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Torque

pricing

Pricing Your Projects Better

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Community

Published

November 25, 2013

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Does Anyone Know the Secret to Charging More? I’m regularly asked the secret to charging clients more money. Developers, designers, sales, and account folks all have the same question. This presumes three dynamics (which may or may not be true). The first presumption is that there is a single strategy, which once learned, will open the door to riches. The second is that it’s a simple strategy that can be adopted by anyone. The last presumption is that I know it and am willing to share it. Like I said, I don’t know if those three dynamics are all true. […]

How to Bill for Your WordPress Work

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Community

Published

October 9, 2013

7 Comments

I started Upstatement more than five years ago with my friends and partners. In addition to leading our WordPress development work, I’ve also lead our invoicing to make sure we’re paid. Over the years I’ve learned a lot (mostly, the hard way) about the best way to get properly paid. Here are some of my favorite strategies to making sure you’re paid for the hard work you put in. 1. “How much do you want to spend?” Be upfront of what the value of your services and spur an honest conversation with your client about what they want to pay […]

Easy to Start a Company, Hard to Build a Business

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Published

September 30, 2013

4 Comments

The other day I received an email about a new site (gplclub.org/club) that was offering over $2500 worth of premium WordPress themes, plugins and WooCommerce extensions. For $25. Then, two nights later, at our San Diego WordPress meetup, someone else stayed late to ask me about sites like these. Are they legal? What’s the hook? How do these work? My answer was pretty simple: It’s easy to start a company and hard to build a business. Easy to Start a Company Starting an online company requires 3 steps. First you have to pick a name. Then you need to get […]

The Cost of Support

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Published

September 12, 2013

10 Comments

As a human-type, I like things like food, clothing, shelter…and coding. Although it would be nice to live in a cave, throwing pointy sticks at other members of the food chain, my family—and stomach—may grow impatient. So instead, I am a developer. I do have my own little cave where I chip away at the code that is my livelihood, like my Neanderthal ancestors chipping away at an obsidian blade. He was a specialist too, cousin Og. Making blades, spear points and other hurty-type tools for his clan. I wonder though, when someone came to him and said, “Hey, that knife you […]

Bridging The Gap Between Developers and Users

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Community

Published

September 6, 2013

18 Comments

The open source nature of WordPress makes for interesting bedfellows. Users of WordPress are given access to tons of tools, many of them free, and are put in direct contact with the developers that made them. There are no layers of bureaucracy and customer service in-between as you get with typical tech companies like Apple or Microsoft. So you have scores of users used to the average business structure where if there’s a problem, there’s a number to call and someone to yell at, and these users are now interacting directly with developers who most of the time would rather […]

Thoughts on Pricing WordPress Plugins

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Community

Published

August 28, 2013

8 Comments

We all think we’re pretty good about assessing value, but we’re not. In fact, we’re all so bad, that one of the longest running game shows (since 1956) has been “The Price is Right.” Pricing is tough. There’s no two ways about it. And if you’ve heard me talk about pricing, I almost always use the same example to highlight my point. Predicting Value is Tough If I were to ask you if $40 for 80 oz of M&Ms was a good deal, how many of you would know? If you’re like audiences I speak to, few of you would […]

5 Sure-Fire Ways to Grow a WP Marketplace

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Community

Published

June 11, 2013

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It seems that a growing trend among marketplaces is to leverage a combination of the following pieces of strategy: Volume – Get as many authors in as possible. Brand Names – Get significant existing theme shops to commit to selling their products. Affiliate Program – Open up an affiliate program that works. Rewards, Bonuses – Create rewards based on sales figures and community engagement. Tier Pricing – Price competitively and tier the pricing and author cut based on sales, performance. Remix a couple times and you’ve got a decent shot at making a marketplace not fall completely flat on it’s […]

WPMU Changes (Increases) Pricing Structure

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Archives

Published

June 4, 2013

6 Comments

The guys over at WPMU are changing things up a bit, literally, as they’ve announced a new pricing for their premium service that’s going to see an increase for membership. It’s a change that’s been a long time in the making since the last time they updated their pricing was a literal 4 years ago: We’re going to remove quarterly and annual accounts – from next week all new accounts will be monthly only. And as a result a monthly account with unlimited updates and support to unlimited domains and the top end support you are used to now will […]

Pricing for Profit eBook via Chris Lema, James Dalman

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Archives

Published

March 20, 2013

3 Comments

One of the biggest challenges for freelancers and contractors, even us WordPressers, is making sure that we’re charging the right amount for the work that we get done. There are tons of strategies and even tools out there for those that are looking to figure out that “sweet spot” for project pricing but to be quite honest, there’s nothing better than just experience. But before you walk through the fire and flames where you may get burned for under-charging for your awesome skills, you may want to have Chris Lema and James Dalman (“Dalema”) take you under their wing for a […]

$150 for a WordPress.com Theme?

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Community

Published

February 15, 2013

9 Comments

A new bar has been set in terms of price over at the Premium Theme marketplace at WordPress.com as Further Theme has been released with a starting price point of $150.00 US. This makes it the most expensive WordPress.com theme currently available with Newsy coming in at second ($130) and Elemin at $115. All three are obviously marketed toward the more content rich and “news-ish” types of bloggers and website owners, but the price clearly puts it at the very top. The question is – is it worth the sticker price and sticker shock? The theme itself looks incredibly robust and has all […]

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