Based on @KatieKeithBarn2's Tweets About Plugin Sales, I Decided To...  🔗 **Source:** [Based on @KatieKeithBarn2's Tweets About Plugin Sales, I Decided To...](https://twitter.com/MarcoAlmeidaPT/status/2111142998595530828/?rw_tt_thread=True) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [wordpress-plugin-business, plugin-sales, lifetime-licenses, subscription-renewals, ai-search-impact] > author: Marco Almeida > source: X (formerly Twitter) > reference: https://twitter.com/MarcoAlmeidaPT/status/2111142998595530828 > date created: 2026-10-17 20:15 > > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > # 🏷️ Title: Plugin sales are falling: Naked Cat Plugins on renewals, lifetime licenses and the 73% break-even > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 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) - [🔄 Refactor appendix](#-refactor-appendix--plugin-sales-are-falling-naked-cat-plugins-on-renewals-lifetime-licenses-and-the-73-break-even) ## 📝 Summary This is a descriptive reading of a long thread on X (formerly Twitter) by Marco Almeida (page author @MarcoAlmeidaPT), published 2026-10-16. It is advocacy and self-report from a plugin vendor, not independent reporting. Per the task metadata, the thread's business is Naked Cat Plugins, and the thread responds to tweets by Katie Keith of Barn2 about plugin sales (¶1). The commercial interest is direct: a plugin vendor describes its own sales and renewal numbers, and the market it sells in, and gives pricing guidance (lifetime licenses at 3.75x) that bears on how the author's own products are priced. The thread says the author asked Claude to look at the numbers (¶1). It does not show the method: no prompt, no data export, no queries, no statement of which figures came from Claude and which from the author's own dashboards. **Numbering.** The captured text has no headings and no `[Pn]` labels. Paragraphs are numbered ¶1 to ¶31 by blank-line splits of the captured text file. ¶2, ¶3 and ¶6 are link-only paragraphs (two truncated x.com links and one t.co link), ¶17 is the word "Sources:", ¶18 and ¶19 are truncated link text, and ¶20 is a thread emoji. The follow-up replies start at ¶21. The author's own references to "tweet 7" and "tweet 10" (¶24, ¶28) use tweet numbers that the capture does not mark, so this analysis does not map them to paragraphs with certainty. - **What happened.** The author posts a thread of numbers and a reading of them. It covers industry-wide sales (¶7), three causes (¶8-¶10), the author's own license counts, recurring revenue and lifetime-license share (¶11-¶14), a break-even renewal rate (¶15), and a follow-up with per-license tracking results (¶21-¶31). - **The claim.** New plugin sales are falling across the industry, and the author attributes this to a smaller WordPress market, less search traffic and AI changing how plugins get chosen (¶8-¶10). The author's own lifetime licenses, priced at 3.75x yearly, "have paid off" so far (¶13, ¶30), because the author's measured renewal rate (62%) sits below the stated break-even of about 73% (¶28). - **Three kinds of figure, kept separate here.** (A) Figures the author reports about the author's own business. (B) Figures about Barn2, and figures attributed to others with no link on the figure itself: an 80% poll, the 65.2% to 58.7% WordPress share, Pew's 8% vs 15% click rates, a WooCommerce store decline of 8%, and Barn2's 86% organic drop. (C) The author's causal reading, three causes, offered without a test. Section "Main content" lists each. - **A correction to the obvious reading.** The "new sales down 48%, total revenue down 6%" figures appear first in ¶4-¶5 in first person ("our sales") and again in ¶7 as "Barn2's". The link list shows an embedded Katie Keith status posted Oct 14, 2026 at 12:58PM next to ¶6. So ¶4-¶6 is most likely Keith's embedded tweet, and the 48% and −6% are Barn2's figures, not Naked Cat's. That is this analysis's inference from the markup. The capture does not mark the embed as a quote. - **The arithmetic the thread invites.** The thread says lifetime at 3.75x "only loses" above a renewal rate of about 73% (¶15, ¶28). My derivation (not the author's): the 73% is 1 − 1/3.75, which follows from a model where yearly customers renew at a constant annual rate. The working is in Main content. The model reproduces 73.3%, but the thread's own stepped renewal rates (55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, over 80%, ¶26) give about 3.2 expected paid years, not the 2.7 the thread reports (¶29). - **Why it matters.** Few vendors publish renewal curves, payment-method effects or lifetime-license cannibalization data. The follow-up (¶21-¶31) is a rare per-license dataset from a small vendor, and the thread states a limit: "lifetime is working out for us, but it may not for you" (¶30). - **Key stakeholders.** The author and Naked Cat Plugins; Katie Keith and Barn2, whose tweets prompted the thread (¶1); PMPro and GravityView, named as having similar new-sales declines (¶7); plugin customers on lifetime and yearly licenses; Claude, named as the analysis tool (¶1). - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The author's scale is stated as small (¶11). Lifetime cash comes once while the recurring drop repeats (¶14). Manual-payment renewals run 42% against 65% for automatic ones (¶27). - **Bottom line.** The self-reported per-license numbers (¶21-¶29) are the strongest part, because they say what was counted. The industry figures and the three causes (¶7-¶10) are mostly unlinked at the figure level, and the causal story is a reading, not a test. Treat every number as the author's account until the sources and the Claude analysis can be seen. ## 📖 Main content **Setup (¶1-¶3).** The author says the thread follows Katie Keith's tweets about plugin sales. The author asked Claude to look at Naked Cat Plugins' numbers "from the last 2.5 years" and at what other plugin businesses report (¶1). ¶2 and ¶3 are links to two Keith tweets (the link list resolves them to x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/2109681248331313485 and .../2110354434404352334). **Renewals as a cushion (¶4-¶6).** The text says new sales are down 48%, renewals have grown, and total revenue is down only 6% (¶4). It adds that renewals follow sales by 2-3 years, so a larger decline is coming but there is time to recover or pivot (¶5). ¶6 is a t.co link, probably an image card. As noted in Summary, the same numbers reappear in ¶7 as Barn2's. **Industry figures (¶7).** In a poll of plugin makers, 80% said 2025 new sales were flat or lower than 2024. Barn2's new sales are down 48% in two years, "almost exactly like" PMPro and GravityView. Renewals up 32% keep Barn2's total revenue at −6%. **Three causes (¶8-¶10).