Subscription or lifetime license?

Luis Hernandez Peña
1 reply
I'm currently selling a web design and programming software for Windows. As you need to download and install the software in order to use it, I have been using a traditional business model with a 30 days free trial with a single payment lifetime licence option. Recurring inclome comes from new major version releases, as existing customer may optionally upgrade with a 50% discount. As a user, would you prefer a subscription model? We currently charge about 70$ for a lifetime license. How much should I charge for a monthly subscription? Any ideas or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Replies

Daniel Engels
A product with a monthly subscription of 23 USD would be sold for 70 USD on AppSumo (that's a 95% discount over a 5 year lifespan). AppSumo attracts users with such an extreme discount. You're not obliged to be as generous -I just wanted to illustrate the logic. If you want the lifetime deal be represent a 50% dicount compared to 5 years monthly subscription, your monthly fee should be 2.33 USD. I dont't think setting "lifetime" to more than 5 years makes sense in your highly dynamic domain. So the only parameter you may play with is the discount inciting to take the lifetime license. The equation is simple!