AIDA64 pricing needs update

[Tomorrow]

I feel like AIDA64 pricing is all over the place right now.

The cheapest edition for home users is $60 annually. That's way too expensive for a monitoring software. Much more complex software (that is native 64bit and has dark mode) costs less. Also the fact the the cheapest edition is named Extreme. Should there not be a Basic edition for $20 and with a longer lasting license?

Also the Engineer and Business edition pricing makes no sense. Why is Engineer priced the same as Business, when Business is a superset of Engineer in terms of features?

Why would ANYONE buy Engineer edition when they can buy the Business edition for the same money and get a superior version with what seems very similar licensing terms?

Engineer edition should cost less.

Here are my proposed prices:

 

Basic: $20 annually or $60 3-Year license. Cuts benchmarking and stress testing features from Extreme. Also limits license to 1 PC instead of 3 like Extreme.

Extreme: $60. Stays the same as now.

Network: $130. Stays the same as now.

Engineer: $180. Price lowered to reflect inferior feature set.

Business: $220. Stays the same as now.

[Fiery]

11 hours ago, Tomorrow said:

I feel like AIDA64 pricing is all over the place right now.

The cheapest edition for home users is $60 annually. That's way too expensive for a monitoring software. Much more complex software (that is native 64bit and has dark mode) costs less. Also the fact the the cheapest edition is named Extreme. Should there not be a Basic edition for $20 and with a longer lasting license?

Also the Engineer and Business edition pricing makes no sense. Why is Engineer priced the same as Business, when Business is a superset of Engineer in terms of features?

Why would ANYONE buy Engineer edition when they can buy the Business edition for the same money and get a superior version with what seems very similar licensing terms?

Engineer edition should cost less.

Here are my proposed prices:

 

Basic: $20 annually or $60 3-Year license. Cuts benchmarking and stress testing features from Extreme. Also limits license to 1 PC instead of 3 like Extreme.

Extreme: $60. Stays the same as now.

Network: $130. Stays the same as now.

Engineer: $180. Price lowered to reflect inferior feature set.

Business: $220. Stays the same as now.

First of all, we've kept the same price of $39.95 for 17 looong years (for the Extreme edition).  If you calculate with only 2 percent average annual inflation -- not counting the jump in the inflation rate recently -- the base price would already be $58.2 by now.  The only issue is that we haven't followed the slow pace of inflation by slowly increasing our prices, but instead offered it for the same (IMHO by now quite low) price.  The sharp jump in inflation forced us to alter our prices, but they're still lower than what simply by following inflation would bump them up by now.

As for basic edition, no, we're not interested in cutting the features set and make a lower-priced edition for home users.  We will do the opposite and offer more features for a higher price actually.

The rest is well, it's your take on our prices, and I appreciate your input.  But we have a different idea about our pricing scheme.  You may also want to study the licensing scheme more thoroughly: the Engineer and Business editions target different type of use.  So it makes little sense to compare their prices against each other (apples vs. oranges).  Also, please note that you do not have to pay *whatever price* annually.  We've designed the licensing scheme so that you only should (may need to) purchase a renewal license when the old version no longer serves your needs.  You can skip 3 or 4 years and enjoy AIDA64 as long as it fulfills your needs.  You do not need to renew AIDA64 every year if you e.g. don't upgrade to the latest Windows and don't upgrade to the latest hardware.  Only those folks who live on the cutting edge of PC hardware+software are the ones that actually find it necessary to keep renewing their licenses regularly.

[Tomorrow]

On 7/22/2023 at 6:58 PM, Fiery said:

First of all, we've kept the same price of $39.95 for 17 looong years (for the Extreme edition).  If you calculate with only 2 percent average annual inflation -- not counting the jump in the inflation rate recently -- the base price would already be $58.2 by now.  The only issue is that we haven't followed the slow pace of inflation by slowly increasing our prices, but instead offered it for the same (IMHO by now quite low) price.  The sharp jump in inflation forced us to alter our prices, but they're still lower than what simply by following inflation would bump them up by now.

As for basic edition, no, we're not interested in cutting the features set and make a lower-priced edition for home users.  We will do the opposite and offer more features for a higher price actually.

The rest is well, it's your take on our prices, and I appreciate your input.  But we have a different idea about our pricing scheme.  You may also want to study the licensing scheme more thoroughly: the Engineer and Business editions target different type of use.  So it makes little sense to compare their prices against each other (apples vs. oranges).  Also, please note that you do not have to pay *whatever price* annually.  We've designed the licensing scheme so that you only should (may need to) purchase a renewal license when the old version no longer serves your needs.  You can skip 3 or 4 years and enjoy AIDA64 as long as it fulfills your needs.  You do not need to renew AIDA64 every year if you e.g. don't upgrade to the latest Windows and don't upgrade to the latest hardware.  Only those folks who live on the cutting edge of PC hardware+software are the ones that actually find it necessary to keep renewing their licenses regularly.

I hope you're not forgetting that sudden jump inflation also affects your customers. That is why i suggested basic edition that is slightly more restricted but still offers good value even when prices are increasing for everyone. Im sorry you feel like home users should pay more for features they dont need or rarely use. And sure i get that for you it's easier to maintain fewer editions.

Could you elaborate on the licensing differences between engineer and business that justifies asking the same price for both?

Good to hear that you dont start nagging paid users if they dont renew annually. Unlike some others...

I still believe there is a place for a cheaper basic edition. Even if it cuts no features but only cuts the amount of licenses from 3 to 1.

Those that need to run in 3 different PC's at the same time can still buy extreme edition.

[Fiery]

9 minutes ago, Tomorrow said:

I hope you're not forgetting that sudden jump inflation also affects your customers. That is why i suggested basic edition that is slightly more restricted but still offers good value even when prices are increasing for everyone. Im sorry you feel like home users should pay more for features they dont need or rarely use. And sure i get that for you it's easier to maintain fewer editions.

Could you elaborate on the licensing differences between engineer and business that justifies asking the same price for both?

Good to hear that you dont start nagging paid users if they dont renew annually. Unlike some others...

I still believe there is a place for a cheaper basic edition. Even if it cuts no features but only cuts the amount of licenses from 3 to 1.

Those that need to run in 3 different PC's at the same time can still buy extreme edition.

As I've stated, the new, adjusted price still doesn't include the inflation rate spikes of late.  They are almost the same price as it were with a very steady 2% annual inflation rate, without spikes or drama.  And even then our existing customers have already saved a lot by us not raising prices every year by 2%, but instead doing a single adjustment at the end of the mentioned 17 years period.

Licensing differences are explained at https://www.aida64.com/licensing

As for the basic edition, please note that we're not interested in offering lower-priced products in general.  We may or may not lose market that way, but we're adamant that a lower priced product would simply cannibalize the market of the premium (Extreme) variant, and in the end it wouldn't be financially beneficial for us to maintain one more SKU.

[Tomorrow]

Ok. Thank you for the answers.

[Simon Collinson]

If the cow keeps giving milk, why kill the cow.

[Tomorrow]

On 11/28/2023 at 1:10 PM, Simon Collinson said:

If the cow keeps giving milk, why kill the cow.

Kill what exactly? I did not suggest killing or removing Extreme version. If anything this could add additional subscribers who never considered Extreme version.

Or to use your analogy - adding a smaller cow that adds 1/3rd of the milk of the bigger cow, does not mean you need to send your bigger cow to the slaughterhouse...