** - Cause 1, a smaller market (¶8): WordPress went from 65.2% to 58.7% of sites with a known CMS since 2022. WooCommerce stores fell 8% in a year. Shopify gains, especially among larger shops. - Cause 2, search (¶9): when Google shows an AI Overview, users click a result about half as often (8% vs 15%, per Pew). Barn2's organic visits are down 86% in 2024. - Cause 3, AI changes selection (¶10): assistants tend to recommend the market leader, usually one with a popular free version on WordPress.org, and people vibe code small single-purpose plugins instead of buying. **The author's own numbers (¶11-¶14).** - New licenses per month fell 22% in the year from April 2025, recovered 7% over the next 12 months, and run at 62% of the 2024 pace over the last 3 months (¶11). - Since recurring revenue peaked 18 months ago, active licenses grew 1% and recurring revenue fell 10%. Lifetime licenses are 24% of active licenses, priced at 3.75x the yearly license (¶12). - Lifetime has brought in over 3x what the lower recurring revenue cost in those 18 months. Even if every lifetime sale replaced a yearly customer, that explains about 88% of the recurring drop. The rest is shops that left (¶13). - The risk: lifetime money arrives once, the recurring drop repeats yearly, and the cushion lasts "a little over 2 years" if lifetime sales stop today (¶14). **Break-even and next step (¶15-¶16).** A lifetime license at 3.75x only loses if the customer would have renewed for more than 3.75 years, which the thread converts to a renewal rate above about 73% (¶15). The author plans to track every license individually (¶16). **Sources (¶17-¶20).** A "Sources:" line followed by two wpproducttalk.com links (¶18-¶19) and a thread emoji (¶20). The link list resolves them to https://wpproducttalk.com/blog/sales-decline-reasons/ and https://wpproducttalk.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-sales-survey-2025/. So the markup does link both articles. The thread does not say which figure comes from which article. **Follow-up: lifetime buyers (¶21-¶24).** 83% of lifetime licenses went to brand-new customers. 8.5% had a yearly license for the same plugin before. Another 8.5% were yearly customers of a different Naked Cat plugin. The text concludes that lifetime barely ate into recurring revenue, and that the recurring drop is mostly fewer new yearly sales and shops that left. **Follow-up: renewal rate (¶25-¶27).** 62% of yearly renewals since 2021 have been paid, steady at 64-65% over four years. First renewal is the hardest at 55%, then 67%, 71%, 79% and over 80% from the fifth year. Card or PayPal licenses renew 65% of the time. Multibanco or MB WAY licenses, which need manual payment, renew 42%. The text adds that these methods have not been accepted for new licenses for 1+ years. **Follow-up: break-even again (¶28-¶31).** Ours are at 62%, below about 73%. The average yearly license gets paid for 2.7 years, so a lifetime sale brings in about 40% more (¶29). The thread warns the result may not transfer (¶30) and notes a lifetime customer still gets support for years after one payment (¶31). ### Figures sorted by who stands behind them **A. Reported by the author about the author's own business (Naked Cat Plugins).** Each is a self-report with no shown data or method. - New licenses per month: −22% (year from April 2025), +7% (next 12 months), 62% of the 2024 pace in the last 3 months (¶11). - Active licenses +1%, recurring revenue −10% since the peak 18 months ago, lifetime share 24% of active licenses, lifetime price 3.75x yearly (¶12). - Lifetime brought in over 3x the recurring shortfall, explains about 88% of the recurring drop, cushion a little over 2 years (¶13-¶14). - 83% of lifetime licenses to brand-new customers, 8.5% and 8.5% to prior yearly customers (¶22-¶23). - Renewal rate 62% since 2021, 64-65% over four years, stepped by renewal number 55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, over 80% (¶25-¶26). Card or PayPal 65%, Multibanco or MB WAY 42% (¶27). Average 2.7 paid years, about 40% more from a lifetime sale (¶29). **B. Figures about Barn2, and figures attributed to others with no link on the figure itself.** - Barn2 (Keith's business, per ¶7): new sales −48% in two years, renewals +32%, total revenue −6%, organic visits −86% in 2024 (¶7, ¶9). The same 48% and −6% appear in ¶4 in first person, probably from the embedded Keith tweet. - An 80% poll of plugin makers (¶7). Likely the survey article in the Sources line, by its slug (wordpress-plugin-sales-survey-2025), but the thread does not say so, and no sample size is given. - WordPress share 65.2% to 58.7% of sites with a known CMS since 2022, WooCommerce stores −8% in a year (¶8). No data provider is named. - Pew's 8% vs 15% click rates with and without an AI Overview (¶9). Pew is named with no link in the captured markup. - "Almost exactly like" PMPro and GravityView (¶7). Their profiles are linked. Their figures are not. **C. The author's causal reading.** Three causes (¶8-¶10) and the conclusion that the recurring drop is "mostly due to fewer new yearly sales and shops that left" (¶24). None is tested in the thread. The thread gives no estimate of how much each cause contributes, and the author's own per-license data (¶21-¶29) speaks to lifetime licenses and renewals, not to the market, search or AI causes. ### Arithmetic checks (my derivations, not the author's) **Break-even renewal rate.** The thread says lifetime at 3.75x "only loses" above about 73% renewal (¶15, ¶28). - Model that reproduces 73%: a customer buys a yearly license at price P and renews each year with the same probability r, independent of how long the customer has stayed. Payments made = 1 (first purchase) + r + r² + r³ + ... = 1/(1 − r). A lifetime license costs 3.75 P. Break-even: 1/(1 − r) = 3.75, so 1 − r = 1/3.75 = 0.2667 and r = 0.7333, or 73.3%. - So 26.7% (1/3.75) is the break-even non-renewal rate (annual churn), and 73.3% is its complement, the break-even renewal rate. Same model, two views of one number. The thread's "above about 73%" matches. - A model that does not reproduce it: counting renewals only, r/(1 − r) = 3.75 gives r = 3.75/4.75 = 78.9%. That compares the lifetime price to renewals after the first purchase and leaves out the first-year payment. The thread's 73% implies the first purchase counts. - Assumptions the model carries: constant renewal rate across years, no discounting, constant yearly price, no support cost (¶31 notes lifetime customers keep getting support), and a yearly customer pool that looks like the lifetime pool. **Constant rate against the thread's own stepped rates.** - At a constant 62% the model gives 1/(1 − 0.62) = 2.63 paid years, and 3.75/2.63 = 1.42, close to the thread's 2.7 years and "about 40% more" (¶29). - The stepped rates in ¶26 (55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, then 80%) give 1 + 0.55 + 0.55×0.67 + 0.55×0.67×0.71 + 0.55×0.67×0.71×0.79 = 2.39 paid years through year 5. Extending 80% beyond year 5 adds 0.827, for about 3.21 paid years. Then 3.75/3.21 = 1.17, about 17% more, not 40%. That assumes 80% as a floor (the thread says "over 80%"), an infinite horizon and the same price. The thread's 2.7 may reflect recent cohorts that have not had time to renew, which this analysis can't confirm from the text. - Lifetime still comes out ahead under both readings, but the margin differs by a factor of about 2. **Other checks.