Archived CMSimple Support Forum

After creating templates for over 2 years now for cmimple, and trying to combat the license violators, what do you think about this ?

Should cmsimple templates be free to download ? or pay before you get them ?

Cheers
Mikey

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Well,

I guess you will sell more, if templates are free, for sure violating license will be more often too.

You may try - let's say for 4 weeks - to let customers pay first. Then compare the amount of sold licenses of this 4 weeks to the previous time.

Or you let them free, with some annoying hardcoded stuff inside, which will be removed when a license is purchased.


djot

CMSimple Addonsbydjot: http://www.internet-setup.de/cmsimple/
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thanks for you comments djot,

but i suppose at the end of day, if the template downloads V paid designs and link reomovals (unpaid) = NO $$ for the template designers,

then i expect if the trend keeps going, then template free downloads may become a thing of the past,

after all, who spends their personal time (100's hours) for nothing ?

cheers
Mikey

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SORRY

for the last 2000 posts ...

and for hundreds of hours of coding and answering forum questions for free .

... the decision is up to you. I don't like to code for free anymore, that's my decision, but I do it anyway ;)


djot

CMSimple Addonsbydjot: http://www.internet-setup.de/cmsimple/
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Because its hard to find out if a template matches the needs of my project only from a screenshot I need to make a test with my content, my fotos, my provider etc.

I agree to 'djot'. Let it free with basic functions for testing. Give the full template with a license.

And what about the service after purching a license? To make a template suiteable for a company, you have to replace logos, pictures, textboxes ..

bigachim

thanks for taking the time to comment,

all demo sites carry the following:

If you like this design, the download page is here. Remember, full license purchasers get free modifications to the top image area included if they wish to provide their own choice of images.

support has always been there for nearly 2 years with the above or similar text!

cheers
mikey

I really like Mikeys work and I agree to pay for it. It's not to much money for his quality.

But I understand the other opinions too.

So my advice is to let them free with some hard coded stuff inside for testing purposes or persons that don't agree to pay for the work and spend the maximum of your time for the templates/people who want to pay for it.

I also agree with johndoe to pay for it.

I think it´s hard for all CMSimple developers, programmers, designers, .... to keep their work for us users, alive.
It´s not done in developing plugins - you all did a great job in the forum to push thinks forward.
Good work should be paid.

I had a discussion with Mikey about his advertisments on his page - there was too much of it - so it should be possible to earn some mony with his work an not with advertisment.

My idea for you is:
Have a free area for older and simple templates - you won´t loose any clients.

New ones or complex templates should not be free.
You have to calculate the price for it - of course everybody should become rich - but maybe 10$/Template are enough - I think, there it makes the quantity of downloads/template and I think it´s much more than you´re able to earn with google.
That was just an example.
My Idea of this low price is that i think that you also intrestet in selling many templates. Direct inquiries should be much more expensive.

For me it´s also important to test the template before buying.

Kay

Mikey - you do such quality work, I think you should get something back for your efforts.

I would structure your work this way:

1) Make people apply for a site membership before download of anything (then you have a contact for them - it may not be valid long, but for others will be good forever).

2) Provide a dozen or so great designs of variety that demonstrate your work for free to registered people on your site.

3) Provide a demo page for all non-free pages (so folks can see the whole thing)

4) Charge a minor fee for download of any non-free design - I don't know what is fair - $12.50, $18 - what ever. Offer those with the right to remove the copyright banner.

5) Charge a custom fee for any additional work.

6) Offer a new free design to registered members for download for a few days via email to help promote your other designs for a few days...

Brad