A couple months ago while researching an add-on to I noticed a concerning trend in ExpressionEngine add-on sales. Some add-on devs charge more for their add-ons on devot:ee compared to their own sites. Let’s get right to the point: charging the customers a premium to use devot:ee to purchase add-ons is short-sighted and bad for both the ExpressionEngine ecosystem and the add-on market. The collateral damage this creates should be unacceptable to every single add-on developer.
The main argument centers around the fact that devot:ee is paid a 20% commission on all orders done through their site. So, an add-on like Backup Pro, which retails for $30, earns devot:ee $6. I personally find this to be more than a fair arrangement. devot:ee handles any returns, deals with fraudulent orders, allows customers to transfer licenses, pretty much markets the product for me, and allows customers to find related add-ons to what they are looking for. Compared to other outlets for third party code, like CodeCanyon, 20% is a straight up bargain. Further, considering just how much effort (lots and lots) and overhead (lots and lots) an operation like devot:ee requires it’s almost a wonder they’re able to operate under such a low commission. Yet some developers essentially want to tack that 20% on to the price of their add-ons sold on devot:ee which would, for example, make the cost of Backup Pro $36 (give or take) on devot:ee while undercutting them on their own site.
Without devot:ee we’d have to build out an infrastructure to handle support, painless returns, fraudulent orders (of which I’ve personally had a few), license transfers, and promotion, and would be prohibitively expensive to developers. Sure, a couple add-on devs would thrive, but the large community of add-on devs we have now wouldn’t exist. Frankly, devot:ee is needed for the ExpressionEngine community and ecosystem. I don’t believe it’d be possible to refute that. If you’re an add-on developer, keep this in mind; it’s important.
And why shouldn’t devot:ee profit? We, the developers, do. Without devot:ee it’d be pretty much impossible to reach the heights a lot of developers have hit doing what we love without building out our own e-commerce sites. Then we’d have to also handle all the ancillary parts of actually running an e-commerce store, something that would have prevented me, personally, from even entering the market. Were it not for devot:ee I’d likely still be doing Open Source work which would definitely affect the quality of some add-ons (you’d may be amazed how motivating profit is). I think we all understand, if not even respect, this. The point though is that it’s pretty back handed IMHO to use a platform to build a business and then undercut said platform at the last step.
That said, when developers charge a premium for their products on devot:ee it increases the mental costs when purchasing add-ons and creates a lack of trust in devot:ee. This then creates a lack of trust and ease of use for the ExpressionEngine community and platform as a whole. I’ve heard a couple stories of various customers returning add-ons to devot:ee because they found it cheaper elsewhere. It’s even gone so far as a couple customers drawing the conclusion that devot:ee is themselves increasing the prices on their end which definitely makes devot:ee look shady and untrustworthy. This should be unacceptable to all add-on devs.
Moreover, considering that the number one competitor of ExpressionEngine has solved the plugin “problem” so elegantly and completely it’s clearly ill advised to do anything to increase the transactional costs of extending the platform. Charging more on devot:ee does this unequivocally. It changes the paradigm for purchasing add-ons from a simple process of checking devot:ee and purchasing an add-on to instead being one that is motivated on price and comparative shopping (our clients/bosses demand this after all). This, to me, is the big one (I’m lazy like that). I use devot:ee because it’s convenient. The fact that I can go to one site and handle 100% of every aspect of add-on purchases (as a customer) is huge.
But the issue doesn’t seem to be the amount devot:ee is paid but rather that some developers don’t see what their actions mean in broader terms. Depending on who you talk to it’s either the perception of a developer losing 20% or customers getting a savings that is at issue. Either issue doesn’t really exist though in any real way that can’t be alleviated with a little change in perception.
Taking the perception of loss first, this one’s simple. Include the cost of devot:ee into your add-on. This is just simple economics. You cover the costs of your expenses within the product you’re selling. The great thing about this though is that when you do sell consistently across both devot:ee and your personal/business site you actually gain an additional 20% from each purchase not on devot:ee. This is the picture of win/win; customers get to choose how they want to purchase their add-ons, a devs expenses are kept in check, and devot:ee loses nothing in terms of perception and trust. Plus, when/if a customer buys direct from the developer the profit increases. Win/win/win/win.
The flip side is the idea of saving a customer some money. There’s no other way to describe this than plain silly. Competing on price, especially at the margins an add-on sells for, is just not really needed IMHO. Think about it; using Backup Pro as an example, compared to the cost of ExpressionEngine alone, $6 give or take is just not worth noticing in any meaningful way. When you add in the cost of the developer, designer, and all the software, a saving of $6 is just laughable. Even at a larger scale, with, for example, 10 add-ons spread across all the premium add-ons that are over $100 each, the savings is less than even an hour of a professional’s time. Focusing on a single add-on developer the savings are straight up laughable. Seriously, it would cost more to even consider any discount than the discount would save. Still, our clients and/or bosses will expect us to pinch pennies regardless of time investment.
With all that said, I honestly can’t think of a single compelling reason to undercut devot:ee. There’s just too much at stake. Sure, there may be some short term gains for developers but customers have almost nothing to gain when compared to the already extensive expenses for building and maintaining a website. The potential for devot:ee to look shady is very real when customers see the discrepancies. Worse though, is that the ancillary costs of purchasing an add-on are increased which, when compared to the competition, is simply unacceptable.
Obviously, we’re all able to do what we want and price our products as we see fit. I just hope this has given some food for thought and the bigger picture is taken into account.