** - WordPress share fell 6.5 percentage points (65.2 to 58.7), or 10.0% relative. The thread states the two shares and the change in share, not a count of sites. - Pew: 8/15 = 0.53, so "about half as often" is a 47% drop in click rate, as stated. - Barn2's implied revenue mix: if new sales fell 48%, renewals rose 32% and total fell 6%, then new sales were about 47.5% of the prior total (0.32 − 0.80 s = −0.06, so s = 0.475). Derived by me from Barn2's three figures. - Payment mix: blended 62% renewal with 65% for automatic and 42% for manual payments implies about 13% of renewals are manual ((65 − 62)/(65 − 42)). Derived by me. - Cushion (¶13-¶14): if the lifetime cash is 3x an 18-month shortfall and the shortfall holds at 10% of peak, the cushion lasts about 4.5 years (3 × 0.15 / 0.10). The thread says a little over 2 years. The gap implies the author expects the shortfall to deepen (¶5 says a bigger decline is coming) or uses inputs the thread does not show. This analysis cannot reproduce the figure. - Timing (¶11): "in the year from April 2025, recovered 7% over the next 12 months" reads as April 2025 to April 2026, then April 2026 to April 2027. That second window would end after the 2026-10-16 publish date. The author probably means the year ending April 2025. The ambiguity is worth a question. - Counts that can't be checked: the 88% (¶13) needs the peak lifetime share and license mix, and neither is in the thread. ## 🗒️ Notes #### 📄 ¶1-¶3 Prompt and framing - The thread responds to Katie Keith's tweets about plugin sales (¶1, ¶2-¶3 links). - The author says Claude was asked to look at Naked Cat Plugins' last 2.5 years and at other vendors' reports (¶1). The method is not shown. #### 📄 ¶4-¶6 Renewals cushion new-sales decline - New sales down 48%, renewals up, total revenue down 6% (¶4). Renewals lag sales by 2-3 years, so a larger decline is expected (¶5). - These numbers match Barn2's in ¶7. The link list's "Posted Oct 14, 2026 at 12:58PM" Keith status suggests an embedded tweet. First-person wording ("our sales") points the same way. - ¶6 is a t.co link, likely an image card whose contents the capture doesn't carry. #### 📄 ¶7-¶10 Industry poll and three causes - 80% of polled plugin makers said 2025 new sales were flat or lower than 2024 (¶7). No sample size. - Barn2's new sales are down 48% in two years, "almost exactly like" PMPro and GravityView. Renewals up 32%, total revenue −6% (¶7). - Cause 1: WordPress 65.2% to 58.7% of known-CMS sites, WooCommerce stores −8% (¶8). Cause 2: Pew 8% vs 15%, Barn2 organic −86% in 2024 (¶9). Cause 3: assistants favor market leaders, small plugins get vibe coded (¶10). - No test or weighting of the causes appears. #### 📄 ¶11-¶13 The author's license and revenue numbers - New licenses per month −22%, +7%, then 62% of the 2024 pace over 3 months (¶11). The date windows are ambiguous. - Active licenses +1%, recurring revenue −10%, lifetime 24% of active, priced at 3.75x (¶12). - Lifetime brought in over 3x the shortfall. Replacing yearly customers explains about 88% of the drop (¶13). #### 📄 ¶14-¶16 Risk and break-even - Lifetime cash comes once, the recurring drop repeats, and the cushion runs a little over 2 years (¶14). - Break-even: lifetime at 3.75x loses only if the customer would have renewed for more than 3.75 years, about 73% renewal (¶15). My derivation gives 1 − 1/3.75 = 73.3% under a constant-rate model. - The author plans per-license tracking (¶16). #### 📄 ¶17-¶20 Sources line - The "Sources:" line (¶17) is followed by two wpproducttalk.com links (¶18-¶19), resolved in the link list to /blog/sales-decline-reasons/ and /blog/wordpress-plugin-sales-survey-2025/. - The thread doesn't map figures to articles. ¶20 is a thread emoji. #### 📄 ¶21-¶24 Follow-up: lifetime buyers were mostly new - 83% of lifetime licenses went to brand-new customers. 8.5% were prior yearly customers of the same plugin and 8.5% of a different one (¶22-¶23). - The text concludes lifetime barely ate into recurring revenue, and the drop is mostly fewer new yearly sales and shops that left (¶24). #### 📄 ¶25-¶27 Follow-up: real renewal rate - 62% of yearly renewals since 2021 were paid, 64-65% over four years (¶25). - First renewal 55%, then 67%, 71%, 79%, over 80% from year five (¶26). - Card or PayPal 65% vs Multibanco or MB WAY 42%. Those methods have not been offered for new licenses for 1+ years (¶27). #### 📄 ¶28-¶31 Follow-up: break-even revisited - Ours are at 62%, below about 73% (¶28). Average paid years 2.7, lifetime brings in about 40% more (¶29). - Lifetime may not work for others (¶30). Lifetime customers still get support for years (¶31). - My check: 40% matches a constant 62% rate (about 42%) but the thread's stepped rates give about 17%. ## 📚 References The link list has 19 entries. I checked it before writing about sources. Anchor text in the capture is often truncated. **Linked in the thread** - [x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/2109681248331313485](https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/2109681248331313485). One of the two Keith tweets the thread responds to (¶2). Anchor text in the capture is the truncated "x.com/KatieKeithBarn…". - [x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/2110354434404352334](https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/2110354434404352334). The second Keith tweet (¶3). The same URL appears under the anchor "Posted Oct 14, 2026 at 12:58PM" and an empty anchor, which points to an embedded copy of this tweet near ¶4-¶6. - [t.co/kAcPQ5IR6W](https://t.co/kAcPQ5IR6W). A shortened link at ¶6. Its target is not visible in the capture. - [wpproducttalk.com/blog/sales-decline-reasons/](https://wpproducttalk.com/blog/sales-decline-reasons/). First article in the Sources line (¶18). - [wpproducttalk.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-sales-survey-2025/](https://wpproducttalk.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-sales-survey-2025/). Second article in the Sources line (¶19). The slug suggests the 80% poll, but the thread does not say. - Profile links: [@KatieKeithBarn2](https://twitter.com/KatieKeithBarn2), [@NakedCatPlugins](https://twitter.com/NakedCatPlugins) (linked 8 times across the thread), [@pmproplugin](https://twitter.com/pmproplugin) and [@GravityView](https://twitter.com/GravityView) (¶7). These link to accounts, not to the numbers attributed to them. **Article** - Plugin sales thread, Marco Almeida, X (formerly Twitter), 2026-10-16: https://twitter.com/MarcoAlmeidaPT/status/2111142998595530828 **Named without a link on the figure in the captured markup** - The 80% poll (¶7), the WordPress share 65.2% to 58.7% and the WooCommerce store decline of 8% (¶8), Pew's 8% vs 15% (¶9), and Barn2's organic visits down 86% (¶9). The two linked articles in the Sources line may carry some of them. The captured markup does not tie any figure to either article, and this analysis fetched nothing to check. - Claude, as the analysis tool (¶1). No prompt, transcript or output is linked. - Shopify gaining among larger shops (¶8) and assistants recommending market leaders (¶10). No figure or link. **Not checked.