What is the latest thinking of having different editions of a software product?

Discussions
#1

I am working on the next version of my desktop software. At the moment I have two editions https://wordcleaner.com/buy/

Standard is $99, and Business is $199. About 1/3 of people buy the Business version, and 2/3 buy the Standard version. So I suppose the overall income from each is the same.

I have a few thoughts:

Does listing lots of features differences just confuse users when they go to buy? Does it create hesitation? Is it better to have one version to keep the buying process simple? Or maybe just have one feature difference, e.g. in the standard version, it converts just one file at a time in the business version it bulk converts?

Or maybe just have one version but have some kind of premium support addon that business customers could go for? Are addon services a better way to make extra cash?

Or maybe just concentrate on business customers and direct casual users to our web version where plans start from $5?

Should I keep both versions but call the cheaper one something else like personal?

I am trying to get the balance right between home/freelance users who are paying for it out of their pocket and business users who don’t care what the price is as long as it works.

A competitor actually sells their product for $399, is there an argument for going more up market and just targeting business users?

Would appreciate any thoughts.

#2

I have a hard time understanding how API is different from Component. Also the desktop version’s features are a bit crowded.

A more “traditional” table layout with a column for each tier would be easier to parse:
https://www.helpscout.net/pricing/ – texts
https://later.com/pricing - check marks & texts

#3

Definitely, go with a more traditional pricing table layout as mentioned by @ivm

Regarding Pricing:

Since you have 1/3rd of customers buying the Business version, it is likely that you are pricing it too low and leaving money on the table. The only way to know this is by testing.

What I would do is have three tiers named accordingly to be “aspirational”. The plan names should define your customers. Regarding feature differentiation, if you cannot think of adding any features to differentiate the Enterprise version, simply keep the same features as the Business one, but add premium support only to Enterprise.

  • Hobby/Freelancer: $99
  • Business $199
  • Enterprise $499

Once done, you basically wait and watch and see if someone buys the business version at $499.

If no one does, you should not have lost anything by doing this test as people will still be buying the $99 and $199 versions. However, if people do purchase it, then you know that your market is not as price sensitive as you think. (Yay!). As a beneficial side effect, you may also find that the number of people purchasing the $199 version might significantly go up, due to price anchoring done by the Enterprise plan.

Regarding Features:
I am not your target market, so do take all this with a grain of salt.

I am overwhelmed with the options - desktop software, web-based software, API and components. It is likely that your target market consists of (i) business owners who would use the desktop/web versions and (ii) developers who would use the API/components. You should have a separate pricing page for each of the users.

If your main business is selling the desktop software and you are venturing into the web, then I suggest only showing the 3 plans for desktop software and having links at the bottom that say “Looking for a web version?” , “Looking for API/component?” and the links take the user to the appropriate page. Later on, if you find that you want to promote the web version more than the desktop version, then you simply switch them.

Hope that helps.

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#4

Wow that is excellent advice. I appreciate it :slight_smile:

If I can help you out in any way in return, please do ask.

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