Charge money + 25% maintenance annually.
Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#62I wrote an electron app and I just charge per license. It's an Apache Parquet format viewer https://www.parquetviewer.com I've actually specified that a single license is per a single user but can be installed on multiple machines. I've had several users request this.
How are u managing piracy? With a same username or license - can the software be used by many people? Or you can lock some license remotely?
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#63JetBrains style - pay for a license to use the software forever, and get a year's worth of updates. Buy a new licence after a year if they want the next update. Maybe offer a discount for renewal.
Wait, if you JetBrains license expires, you can still use the product without receiving updates? I thought it would allow a grace period like the demos and then refuse to work.
Yeah, it keeps working. It's great. I paid for my license last year, in a year or two if it starts to feel buggy I'll pay again. I'm very happy with their software, it's made me a lot of money in productivity gained.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#64Genuine question - why an electron app and not an iPad app (or even iOS/android app) ? Is there a massive amount of data entry that is not suited for an iPad or phone(iOS/android) ? Given the fact that you can probably record the video of the lift using the device camera, plus a few more obvious advantages...wouldn't it be better to do it this way ? Plus your distribution+billing is also sorted (using the Play Store/…
The people that would be using it arent really the ios/ipad type... its hard to explain without sounding like Im stereotyping.
I really recommend you do customer discovery here (just like what YC would teach you). Given the number of lifters who are Instagram savvy, I think you might be surprised.
If you do a ipad version, remember you can make it keyboard friendly, so even that reason is out.
I can think of more and more things that are only possible in the mobile version - bar code/QR code scanner (in case you are selling tickets to the event), livestreaming to YouTube/Instagram, etc
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#65Charge money + 25% maintenance annually.
Unless you offer phone support and an SLA, 20% is much more common.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#66Charge money + 25% maintenance annually.
Unless you offer phone support and an SLA, 20% is much more common.
It used to be.
Customers failure to fight subscriptions made everyone realize that you can extract much more money from them. Back in the day, only big vendors like Microsoft got away with wacky high maintenance percentages.
I see even little vertical vendors come in with 30-35% proposals all of the time lately.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#67I created Video Hub App - https://videohubapp.com/ (Electron app)
I sell per download for $3.50 minimum (users can pay more if they would like). It was released last year around the same time and now has 473 copies sold. Late last year I made it open source: https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App
Unsure if anything I shared is valuable to your situation. I chose against using licenses / serial numbers / etc - fewer headaches. Makes the user experience better I suppose.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#68B2B sales! Message me if you want to chat further
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#69> The user would then need to connect to the internet after the competition, log in, pay, and then could get their decrypted competition results.
Can you rely on them eventually connecting to the internet after the competition?
Can you add a cloud component that stores and shares the results online that they'd want to access?
Is it important to encrypt the local results? I would worry about getting successful first before wasting even a small amount of time on copy protection. People that are going to burn their own time breaking copy protection and risk legal consequences for the sake of a few $100 are unlikely to ever be your customers anyway.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize software that runs mostly offline?
#70What companies are trying to build mindshare among weightlifters and their coaches? ESPN for competition TV shows? Companies that make weightlifting gear, clothes, training products? Reach out and white label the product so they can pay you an annual maintenance contract, you stick their brand on it, they promote it and distribute it for free. One transaction per year so no licensing systems required.