** This analysis fetched nothing from the network. The two wpproducttalk.com articles, the two Keith tweets and the Pew result are the places where most of the industry figures could be confirmed. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase Marco Almeida, writing about Naked Cat Plugins, says the thread was prompted by Katie Keith's tweets about plugin sales. The author asked Claude to look at the last 2.5 years of the business's numbers and at what other vendors report. The thread says industry new sales are falling: 80% of polled makers saw flat or lower 2025 new sales, and Barn2's new sales are down 48% in two years while renewals up 32% hold its revenue down only 6%. It names three causes: a smaller WordPress market, less search traffic when Google shows AI Overviews, and AI assistants that favor the market leader or let people build small plugins themselves. On the author's own business, new licenses per month fell 22%, recovered 7%, and now run at 62% of the 2024 pace. Active licenses are up 1% while recurring revenue is down 10%. Lifetime licenses, priced at 3.75x the yearly price, are 24% of active licenses and have so far brought in over 3x the shortfall. The risk is that lifetime money arrives once while the recurring drop repeats. The thread says lifetime at 3.75x loses only if renewals exceed about 73%. A follow-up with per-license data says 83% of lifetime buyers were new customers, the overall renewal rate is 62%, first renewals are 55%, and manual-payment renewals run 42% against 65% for automatic ones. The average yearly license is paid for 2.7 years, so a lifetime sale brings in about 40% more. The author warns that the answer may differ for other vendors. ## 📰 Newsletter **A small plugin vendor publishes its renewal curve.** Marco Almeida of Naked Cat Plugins posted a thread that mixes industry figures with the vendor's own per-license data. The part worth reading is the follow-up. After tracking each license separately, the thread reports that 83% of lifetime buyers were brand-new customers, that 62% of yearly renewals get paid, that the first renewal is the hardest at 55%, and that licenses paid manually (Multibanco, MB WAY) renew at 42% against 65% for card or PayPal. The break-even rule is the piece to check. The thread says lifetime at 3.75x yearly only loses if renewals exceed about 73%. That number follows from 1 − 1/3.75 under a constant-renewal model. The thread's own stepped renewal rates (55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, over 80%) give about 3.2 expected paid years instead of the reported 2.7, which would shrink lifetime's edge from about 40% to about 17%. Both readings still favor lifetime at a 62% renewal rate. Treat the numbers as the vendor's account. The thread says Claude analyzed them and doesn't show the method. The industry figures (an 80% poll, WordPress share, Pew click rates) have no link on the figure, though two wpproducttalk.com articles are linked in a Sources line. Source: [Marco Almeida on X](https://twitter.com/MarcoAlmeidaPT/status/2111142998595530828). ## ✅ Action items These items concern the reader's own pricing, renewal and documentation practices. They don't assess the author's business or claims. #### DevRel - Developer advocacy: if you cite the 73% break-even, cite it as the author's figure and show the model (constant annual renewal, 1/(1 − r) = 3.75) so readers can test it. - Education: write a short explainer on how a lifetime price converts to a break-even renewal rate, using ¶15 and the derivation above as the worked example. - Developer experience: no direct action from this source; nearest relevance is documenting license types clearly (yearly, lifetime, support terms, ¶31). - Developer marketing: avoid repeating "new sales down 48%" as a market-wide figure. It is Barn2's number per ¶7. - Community management: when sharing the thread, note that ¶4-¶6 is probably an embedded Barn2 tweet and the author's own data starts at ¶11. - Internal/external: no direct action from this source. #### OSPO - Policy and governance: no direct action from this source; nearest relevance is a rule for citing vendor self-reported data in policy discussions. - License compliance: no direct action from this source. - Security management: no direct action from this source. - Software inventory: no direct action from this source. - Developer support: lifetime licenses carry support for years (¶31). A support-cost estimate belongs next to any break-even calculation. - Community engagement: the thread publishes per-license renewal data, a model for vendors sharing business metrics with the ecosystem. - Strategic alignment: no direct action from this source. #### Community - Maintainers: if you sell a pro tier, track each license separately (¶16, ¶21) and record prior purchases, so you can answer how many lifetime buyers were yearly customers first. - Contributors: no direct action from this source. - Sponsors: no direct action from this source. - Ecosystem: the poll and the two wpproducttalk.com articles (¶7, ¶18-¶19) are a place for vendors to compare figures. Ask for sample sizes. #### WordPress - Core: no direct action; nearest relevance is the thread's claim that WordPress share of known-CMS sites fell from 65.2% to 58.7% (¶8). - Core Performance: no direct action from this source. - Core AI: nearest relevance is the claim that assistants recommend market leaders with popular free versions on WordPress.org (¶10). A test across assistants would turn that into evidence. - Core Program Team: no direct action from this source. - Mobile: none. - Playground: no direct action from this source. - Community: none directly. - Training: the break-even derivation is usable teaching material for plugin-business courses. - Marketing: nearest relevance is the search-traffic claim (¶9). Check your own organic referrals before attributing a decline to AI Overviews. - Support: lifetime customers keep getting support (¶31). Estimate that cost per license. - Design: none. - Documentation: document renewal and payment-method behavior if you sell licenses with manual payment options (¶27). - Photos: none. - TV: none. - Polyglots: none; nearest relevance is that Multibanco and MB WAY (¶27) are regional payment methods. - Accessibility: the thread's eight images need text alternatives (see Accessibility assessment). - Meta: nearest relevance is WordPress.org's popular free plugins as a ranking advantage (¶10). - CLI: none. - Hosting: none. - Tide: none. - Openverse: none. - Themes: none. - Plugins: plugin vendors can compare their own renewal curve (first renewal, second, third) against ¶26 and test their lifetime price against the break-even. #### The WPOCC - Programs: no direct action from this source. - Projects: no direct action from this source. - Funding experiments: nearest relevance is the thread's point that plugin revenue is falling for several vendors (¶7). A shared, sourced dataset would let funding discussions use evidence. ### FAIR - Technical independence: no direct action from this source. - Policies and covenants: no direct action from this source. - Productized governance artifacts: no direct action from this source. ## 🧪 Hypotheses 1. A constant-rate renewal model (1/(1 − r)) overstates expected paid years relative to the thread's stepped renewal curve, so lifetime at 3.75x earns about 17% more than yearly, not about 40%, for the same customers. 