a lot um because we were sending multiple emails in advance of the renewal to Let folks know hey this is coming this is coming um somehow they're reading their like credit card statements more often than they read their emails i'm not sure yeah um but um but it's Like you know this is something that you use this is something that's on your website we can see it it's on your website we could see it there um and we and we know you're getting value out Of it um and we gave you a heads up in advance. And then the charge came because it was supposed to. And it feels like now for you to make us do additional work to give you money back, it just feels not quite like the balance is right under those circumstances. So I really sympathize with folks who say that they don't want to do refunds on renewals in general. I sympathize with Rodolfo who says, I don't want to do renewals at all. Because both of those feel like kind of like negative experiences overall. My goal has always been like, I want my customers to be happy to pay me again. And if I can't ensure that, then yeah, here's the refund. Leave me alone. Katie Keith Yeah, that's true. But it's frustrating, particularly that you can't get the money back on the payment processor fees for PayPal and Stripe if you do a refund. So if you have sent them emails to warn them, you think, come on, take some responsibility, which is what we've always referred to. For sure. Matt Cromwell It gets worse if you don't respond to their refund request quickly, then they'll just escalate it to a dispute. And then you have a dispute on your record. And that ends up making like you'll have a bad account reputation with Stripe or PayPal. If you have too many disputes, like it can get, it can get bad. So. Yeah. Rodolfo Melogli I mean, to that point, like the dispute and, you know, customers threatening you, threatening you, basically. I mean, that's something that never happened to me in three years. Like maybe once, maybe once I lost the dispute for some reason. But, you know, I had quite a few purchases and, you know, it sort of, you know, never happens because people, they pay that the first day, they know exactly how much it's going to be and Then they can totally forget about it for the remaining 15 years they're going to be using that product and it's better for me too and so that that's that's the plan anyway yeah yeah it Katie Keith Does sound nice not to get disputes so it sounds like your kind of pricing um amounts are largely based on the complexity of the product my approach as a business person would be to do it Based on the perceived value to the user which is how much of an impact is it going to have on their sales if it's a woocommerce mini plugin um ([Time 0:25:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/68889b65-8b1f-4d33-a7b2-8351c8f4a96d)) - **Easily Retire Redundant Plugins** - When WooCommerce added features that overlapped his plugins, Rodolfo repackaged or stopped selling affected plugins. - He found it easy to discontinue products without subscription obligations. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli That's really good. Actually, I have two of them, which have now become part of core, which is adding multiple products to the cart with a single URL in WooCommerce can now be done. You cannot add products by SKU, for example. You cannot add multiple products to the cart and redirect to a different page, only to the checkout. So basically I changed my features, my settings in the existing plugins and still selling, which is crazy to me because WooCommerce just kills my plugin but I found a different way to A different angle to sell it and if you know a plugin actually becomes redundant one day just stop selling because I don't need to worry about it I don't need to you know send an email to All my subscribers that i am stopping development excuse me and it will be deprecated like theme forest style when used to buy themes and after two years oh sorry this theme has been discontinued What are you going to do about it and it's like, oh, I have to switch theme. But in my case, it's easier. Plugins just, you know, activate and deactivate and you're done. So I'm not worried at all. ([Time 0:45:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6eb933a5-b6bd-4dee-a549-55077308e320)) - **Monetize Snippets With Simple Landing Pages** - Turn popular code snippets into paid plugins and use blog traffic for product distribution. - Keep plugin sales pages simple: one screenshot, a short video, and three FAQs. Transcript: Rodolfo Melogli Absolutely, yes. So the idea was that I was really monetizing my blog traffic by sending people to, you know, online courses and memberships and stuff like that. But I wanted to have something in between because my membership is above $500. So I want the product that could stand in between the $0 and the $500. And the mini plugin was the perfect product to have. And in fact, if you go to my blog post now, they're all followed by the main call to action, which is, oh, I also sell plugin about this code comes with extra features with options that you Can control from the admin. And here's the screenshot. Here is the video and one thing that i didn't mention and which is also which also makes sense is that the landing page the sales page of the mini plugin it won't make sense unless it's one Screenshot one two minutes video tutorial and three faqs because otherwise it means it's too complex it takes me too much time and the questions from customers are gonna be a thousand Which doesn't make sense so i think as many plugins in a in a big way before writing the first line of code. Is this going to cause troubles? Payment gateways, blocks, and, you know, stuff that is constantly changing, some stuff that is delicate, I'm not going to go with it. I'm just going to do simple customization. And if then WooCommerce releases a new block, then I'm going to release a new plugin saying, oh, this is compatible with blocks. ([Time 0:48:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e9ebd39e-bcfa-494e-8dd9-8d306a564168)) - **Optimize For Happiness, Not Just Revenue** - Optimize pricing decisions for founder happiness, not only revenue maximization. - Building a business aligned with your lifestyle reduces stress and improves product decisions. Transcript: Katie Keith What is your best advice for anyone thinking about whether or not to sell with subscriptions? So in a nutshell, what should this audience take away with them from this conversation today? So Rodolfo, what would be your one piece of advice about that? Rodolfo Melogli Well, I started as a game. So I wanted to do something fun. I wasn't into plugin development and I started doing plugins just publishing that and releasing that first plugin and put it up for sale and seeing the first customer purchasing, you Know, that product gave me so much like happiness. So what I would recommend to people is that why don't you try come up with a mini plugin yourself i've actually been working with developers and whenever they have an idea they come to Me and they sell their mini plugin on my website as well so you know the marketplace idea was always still there and it's you know behind the curtain uh four or five of them actually have Plugins on business bloomer so i've been working with them on a commission basis and i mean putting up a mini plugin for sale on your website it's not difficult promoting it it's not difficult Either so why don't you try and then maybe one day you change your mind and go for subscriptions for but for now you know that's the easiest thing that you can do and you're you would tell Matt Cromwell Them oh you want to do subscriptions get off my website you're all Exactly. My best advice is that I feel like I've learned on this episode is when you're thinking about how you're going to do your pricing, according to Rodolfo, optimize for happiness. I love that. I think there's lots of ways to think through it. Optimize for your own happiness. Optimize for the happiness of your customers. Optimize for the happiness of your developers or your team, if you have a developer and team and whatnot. But I think it's a great question to think about and one that a lot of folks don't think about ever. They think about, how do I optimize revenue? How do I get the most money out of my customers? How do I be successful? How do I make millions of dollars? And oftentimes we think that if we do those things, then we'll be happy. ([Time 0:50:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f1edc403-5e46-45b4-8db8-840aac00c1c1))