Multi-Site Licensing

Discussions
#1

I have an installable (not SaaS) product which is licensed under very simple terms: one copy of license means one installation with limited number of users. Four license types all in all.

Now, there were serveral requests multi-site licenses, with customers wanting to install several copies of the product on different locations.

What would be the correct way of introducing a multi-site option? Things I thought about:

  • Deny these kinds of requests altogether. This means either losing a customer or having them to purchase a separate license for each site.
  • Have four more “Multi-Site” licenses with some kind of price multiplier. This is what I’m leaning towards, but this entails having four more options and changing EULA
  • Tweak the EULA to allow multi-site installations for all licenses and, potentially losing money.

Your thoughts?

#2

Downloadables & EULAs aren’t my area, but I would definitely offer some kind of multi-site license. By not doing so, you make it harder for larger corporations, governments, universities, etc to do business with you.

It sounds like you’re hesitant to do so because of the work involved in changing your EULA, but it seems worth it to me. (And I don’t see any reason to do option 3.)

#3

Any recommendations on pricing, Corey? I’m thinking about 2x’ing the single-site ones.

#4

The more value they get, the more you should charge them. But keep it simple.

Another possibility is just to put the price of a multi-site licence as “Contact us”. Then negotiate on a case-by-case basis e.g. a bank can afford to pay more than a charity. Also you have their email now, so you can follow them up.

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#5

Definitely keep it simple and easy to understand.

My first reaction was a 10% discount on additional sites. (e.g., $100 first site, $90 2nd site, $90 3rd site, etc).

Adding multiple sites is easy money for you – you get a new purchase but don’t have spend marketing time & money to track down a new customer, added support load should be lower, etc.

I like @Andy’s “contact us” option, too.

#6

I might be the oddball here, but I cringe at the “contact us” option. As a small shop, I expect that on the other end of that phone number are hard sales people, who I hate talking to. If you have a single competitor that has up front pricing, I’m now leaning toward them.

If I’m a big company, I just make sure that my hardest negotiator calls and expect that mine is at least equal to yours. If you’re actually small, that means you’re going to be talking to people that are likely better than you at negotiations.

It actually seems like a lose-lose to me. But I’m also admittedly abnormally phone-adverse, so I might be an outlier here.

#7

The pricing should just be there for small shops. If you need multiple sites then you’re pretty much not a small shop by definition. It depends a lot on the existing pricing and all but contact us would probably be fine.

I’ve never done contact us, but we will be soon on HelpSpot for larger installs.

#8

In my experience a big company will not even bother to negogiate with you if the software isn’t that expensive. I’ve quite a few bigger cooperations as customers and they don’t care about the 10% discount they can get for the 100$ / seat software.

#9

My approach is: They can buy multiple licences at full price (no discount) and some people do. But they need to email me if they are interested in a discount for 3 or more users. I then quote them with a discount. I then follow them up a few time by email if they don’t purchase. I find this works pretty well.

I could automate the whole process. But I think it is worth taking a more personal approach for the bigger orders. It also allows me some flexibility on the discount to try to close the sale.

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