2. Lifetime buyers renew at higher rates than the average yearly customer would, so the 2.7-year average (¶29) understates what yearly would have earned from them. 3. Manual-payment licenses (Multibanco, MB WAY) explain a measurable part of non-renewal: 42% against 65% (¶27). 4. For Barn2 and similar vendors, organic-search loss tracks new-sales decline more closely than WordPress's share of known-CMS sites does (¶8-¶9). 5. The 83% new-customer share of lifetime sales (¶22) holds across cohorts, not only the period measured. 6. The "little over 2 years" cushion (¶14) is shorter than 4.5 years only if the recurring shortfall deepens past 10% of peak. ## 📊 Methodology - **H1.** Build the cohort survival curve from per-license renewal records. Compute expected paid years with the stepped rates observed (55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, 80%+) and with a constant average rate, then compare lifetime revenue per license under each. Treat unfinished cohorts as censored and report both censored and uncensored averages. - **H2.** Compare the renewal rates of lifetime buyers' prior yearly years (the 8.5% plus 8.5% in ¶23) with those of yearly customers who did not buy lifetime, controlling for plugin and signup year. - **H3.** Split renewals by payment method and by first versus later renewals. Test whether the 42% vs 65% gap (¶27) persists after controlling for tenure, country and plugin. - **H4.** For vendors who share data, regress monthly new sales on organic sessions and on market-share series, with lags. Report confidence intervals and sample size, and state that few vendors give a small n. - **H5.** Recompute the lifetime new-customer share per quarter since lifetime launched, and check whether the share changes after promotions. - **H6.** Rebuild the cushion projection with the recurring shortfall at 10%, 15% and 20% of peak. Compare against ¶14 and show which assumption yields "a little over 2 years." ## ❓ Questions - What did Claude receive (data export, prompts) and what did it return, and which figures in the thread came from its output rather than the author's dashboards? - Are ¶4-¶6 the author's words or an embedded Keith tweet, and are the 48% and −6% Barn2's or Naked Cat's? - Does "in the year from April 2025, recovered 7% over the next 12 months" (¶11) mean April 2025 to April 2026 and April 2026 to April 2027, or windows ending in April 2025 and April 2026? - How is 2.7 paid years (¶29) computed, and does it count recent cohorts that haven't reached their renewal date? - What produces "a little over 2 years" for the cushion (¶14), given that 3x an 18-month shortfall at a constant 10% would last about 4.5 years? - Which of the two linked wpproducttalk.com articles contains the 80% poll, the WordPress share and the WooCommerce figure, and what is the poll's sample size? - How much of the lifetime sales share (24% of active licenses, ¶12) was bought with discounts or promotions, and does that change the break-even? - Do lifetime customers cost more to support than yearly customers over several years (¶31)? ## 🔮 Future research - **Renewal curves across vendors.** Collect per-license first, second and third renewal rates from several plugin vendors to see whether 55% at the first renewal is typical. - **Lifetime pricing multiples.** Compare outcomes at 2x, 3.75x and 5x yearly price across vendors, with renewal rates and support costs. - **Payment method and renewal.** Test whether automatic payment explains most of the card or PayPal advantage (65% vs 42%, ¶27) in other markets. - **Search and AI referrals.** Measure whether AI Overview exposure, rather than overall traffic decline, predicts plugin-site visit loss (¶9). - **Assistant recommendations.** Query several AI assistants for plugin recommendations in common categories and test the claim that leaders with free versions dominate (¶10). ## 💡 Implications - **Practice.** A lifetime license changes a vendor's cash profile, with money up front and a recurring gap later (¶14). Price it with an explicit model of renewal behavior and support cost, and recheck the model against actual cohorts (¶26-¶29). - **Policy.** Vendor self-reports shape ecosystem discussion about plugin sales. Ask for the source and sample size on each figure and separate a vendor's own data from figures it relays. - **Security.** No direct implication. A lifetime customer's support stays on the vendor's books (¶31), which includes security updates. - **Education.** The break-even derivation (1 − 1/3.75) is a compact example of how a price multiple becomes a renewal threshold, and of how a constant-rate assumption can hide the shape of a real curve. - **Funding.** If plugin new-sales declines are widespread (¶7), the revenue base for plugin maintenance shifts toward renewals, with a 2-3 year lag (¶5). Funding programs could ask vendors for renewal curves, not only sales totals. - **Vendor-claim hygiene.** An analysis done with an AI tool (¶1) is only as checkable as the prompt and data behind it. Publishing both would let readers rerun it. ## 🧠 Learning styles assessment - **Reading level estimate.** About Flesch Reading Ease 60 and Flesch-Kincaid Grade 8.4, from a simple syllable heuristic on 707 words in 50 sentences. Dense numbers per sentence and terms like "recurring revenue," "lifetime license" and "break-even" raise the effective level for readers new to software licensing. #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: eight images are attached. The capture does not show what they depict, and the text's Cause 1 to Cause 3 labels give a visible structure. - Improve: a single chart of the renewal curve (55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, 80%+) against the 73% break-even would show where lifetime wins, with a text alternative that states the numbers. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: no audio is referenced in the captured text. - Improve: a read-aloud version of the thread would help listeners. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: short declarative tweets with numbers, and a stated caveat ("our scale is nothing compared to other plugin vendors", ¶11). - Improve: define "break-even," "recurring revenue" and "lifetime license" in a clause at first use. