Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?
I see a lot of software that's priced at about $1000. Stuff like photoshop (formerly at least), hex-rays[1], ICC[2]. Who is the target audience for these products? Individuals/enthusiasts will be hard-pressed to come up with the money, while large companies will be able to afford it and could even buy 10 or 20 without a second thought. So who is expected to buy it?
1: https://www.hex-rays.com/
2: https://softwarestore.intel.com/SuiteSelection/ParallelStudio
44 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 94.9 ms ] threadAdobe now chargers a much more affordable per year subscription. Honestly I'd rather pay the $300 ~ $600 for a version that doesn't expire, but that's just me.
To answer your question: mid-level enterprise customers that need a very niche product.
FME is an ETL tool, using it just for the Data Inspector part would be a waste. In this scenario, QGIS would be also more comfortable and user friendly. On the other hand, QGIS cannot do what is FME's primary use - transform data.
2. QGIS is actually “better” at interpreting OSM than Arc, simply because people who work on free software like free data and there are many more plugins and tutorials that are based around OSM for QGIS. So it’s not “better” in the sense you might be implying, more like it’s just a much more typical dataset for the QGIS community than Arc and you reap the side benefits of that.
As other poster noted as well, the commercial options for QGIS sat the moment are not very good. I think Desktop GIS is an area that is ripe for Gitlab-esque disruption.
Most enterprise software is installed over a network and managed with a license manager. An unopened box is not a sign that the software hasn't been used.
There is a market segment between enthusiast and enterprise where people pay real money for software which supports their freelancing and consulting. Hex-rays and (and formerly photoshop) fit in this category. Similar things might be wireless site survey software, antenna/ EM modelling, CAD, all kinds of engineering software really. "Pro versions" of security software, landscaping software, you name it.
I have thought to do the same with Visual Studio, but VS Community Edition + ReSharper is basically VS Ultimate.
For HexRays... Its a really high price, and its software I don't make full use of, so i just keep working on the older, leaked versions instead.
https://www.waves.com/bundles#sort:path~type~order=.hidden-p...
Or some of the iZotope products:
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/repair-and-edit/rx-post-...
Certainly many of their customers are recording studios, but a lot are individuals. If you're a voice-over artist or producer, you probably don't mind spending this much if you're making money with it and it saves you time. If you're a professional, you're probably spending $1000+ just on a microphone anyway.
People designing things will buy a CAD package which can cost anywhere from $1,000 up to $50,000. Complex solvers like antenna simulation or computational fluid dynamics can command big prices. FPGA design software. Simulators.
The are lots of things $1,000 should get you when you pay that for software. It should get you a phone number that someone will answer during working hours. A support ticking system where a bug report will always be resolved to either a fix or a workaround.
Think of it this way, if you buy a piece of software that costs $1,000 and using it you can do work for a company that generates $100,000 in revenue? Then that is a not a bad investment.
If this is "freelancer-tier" pricing, and freelancers don't have to worry about a price-point beyond which they must fill out requisition forms, then software priced for them should just cost however much they're willing to pay (i.e. some percentage of how much money it makes them), which should vary with their revenue, rather than always ending up at a similar global price-point.
And if it's not "freelancer-tier" pricing; if it's something else—then what is it?
The original question says "~$1000" in the title, and "about $1000" in the explanatory text.
Clever software marketers have realized that a $999/mo SaaS product fits under that limit just as well as a $999 boxed product.
Yes, almost every large company has different purchase requisition approval processes based on the amount and often the type of expense, but they vary widely between companies and roles. There’s nothing magical about $1000 vs $500, $250, $0, or $2500. I’m not even sure $1000 is the mode; at least from my small sample, $0 and something larger ($2500 or $5000) are more common.
Also, in nearly all cases I’ve seen, large companies determine the approval process for anything with a monthly fee differently (generally using the total 1-year expense). If it ever existed, the “clever exception” is long gone now that companies buy a lot of SaaS.
Finally, usually larger enterprises are using SAP, Oacle ERP, Coupa, or a similar “Procure to pay” (yes, that’s what the category calls itself) product, and they have really complex approval rules by ledger category, not just amount.
(My own theory is that patio11’s otherwise-good blog post simplified things so far that many readers thought the specific thresholds it gave were a lot more common than they ever were.)
Typically $1000 doesn't get you fantastic support, you might get a year of email/phone, but don't expect much.
A one off payment of $1000 is nothing compared to some SaaS's that advertise hundreds of dollars a month for premium tiers, or tens/hundreds of dollars per user per month.
The same phenomen occurs for cars. People are always less critic when they have payed a lot.
So if your software cost $499 - then you may make more sales that if it would cost $1000 a pop.
http://www.ocr4linux.com/en:pricing:start
This pricing is prohibitive expensive for most private users.
$1000 one time (multiple users) - this is an investment quite affordable by small scale enterprise ($2M-$5M annual revenue) even in developing countries
$1000 one time (per user) - this is usually for the medium and large scale enterprises. But actually really affordable if the expected ROI is large, typically will apply to any software that deals with direct revenue generation e.g. Sales enablement
$1000 per year (per user)- this falls under the radar of even professional individuals if the software delivers something really critical for them. E.g. Adobe CC single user license
$1000 per month (per user) - this falls under the reach of medium and large scale enterprises depending on how many users need the software
$1000 custom built software - if you get yourself a custom built software for $1000 by paying a freelancer or a really low profile dev shop, then it is jackpot especially for an Enterpise. I assume/hope this is not what you had in mind.
All this is typically is for enterprises and I firmly believe the enterprise demand for software is why the software industry is as large and as sustainable as is today.
We should all thank software that are priced $1000 and above, they are in a way the reason for our existence (as software professionals/companies)
Strive to build such software and don't hesitate to price it as such.
I think Photoshop is still the standard for most things, although I've seen some movement in specific segments (e.g. UX and graphic design).
And then there's the large group that pirates the software, but those are potential future customers.
In my current job at a small business, there are things we spend $10k/mo on to make $1M/mo in revenue. Even if we were only making $100k/mo, those costs would not be prohibitive (though we might be looking at reducing them further).
Basically, you have to spend money to make money. If what you spend will allow you to make more than you're spending (and more than you'd make without it), it's worth it. The term many use for that sort of spending is "investment".
To reinforce it, there's that saying that some people know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.