Interesting idea but plugin pricing has increased dramatically

Purchased the Agency package for version 3 a couple years ago and used to create some apps for clients but never fully launched. Overall experience with interface, features and plugins was positive and costs were roughly $588 first year with a 50% yearly renewal for up to 25 apps. Seemed like a nice add-on for small business clients without having to kill them price wise.

Upon version 4 release they basically left the existing Agency customers in the dark. I received an email months ago that they would be upgrading the agency package but have heard nothing else.

Today I checked current pricing and a single app with varying features runs $59/monthly charged per year up to $129/monthly per year.

The Agency package appears to be migrating to a Reseller package that is now priced at $199/monthly for up to 20 apps. In app purchases can be added for $20 per month per app for the Reseller package. Additionally support for the Reseller package also appears to have been reduced from the Agency package. If you added purchasing to all 20 apps and store submission costs you would be spending north of $7000 yearly. Would need to charge a significant monthly fee per app to clients to cover actual time of labor on top of base software costs.

Overall what looked promising a couple of years ago seems to have elevated cost wise to a point where I couldn’t see purchasing to experiment with unless I had close to 10 clients already signed up willing to pay monthly fees. To cover development time and support for the clients the budget app idea they seemed to sell a couple of years ago is becoming unlikely to achieve for small mom and pop shops.

If you have the client list willing to pay the monthly to cover expenditures this could be a great reseller idea. It might make sense for a single site owner as well. I’ll keep an eye on what they are offering but right now I can’t validate the price expenditure for the reseller plans.

Final note .. not thrilled about being left in the dark about the Agency package. Did not really utilize support while working with the plugin so cannot comment on quality.