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: the break-even rule (¶15) is simple enough to try with a spreadsheet and one's own renewal rate. - Improve: provide a small worksheet with price, lifetime multiple and renewal rate cells. #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: the numbers and the stated rule (3.75x, about 73%) allow a reader to check the arithmetic, as above. - Improve: show the renewal model behind 73%, the data period for each figure and how 2.7 years was computed. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: the thread responds to a named peer (¶1) and compares against named vendors (¶7), and ¶30 invites readers to compare their own situation. - Improve: link a place where vendors can post their renewal curves to compare. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: the thread is self-contained once the numbers are in view. - Improve: put a summary tweet of the four key numbers (62% renewal, 73% break-even, 83% new lifetime buyers, 42% manual-payment renewal) at the top. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: none; the content is business analysis. - Improve: not applicable. ## 📊 Accessibility assessment Judged from the captured text, link list and image list only. Contrast, focus order and rendered layout are unknowable from this capture. #### Screen reader semantics - Present: the thread is a sequence of short tweets. The capture has no headings, which is normal for posts. - Improve: the "Cause 1", "Cause 2", "Cause 3" labels (¶8-¶10) are plain text, so a screen reader user hears them as sentence openers. This is acceptable in tweets. In a published article they should be headings (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.3.1 Info and Relationships, 2.4.6 Headings and Labels). The thread emoji (¶20) is announced as its name (for example "thread"), which adds noise. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: 19 links appear in the link list, all ordinary anchors as far as the capture shows. - Improve: not verifiable from text. Check 2.1.1 Keyboard and 2.4.7 Focus Visible on the rendered page. #### Contrast and readability - Present: unknowable from the capture. Short paragraphs help scanning. - Improve: verify 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) on the rendered page, especially for the chart images, whose colors the capture doesn't show. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: text-only content should reflow, and short lines suit narrow screens. - Improve: verify 1.4.4 Resize Text and 1.4.10 Reflow at 320 CSS px and 200% zoom. Charts in images won't reflow. #### Media and captions - Eight images are listed. The first has missing alt text (the capture shows alt='MISSING'). The other seven have the alt text "Image", which tells a screen reader user nothing about what they show. This fails WCAG 2.2 AA 1.1.1 Non-text Content for each image that carries information, and the thread's numbers likely sit in some of them. - What this analysis cannot see: the contents of all eight images. The text says nothing about what they show. They are probably charts, but I can't confirm which figures they carry or whether a figure appears only in an image. Any number that exists only in a chart is outside this analysis. If a chart contains text, 1.4.5 Images of Text is also in play. - No video or audio is referenced in the captured text, and the text doesn't mention captions or transcripts. #### Forms and interactions - Present: no form appears in the captured text. - Improve: not applicable beyond reply and share controls on the host platform. #### Standards reference - Likely gaps to verify against WCAG 2.2 AA: **1.1.1** (one image with missing alt text, seven with "Image", plus the emoji). **2.4.4** Link Purpose (In Context): anchors such as "x.com/KatieKeithBarn…" are truncated, and one link (the status URL listed with an empty anchor) has no anchor text at all, so it has no accessible name (also **4.1.2** Name, Role, Value). The six repeated "@NakedCatPlugins" mention links share one anchor and one target, which is fine, and each is followed by text. **1.3.1** for any chart that carries data. Everything else needs the rendered page. ## 🌍 DEIB assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: English-only, written for people who sell WordPress plugins, with US-centric business terms and one regional detail: Multibanco and MB WAY, Portuguese payment methods (¶27), which widen the view beyond card and PayPal. - Improve: the market figures (WordPress share, WooCommerce, Shopify, ¶8) don't say which regions they cover. A sentence on that would help non-US readers judge relevance. #### Inclusive language - Present: plain, concrete wording. "Vibe code" (¶10) is slang that some readers may not know. - Improve: gloss "vibe code" and "AI Overview" at first use. Expand abbreviations such as "MB WAY" for readers outside Portugal. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: short tweets, a stated order (Cause 1, 2, 3) and recaps ("Back to the break-even in tweet 10", ¶28) reduce working-memory load. - Improve: the references to "tweet 7" and "tweet 10" (¶24, ¶28) require counting tweets across a long thread. Quoting the figure would remove the lookup. #### Representation - Present: the text names one person, Katie Keith (¶1, ¶11), and several vendors by account (¶7). It uses no gendered pronouns for any person. - Improve: not applicable. The poll respondents (¶7) are unnamed, and the thread doesn't describe who they are or how many. #### Psychological safety - Present: the thread credits a peer (¶1), states its own small scale (¶11) and says the result "may not" apply to others (¶30). It doesn't blame vendors or customers. - Improve: ¶13 and ¶24 attribute some of the drop to "shops that left", which treats departed customers as a loss line. No harm is evident, and no customer data beyond aggregates is shown. ## ✅ Logical validity This thread is vendor advocacy and self-report. It is a plugin vendor describing its own sales and the market it sells in, offering a pricing conclusion (lifetime at 3.75x works for the vendor but may not for others, ¶30). The commercial interest is Naked Cat Plugins' revenue and pricing choices. The thread says the author asked Claude to analyze the numbers (¶1) and doesn't show the method. No instruction addressed to an AI or "the reader" in an adversarial sense appears in the captured text or the link list. Nothing in the thread independently verifies any figure. #### Strong reasoning - **Per-license tracking, ¶16, ¶21.** The author names the question (how many lifetime buyers were yearly customers first, and the real renewal rate), builds the data to answer it, and reports the answer, including a number that weakens a simple story: only 8.5% were prior yearly customers of the same plugin (¶22-¶23). - **Stated scale and caveat, ¶11, ¶30.