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OLD: Should I be selling Mockups For Desktop?
The desktop version of Balsamiq Mockups is currently not for sale, as it is mainly intended to be a way for customers of the plugin versions to edit mockups while offline.
Some users have expressed interest in buying the desktop version as a standalone product, but I am hesitant to offer it.
Let's chat about it! Why do you want the standalone version? How much would you like pay for it?
Some users have expressed interest in buying the desktop version as a standalone product, but I am hesitant to offer it.
Let's chat about it! Why do you want the standalone version? How much would you like pay for it?
I’m curious
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Inappropriate?I don't use any of the apps you currently have planned to plug into. I would like the ability to do mockups and just save them locally and email to my developer or post to something like Basecamp (a Basecamp integration would be great!) I could do that with the Live version but when traveling or when I just want to go sit in a park and do mockups then the desktop version would be great. I have no idea on pricing. As a one man shop myself it would have to be cheap and maybe thats why its not a good idea to do it.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?My main concern with selling the desktop version is that I won't be able to provide great support to everyone...as a one-person company I was shooting to get few big customers rather than lots of small customers. So how would people feel about forums-only support here on GetSatisfaction maybe) for the desktop version?
And as of price, how does $79 with perpetual free upgrades sound?
I’m curious
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Inappropriate?Hey there, an update. After talking to some other potential customers who practically begged me to accept their money, Balsamiq Mockups for Desktop is now for sale: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mock...
$79 a user, forums-only support. Give the people what they want! :)
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?I'm going to download and trial the software. It looks useful. But $79 does seem high for something such as this. $25 seems more like it. But hey, you should charge what the market will bear, and you won't know that for a while. -
Inappropriate?Thanks for the feedback Craig. You are right that I won't know if the price is right for a while. The way I thought about pricing is this: if Mockups saves you time, and your time is as valuable as I think it is, the ROI is pretty clear at $79. Also, I asked a few people what they'd be willing to pay for it and the answer was consistently "under $80". I was also told that my product is better than another that is also $79/user. We'll see. Thanks again for your feedback!
I’m curious
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Inappropriate?I think you could reach a wider market if you had a free or scaled down version with limited functionality that would sell for cheaper ($25 range). Then you could have an "Enterprise" version with integration into Confluence and/or SVN. I this from the perspective of a corporate user who's company uses both Confluence and SVN and a one man shop guy who could not justify $79 for the occasional mockup.
Just a thought! -
Inappropriate?Hey Dan, thanks for your thought. Instead of the $25 scaled down version, I give out a scaled down web version, as well as a scaled down desktop version, for free! Sure they nag you every 5 minutes to switch to a paid version, but they're designed to be useful for the "one man shop guy" doing "the occasional mockup".
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Inappropriate?Hi - it might be that I'm in a bit of an odd position, being a teleworking permie, but thoughts on the pricing are that at $25, it's something that I'd have a look at & if I thought it might be useful, would buy myself. At $79, however, I'd not buy it from my own pocket & it'd then have a much higher 'bar', in that I'd have to justify it. As I'd not need anticipate needing it for anything other than informal internal discussions, I'm not sure if it I could make a case for it. On the other hand, would lowering the price bump the sales up that much? -
Inappropriate?I think that nearly 100 bucks just for the ability to save and export the mockups is *way* too much and the lack of the feature makes the free version pretty much useless (yes, I could take a screenshot but i won't be able to edit the thing later).
Why not offer a free version (and allow saving) but add much cooler features like importing custom/extra UI elements and free-hand drawing tools to the paid versions? That will make the $80 charge a little more reasonable. -
Inappropriate?Hi Inko9nito and thanks for your feedback. I'll try to explain why I chose $79 for the desktop version and why I'm happy with it, but first let me tell you that the demo version allows you to export your mockups as XML, so that you can save them to a text file. Later you can import them using the "Import Mockup" menu. I agree, not the easiest way to save your data, but IMHO it's better than nothing, for a free version. Furthermore, the live version saves everything you do as you do it, so when you go back to it you'll find stuff as you left it.
Ok, now on why it's $79. As you might have guessed from my post above, I was hesitant to sell Mockups For Desktop at all. My fear was to not be able to provide excellent customer support to all of my customers (Balsamiq is a one-person company for now). So I asked a few users if they'd be ok with forums-only support and what they'd be willing to pay for a personal license of Mockups.
Everyone was ok with GetSatisfaction-only support so I added that to the EULA, and everyone more or less indicated a price "from $25 to $80". One user also told me that a competing product was being sold for $79 and that he thought my product was better. I admit I only had a small sample of people, but that's all I could reach at the time.
So, given that I fear that having too many customers will have a negative impact on the level of customer service I want to be able to provide to them, I went for the high end of the range, $79.
I also decided to give free licenses of Mockups for Desktop to bloggers and do-gooders at that time, details here: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mock...
I have only been live for 2 and 1/2 weeks, but so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with lots of people using the web version for free, me giving away over 30 licenses and a good number of people (30+) buying the desktop version.
I hope this explains my thinking a bit more.
Peldi
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Inappropriate?I'm so glad you have created this wonderful product. For me it is critical that you have a desktop version and I'll pay the $79 - although I agree that at $25 I would not have to justify it...
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?I paided the $79. Seems more than fair to me...
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Inappropriate?Hi Giacomo,
I'd like to thank you again for making the desktop version available. From my point of view, if a product can save me hours of time, and produce better results, the price point of $80 is completely justifiable. Think about it: if it saves me just 2 hours as a web architect, I've made more than my money back.
Granted, for an individual who doesn't use this at work, the $80 price point may be a bit out of the norm ($49 is probably closer to the home consumer market, i.e. games, etc.). But of course there's always the free version.
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?I'm going to agree with the comment made by Miggl. The product is absolutely worth $79--if I'm using it at work. Anybody that works for a company that needs a tool to do GUI mockups should easily be able to justify spending $79 on this tool. As Peldi suggests, how much of your time is it giving back to you?
At the same time, if I were using this for myself and NOT asking the company to pay for it, I'd think twice before spending $79. $49 would be easier, and $29 puts it in the "no-brainer" category for a personal purchase.
So, who's the target audience? Where do you make the money? What's the price point that brings in a real crowd? These are all the classic software company questions, and I think Peldi's off to a great start.
I’m more than satisfied.
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Inappropriate?Also gladly paid $79, am very happy, and am looking forward to being happier with 1.5 (when I can unlock a single item)!
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Hi Rajatrocks, thanks! You can start using 1.5 today if you'd like. The pre-release version is here: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mock... - it's fairly solid by now, and I could always use more help testing it! ;) -
Inappropriate?I guess you are glad now that you took the leap and started selling Balsamiq for Desktop? :)
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?This thread should be deleted as the title is really old and pretty scary when you consider that people reading this site might get confused and think your planning to phase out the desktop version.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Good point Michael. I'll archive it after I sign up for the admin tools.
