tech.MichaelErb.net

There is irony in the fact that the amazing WordPress platform won’t cost you a penny to install and use since it is released under a GPL license, but heaven help you if you decide to start adding plugins. If anyone questions the greed taking place in the WordPress plugin development world, just take a look at the alarming trend of charging, what is arguably ridiculously exorbitant rates, for “premium” plugins.

This whole “premium” thing has been going on for a few years now… premium themes, premium plugins, premium hosting and premium this & that. It’s getting out-of-control and I am getting pretty fed-up with the entire situation.

I applaud the authors who spend countless hours developing useful plugins in the same spirit that WordPress itself is being developed

As far as open-source in general, I am a huge fan. I am also a huge fan of shareware and donation-ware. Once or twice a year I purchase bundles of shareware from places like MacHeist and MacUpdate. So for the record, I am not against paying for software, whether it’s a plugin or full-blown app. What I’m against is people or businesses who take advantage of other people and suck you into these ridiculous annual fee types of situations. It’s a freakin’ plugin, not a gym membership.

WordPress has the right idea. Matt, we all thank you very much for releasing WordPress under the GPL. Many fine plugins are open-source too. I applaud the authors who spend countless hours developing useful plugins in the same spirit that WordPress itself is being developed.

Users, if you use a plugin and it saves you time, money and gives you needed functionality, then donate to the plugin author for crying out loud. Otherwise this trend to charge for “premium” plugins will continue unabated. “Premium” does not necessarily equate with quality, by the way. This is actually a topic for another conversation, but I’d love to see a credible, rigorous, peer code review process for all WordPress plugins. If your plugin doesn’t stack -up, then it should be banned from seeing the light of day, or at least banned from the WordPress plugins repository. Also realize that you may not need a plugin to accomplish some things either. Not only can poorly coded plugins have  negative effects on site speed and performance, some might just be downright  dangerous and leave you open to exploits. As WPSHOUT mentions, “You don’t need a plugin for everything.” If you’re going to have the audacity to charge a premium price for your plugin, at least back it up with peer code review. Someone could make a lot of money offering this “accreditation.”

Please explain to me the justification for charging $50, $75, or more, ANNUALLY for a plugin that provides essentially a single function? It’s bad enough that these developers charge a premium price but the new game in town is to force you to re-up annually. You think Photoshop CS4 is expensive? Well add a half-dozen “premium” plugins to your blog and you’ll have paid the equivalent price as you would pay for Photoshop, if not more. Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty ridiculous.

I was actually going to “upgrade” my SEO plugin to the “premium” version. Why was I going to do that? Because I actually do believe in contributing to plugin authors and recognizing the hard work they do. Once I went to the plugin website, I discovered that in addition to the cost for the actual plugin ($39 on sale), the author charges an additional fee for support and upgrades ranging from $10 for one month, to $49 for 12 months. What? I’m paying for the plugin AND an additional amount for support and upgrades? Almost $100 for a SEO plugin? Crazy. For the record, a properly designed theme and WordPress alone will give you good SEO in most cases.

How about a nice Forms plugin. I’ve used the most excellent Forms plugin, cForms for years. I’ve also contributed many times to the author of cFroms. Oliver is a great guy and has put in hundreds and hundreds of hours developing cForms, yet he does not feel the need to charge a “premium” price for it. His price is $0. cForms won’t cost you a penny to use unless you choose to contribute, as I have. It’s an extremely powerful plugin that does many things that the “premium” forms plugin doesn’t do. And what does the “premium” forms plugin cost? Would you believe $199 for a developers license. You can buy FileMaker Pro for not much more, an extremely powerful, full-blown application. Should a plugin cost as much or more than a full application? Apparently quite a few WordPress plugin developers think so and judging by the trend, it’s a growing issue.

Ah, the astute reader will notice a new term thrown into the mix… “developer license.” You pay a huge amount more for the privilege to use the plugin on more than just a single site. So if you only want to use it on a single site, then you’ll pay $39. If you want to use it on 6 sites, then you’ll have to pay $199. You want fries with that Coke?

Let’s take a moment and do the math… You are a website developer and plan to build or update a total of 6 websites in the coming year. You’ve decided you want to use the premium Gravity Forms plugin, instead of the free cForms. That’ll run you $199. Ka-ching!

Throw in a little All-in-One SEO Pack – Pro version plus 1 year of support. $39. Ka-ching! plus another $49 for support. Ka-ching! (Headspace, a great alternative, is free.)

Now let’s throw in a little database backup plugin. Most people would use the free and excellent plugin, WP-DBManager, but not you. You’ve got money burning a hole in your pocket and fortunately there is a backup plugin that’s got your name on it… BackupBuddy, by the same great team that brought you overpriced “premium” WordPress themes. Today is your lucky day because BackupBuddy just recently became more expensive. Yup! Apparently $25 for an annual single site license wasn’t enough for the iThemes team… they just raised the price to $45. But don’t worry, you can also buy the “developer” plan for the low, low price of $150. Ka-ching!

So let’s add things up shall we?

$88 – All in One SEO pack
$199 – Gravity Forms
$150 – BackupBuddy
___________
$437.00

Your “free” installation of WordPress has just gotten pretty expensive hasn’t it?

I get the feeling you’ve got a bit more money that you want to spend so let’s just add a few more. How about a plugin to add rotating banners. Sure, there are tons of free plugins to accomplish that task but we want to spend MONEY. I’ve got just the plugin for you, Billboard + Rotating Images Pack… just $90 for the developers license. I know what you’re thinking… that’s such a good deal you want to buy two of them. Well you won’t have to because the developers license lets you use it on unlimited sites. Woo-Hoo. But don’t worry, you can pay again next year when your time for support and upgrades runs out. Ka-ching!

$437 + $90 = $527

We can do better than that. Let’s spruce up our site with a new “premium” theme. How about Thesis? Why not. It’s “only” $164 ( at least until v 2.0 comes out at which point it will cost more.) Let’s go for it. And even though it’s a developers license, you’ll still get to pay more because for each site that you deploy the theme on that you don’t own, you pay an additional fee. Oh yes, it’s true. Tack on another $36 for each additional site up to 5 or $32 for up to 10 sites you build using Thesis that is not your own personal site. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

$527 + $164 + $32 + $32 + $32 + $32 + $32 + $32 = $883

Not quite up to $1000 but I could easily get us up there if I tried.

Here’s the point. WordPress is an open-source, GPL’d platform that is free to use. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of plugins that provide great functionality that you won’t have to purchase or pay an annual fee for the right to use or obtain support. You may or may not be asked to donate. If you use the plugin, you should donate. It’s the right thing to do. It compensates the developer for the time they’ve spent on developing the plugin and possibly providing support.

If plugins were priced reasonably, without all the BS annual plans, support fees and yadda yadda, I’d buy them. What’s reasonable? How about $5-$20 period. One-time. Period.

Vote with your pocketbooks people. Support open-source, shareware and donation-ware. Email your favorite plugin developers and thank them for their work and contribution to the WordPress community. Unless you want to get nickle-and-dimed to death by those who make their living off a platform that has been provided for free, support freeware, shareware and donation-ware. You might want to even explore other CMS platforms such as CMS Made Simple, Joomla, Drupal or Concrete 5.