** "Our scale is nothing compared to other plugin vendors" and "it may not for you" bound the claims. - **A mechanism for the break-even, ¶15, ¶28-¶30.** The rule (3.75x, about 73%) is checkable. As shown in Main content, 1 − 1/3.75 = 73.3% under a constant-renewal model. - **Segmenting renewals, ¶26-¶27.** The thread splits renewal by renewal number and by payment method, which reveals the 55% first renewal and the 42% vs 65% manual-payment gap. Aggregates would have hidden both. - **Honest accounting of the lifetime effect, ¶13-¶14.** The author says lifetime explains only about 88% of the recurring drop even in the extreme case, and that lifetime cash comes once while the drop repeats. #### Fallacies No formal fallacy dominates, since much of the thread reports numbers. What I checked: whether figures match their claimed owner, whether the conclusion follows from the numbers, whether correlation is presented as cause, and whether numbers carry sources. These are framing and evidence issues: - **Cause asserted without a test, ¶8-¶10 "Cause 1: a smaller market."** Three causes are named, with no estimate of how much each explains and no counterfactual. A falling WordPress share and falling search clicks are concurrent with the drop in sales, which does not show they caused it. *Fix:* give each cause an estimated share of the decline, or label the three as hypotheses. - **Share change read as market size, ¶8 "WordPress went from 65.2% to 58.7%."** That is a 6.5-point change in share of known-CMS sites (10.0% relative), and does not give the change in the number of sites or in plugin buyers. *Fix:* give site counts, or state the buyer segment. - **Figures attributed to the wrong owner, ¶4-¶5 versus ¶7.** The 48% and −6% appear as "our sales" in ¶4 and as Barn2's in ¶7. A reader can take them as Naked Cat's. *Fix:* label the embedded tweet as a quote. - **Unlinked attribution, ¶7-¶9.** An 80% poll, WordPress share, WooCommerce stores down 8% and Pew's 8% vs 15% carry no link on the figure. The two linked articles in the Sources line (¶18-¶19) cover some of it, but the thread does not map figures to them. *Fix:* put the source next to each figure. - **Poll of plugin makers as industry evidence, ¶7 "In a poll of plugin makers, 80% said."** No sample size or selection method is given, and respondents who chose to answer a plugin-business poll skew toward vendors with an interest in the topic. *Fix:* give n and the recruitment method. - **Average hides the distribution, ¶29 "The average yearly license gets paid for 2.7 years."** The break-even is a threshold on r, but the thread compares it to an average. The thread's stepped rates (¶26) extended with 80% give about 3.2 paid years and about 17% more for lifetime, not 40%. Customers with renewal above 73% are the ones for whom lifetime loses, and those may be the ones likeliest to choose lifetime. *Fix:* show the curve and the paid-years calculation, and note selection. - **Cushion figure not reproducible, ¶14.** "A little over 2 years" does not follow from the ¶13 inputs under a constant 10% shortfall (about 4.5 years). *Fix:* show the assumed shortfall path. - **Ambiguous time windows, ¶11.** "In the year from April 2025, recovered 7% over the next 12 months" reads as ending after the publish date. *Fix:* give explicit start and end months. - **Method hidden, ¶1.** Naming Claude as the analyst without the prompt or data gives a figure an authority it hasn't earned. *Fix:* publish the prompt, the data and the output. #### Tone of voice - Plain, candid and numeric, with a vendor's interest in showing the decision was sound ("lifetime is working out for us"). The tone is more careful than typical vendor posts: it states a small scale, says the result "may not" transfer, and shares unfavorable numbers (new licenses at 62% of the 2024 pace, ¶11). It reads as peer-to-peer sharing in response to a named peer (¶1), not marketing. ## 🛡️ DARVO analysis Not applicable to this source. DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) describes a response pattern to an accusation. This thread responds to a peer's tweets with data, and no accusation appears in the captured text. Each prong is still checked. - **Deny.** None. The thread discloses unfavorable numbers (¶11) and admits limits (¶11, ¶30). - **Attack.** None. No person or vendor is criticized. Katie Keith and Barn2 are credited as the prompt (¶1) and as a data point (¶7). - **Reverse victim and offender.** None. The text describes customers who left ("shops that left", ¶13, ¶24) without blaming them. ## 🎯 Conclusion Marco Almeida, a plugin vendor, uses a response to Katie Keith's sales tweets to publish industry figures, a three-cause reading of falling new sales, and Naked Cat Plugins' own license and renewal data. The strongest content is the follow-up (¶21-¶29): 83% of lifetime buyers were new customers, 62% of yearly renewals get paid, the first renewal is 55%, and manual-payment renewals run 42% against 65%. The break-even rule (lifetime at 3.75x loses above about 73% renewal) reproduces as 1 − 1/3.75 under a constant-renewal model. The thread's own stepped rates imply about 3.2 paid years and about 17% more for lifetime, not the 2.7 years and 40% reported, so the margin is thinner than the thread says even though the direction holds. What the thread does not establish: how Claude was used, which figures belong to the author and which to Barn2 (¶4-¶7), the sources behind the poll, the WordPress share, the WooCommerce decline and the Pew figures, how 2.7 years and the cushion were computed, and what the eight images show. The Sources line does link two wpproducttalk.com articles. The three causes are the author's reading, not a test. **Next steps for readers:** open the two linked wpproducttalk.com articles and the two Keith tweets and match each industry figure to a source. If you price a lifetime license, run the break-even on your own renewal curve, not only your average. Ask for the method when a number is presented as the result of an AI analysis. ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — Plugin sales are falling: Naked Cat Plugins on renewals, lifetime licenses and the 73% break-even > Density: 2–5 Literature atoms (H1 pad), 0–3 Permanent candidates (P pad). > Emitted: 5 Literature, 2 Permanent. Resonance filter applied: the three-cause list, the > industry figures and the cushion estimate were dropped as unlinked or not reproducible. > > Konik claim-header rules: present tense, declarative, ≤10 words, searchable, unique. > > Atomicity: one declarative sentence per atom. "and"/"also" → split. > > Tag pool: #bmf · #addendum · #xref · #articleseed · #storystem · #share · #aphorisms ### 📚 Literature Split Pad #### [H1] The author asked Claude to analyze the numbers > [!quote] [¶1] > I decided to ask Claude to look at our @NakedCatPlugins numbers from the last 2.5 years **Context & use**: - ¶1, the only statement about method. The thread shows no prompt, data export or output. - Keep with the Logical validity finding on hidden method when citing any figure in the thread. **Tags**: #xref #articleseed <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H2] Lifetime at 3.75x loses only past a renewal threshold > [!quote] [¶15] > Per customer, a lifetime license at 3.75x only loses if they would have renewed for more than 3.75 years. **Context & use**: - ¶15, the break-even rule. ¶28 and ¶30 restate it as about 73%. - My derivation: 1/(1 − r) = 3.75 gives r = 73.3% under a constant-renewal model. A renewals-only model gives 78.9% and doesn't match. **Tags**: #xref #aphorisms #share <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H3] Lifetime barely ate into recurring revenue > [!quote] [¶24] > So lifetime barely ate into recurring revenue. **Context & use**: - ¶24, following ¶22-¶23: 83% of lifetime licenses went to new customers, 8.5% to prior yearly customers of the same plugin. - A per-license answer to the cannibalization question. It rests on the author's own tracking and shows no data. **Tags**: #xref #articleseed <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H4] Manual-payment renewals run far below automatic ones > [!quote] [¶27] > With Multibanco or MB WAY, where the customer must pay each renewal manually, only 42% renew. **Context & use**: - ¶27, against 65% for card or PayPal in the same paragraph. - A concrete reason to favor automatic renewal. My derivation: a 62% blended rate implies about 13% of renewals are manual. **Tags**: #xref #share <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H5] The author says lifetime may not transfer > [!quote] [¶30] > So lifetime is working out for us, but it may not for you. **Context & use**: - ¶30, the thread's bound on its own conclusion, with the break-even restated. - Keeps the lifetime result from being read as general advice. **Tags**: #xref #aphorisms <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ### 🧠 Atomic Split Pad #### [P1] A break-even threshold needs the renewal curve **Claim** (one sentence, Courtney's voice): When I price a lifetime license as a multiple of the yearly price, I test the break-even against the whole renewal curve, because a constant-rate threshold and an average paid-years figure can both hide the shape. **Evidence pointer**: [[#H2]] · [[#H4]] **Scope & conditions**: Holds when renewal rates change by year, as the thread's 55%, 67%, 71%, 79%, 80%+ do (¶26). The constant-rate formula 1/(1 − r) reproduces the thread's 73% and is a fair approximation near 62%. With the stepped curve the expected paid years are about 3.2, not 2.7, and lifetime's edge is about 17%, not 40%. The thread gives no cohort data, so treat the correction as a derivation from stated rates. **Links**: - [[Subscription pricing models]] — because extends - [[Average versus distribution]] — because contrasts on what a single figure hides - [[Lifetime license pricing]] — because applies-in plugin businesses <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [P2] Separate who owns each figure before citing it **Claim** (one sentence, Courtney's voice): When a thread mixes a vendor's own numbers, another company's numbers and unlinked industry figures, I tag each figure with its owner before I cite any of them. **Evidence pointer**: [[#H1]] · [[#H3]] **Scope & conditions**: Holds for threads that quote or embed other posts, where first-person wording can hide the owner (¶4-¶7). Weakens when the source supplies its own labels. The source here has two linked articles (¶18-¶19) that may cover some figures, so the unlinked label means no link on the figure, not no source. **Links**: - [[Vendor self-reported results]] — because extends - [[Method disclosure for AI analysis]] — because contrasts on whether the method can be checked - [[WordPress plugin business data]] — because applies-in sales and renewal reporting <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - [F1] Open the two wpproducttalk.com articles and match each industry figure (80% poll, WordPress share, WooCommerce, Pew) to one — https://wpproducttalk.com/blog/sales-decline-reasons/ #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Open question: are ¶4-¶6 an embedded Keith tweet, and are the 48% and −6% Barn2's? — https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2/status/2110354434404352334 #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Ask how 2.7 paid years and the "little over 2 years" cushion were computed #fleeting #inbox - [F4] Article seed: "Where 73% comes from: the break-even renewal rate for a lifetime license" #fleeting #inbox #articleseed - [F5] Add alt text for the thread's eight images when sharing the figures #fleeting #inbox ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) - [ ] Match the industry figures in the plugin sales thread to the two wpproducttalk.com articles — verification, 20 min #things - [ ] Run the lifetime break-even on a stepped renewal curve in a spreadsheet — pricing check, 30 min #things <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Tweets/Based on @KatieKeithBarn2's Tweets About Plugin Sales, I Decided To....md|Based on @KatieKeithBarn2's Tweets About Plugin Sales, I Decided To... by Marco Almeida]] ## Highlights - Based on @KatieKeithBarn2's tweets about plugin sales, I decided to ask Claude to look at our @NakedCatPlugins numbers from the last 2.5 years, and at what other plugin businesses are reporting. A thread: ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m566341sxpq48yhk1d92dy6p)) - Note: [H1] The author asked Claude to analyze the numbers - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - Per customer, a lifetime license at 3.75x only loses if they would have renewed for more than 3.75 years. That is a renewal rate above about 73%. Below it, lifetime comes out ahead. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m56636c4k7m1dny71j186rxz)) - Note: [H2] Lifetime at 3.75x loses only past a renewal threshold - Tags: atom/literature/h2 - So lifetime barely ate into recurring revenue. The drop from tweet 7 is mostly due to fewer new yearly sales and shops that left. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m56638j4nk44r7qwwwwfq3sr)) - Note: [H3] Lifetime barely ate into recurring revenue - Tags: atom/literature/h3 - @NakedCatPlugins Payment method matters: licenses on card or PayPal, which renew automatically, renew 65% of the time. With Multibanco or MB WAY, where the customer must pay each renewal manually, only 42% renew. (We do not accept these payment methods for new licenses for 1+ years.) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m5663b40f8wh7nhbjpkxhj34)) - Note: [H4] Manual-payment renewals run far below automatic ones - Tags: atom/literature/h3 - @NakedCatPlugins So lifetime is working out for us, but it may not for you. At 3.75x, it pays off with renewals below about 73%, and yearly earns more above that. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m5663da6qscqc0cebkdsccg2)) - Note: [H5] The author says lifetime may not transfer - Tags: atom/literature/h3