Comments on: The future of WordPress is premium plugins

By: Mikey Leung

Mikey Leung — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:38:45 +0000

I also don’t mind the premium model as long as it still offers me great value and a serious drop in development time. But the price for me is of serious concern. Like Jason King, I also develop sites for many non-profits and arts organisations, and we need the value offered by the resources out there and that’s what makes WordPress so valuable to me.

A subscription model with an upfront payment, like the one offered by WooThemes, seems to work well in my business, but the individual payment model offered at Wp-Plugins, plus the lack of quality control, means that some developers are pitching their plugins at super expensive prices that don’t have the corresponding quality.

I pay for the Woothemes model because there’s support, upgrades, and a community who finds errors and issues more quickly than I do, all of which saves me time and allows me to develop more sites more quickly. So I hope this model can be applied successfully when it comes to plugins, where as the plugin developers that I quickly saw on the site didn’t seem to be providing quality plugins yet. Waiting to see more..

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Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:03:49 +0000

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By: James

James — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:24:23 +0000

Thanks :) We’re definitely thinking about that… the aim is to get a decent critical mass together first off and then improve from there.

By: Dan Butcher

Dan Butcher — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:14:42 +0000

This is a great idea! Are there plans to allow users to leave reviews/ratings of the plugins?

By: A WordPress Plugin App Store: Commodify and die! at bavatuesdays

A WordPress Plugin App Store: Commodify and die! at bavatuesdays — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:16:12 +0000

[...] Plugin App store a la iPhone apps. Another pay to play solution that is asserts that “the future of WordPress is premium plugins.” This development, like most of Farmer’s moves over the last year or so with wp.mu, [...]

By: Jeffikus

Jeffikus — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:34:24 +0000

Some very good points in here – “Developers have to eat too” – ultimately there will always be those that want a ‘free’ plugin or theme but premium offers the support that those using the plugins/themes will (usually) end up needing.

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:15:39 +0000

It appears that their will always be a “free” plugin comparable to a premium one, if you search hard enough. The users calls for it. Although, I do believe if you want that plugin NOW and it’s a new idea, then yes it’s going to cost money. But overtime, most of those plugins will end up as a free version somewhere done the line.

Premium themes are great when they offer something new and unique. Otherwise, I think many can jump from free to a professionally designed theme starting at least around $650+, once they have a dedicated audience.

By: Jason King

Jason King — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:04:52 +0000

Recently I used the Shopp e-commerce plugin for WordPress. Would it be fair to expect e-commerce functionality for free? No. For about $50? Absolutely. No way would I risk using a plugin that didn’t have support forums and hadn’t been updated in two years, not for something so vital.

I design a lot of websites for nonprofits clients and they don’t have much money. It’s more reasonable to ask them to pay a relatively small amount for a good premium theme than to expect them to pay for a theme to be designed from scratch. And the quality of paid-for themes is good: I’ve used WP-Remix, WooThemes and StudioPress themes and been happy to pay for them.

A market for premium themes and plugins obviously exists. So WPPlugins is an welcome move, look forward to seeing what it has to offer.

By: Trace

Trace — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:31:07 +0000

This is such a no brainer and this is probably the best team available to launch this, congrats guys.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:37:38 +0000

i would imagine it would be in both (with regards to the in-house plugins anyway). So the choice will be to go the premium route and get everything for one fee, or just get the ones you want individually. Also worth noting is that the wpplugins.com site is aimed primarily at WordPress plugins, whereas Premium is very much geared towards WPMU.