CQC Pricing Thread
- Thread starter BraveSirRobbin
- Start date
BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
I thought this statement from the CQC discussion was interesting:
Why not have a "pro" version to fix this (this strategy seems to be working for another software company)...
Why not have a "pro" version to fix this (this strategy seems to be working for another software company)...
Guy Lavoie
Active Member
CQC = Cost Quickly Climbs
IVB
Senior Member
While I don't yet know how I feel about the new price, i gotta say that that's an uncalled for blow.Guy Lavoie said:CQC = Cost Quickly Climbs
CQC has gone through 4 MAJOR new versions in the <1yr that i've owned it. He's just called the V1.4, V1.5, V1.6, and V1.6.21. [i didn't agree with that either - at least 1.6 should have been a V2.0]. All of them have been for free. There's 2 points to be made there:
1) There have been 4 upgrades/major new versions in <1yr. Please show me ONE other product that has done that.
2) ALL of those upgrades have been for free. Please show me ONE other product that has done that.
Frankly, if I had to err on the side of "this is good" or "this is bad", I'd have to say "a pricing adjustment is long long overdue".
Squintz
Senior Member
I am all for the price increase. Even with the higher cost I think CQC is still worth the money "If YOU need all of its features". If you are not interested in Touch Screen interfaces and media management and all the other bells and wistles CQC offers" then its probably not for you. But if you are interested in everything CQC offers then you really can't beat the price. Other packages claim to offer similar funtionality and once you dig deeper you find out that they don't really support Graphical interfaces but only provide a plugin so that you can control another software package which cost more money. Lets face it...We have an expensive hobby and we have to Pay to Play.
I like the $95 a year maintance fee instead of having to pay per Driver(plugin). All the drivers are available and do not have to be downloaded from an "Updater" and installed. I am sure there will be many people who think that $895 is an insane price to pay. But there are two things that have to be considered here. 1) Dean has pretty much been working for free for the last few years and has dedicated his life to this product. Its about time he made some money back. 2) The type of support that Dean offers his customers can not be bought. It is simply too good to put a price on so he offers his support free of charge. 3)If you compare packages by time you add all the additions to a package like HS or ML(which i have not tried my self so i stand to be corrected by my ML comment) you will end up paying that much anyways.
For those who do not know. CQC has really become the community that HomeSeer once was. A very friendly supportive community. All of its users seem to be taking the new about the price increase very well so it looks like all hell will not break loose like it did when HS annouced its price change policy. I am refering to their recent plugin policy change. Also, for those who still think "Dean is a closed minded jerk not open to adding new additions to his software" I totally disagree. He can be hard headed at times but he is actually a very nice guy and actually listens to what his customers have to say unlike some other developer.
Now lets start the flame wars.
I like the $95 a year maintance fee instead of having to pay per Driver(plugin). All the drivers are available and do not have to be downloaded from an "Updater" and installed. I am sure there will be many people who think that $895 is an insane price to pay. But there are two things that have to be considered here. 1) Dean has pretty much been working for free for the last few years and has dedicated his life to this product. Its about time he made some money back. 2) The type of support that Dean offers his customers can not be bought. It is simply too good to put a price on so he offers his support free of charge. 3)If you compare packages by time you add all the additions to a package like HS or ML(which i have not tried my self so i stand to be corrected by my ML comment) you will end up paying that much anyways.
For those who do not know. CQC has really become the community that HomeSeer once was. A very friendly supportive community. All of its users seem to be taking the new about the price increase very well so it looks like all hell will not break loose like it did when HS annouced its price change policy. I am refering to their recent plugin policy change. Also, for those who still think "Dean is a closed minded jerk not open to adding new additions to his software" I totally disagree. He can be hard headed at times but he is actually a very nice guy and actually listens to what his customers have to say unlike some other developer.
Now lets start the flame wars.
Guy Lavoie
Active Member
C'mon guys it was just for fun, this being a pricing thread. Same kind of fun as when I say that UPB = Upper Price Bracket...
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
The thing is, how do you do that? The only real way I can see to do it is to limit functionality in the DIY version. I'd like to avoid doing that, and provide full functionality. Something like Premise System's 'home' version that only supported a few serial ports, I'm not sure that's really something DIY customers would be much interested in.
BTW, the pro version is still considerably more than the new DIY cost.
In the end, as I've pointed out before, we want to keep the product available to DIY users, but we could never survive on the DIY market because it just isn't big enough. Do the math and you'd see that to be, say, a $3 million dollar a year company (a very small and limited company in business terms), we'd have to sell 9523 full system $315 packages a year. That will just never come even close to happening. The entire existing customer base probably isn't much more than twice that size right now.
OTOH, we can reach that size by selling far fewer professional systems in a year, and fewer still if a reasonable percentage of those include some type of consulting or logic/interface design work or ancillary hardware, something that is within the realm of reason.
If you could look inside companies like ours, Cinemar, Homeseer, Proximis, etc... you will probably find that those of us who don't have day jobs are doing little more than just hanging on. I've not been to the doctor or dentist in four years now. How long can I continue to push my luck like that? If my car breaks down, I'm going to be walking because I couldn't afford to fix it. I'm a couple orders of magnitude poorer than any of our customers, which is just not the reason that people go through the stress and risk to start a business, at least not long term.
So believe me, there is nothing even remotely approaching greed behind this price change or our concentration on the pro market, unless you consider being able to pay the rent and eat greed
We have to make this a real company, and we cannot do it by charging $315 a pop. It just isn't a sustainable business reality.I may be misunderstanding Dean, but it seems you already have a Pro version and have a certain amount of income coming from that segment. That segment is not buying the $315 version that we are talking about.
I certainly respect your need to make money, and the work you have done.
I am wondering if with this change you are isolating a lower end piece of the market that you were enjoying considerable success in, that will now be lost to lower cost competitors. At the same time, if all this is true, will you really increase market share on the higher end where you already have such a presence?
Everything counts in large amounts. I would have thought getting pieces of the high and low market would be preferable to just getting the high end.
It is your business, and your lifestyle, and if you are not making enough money you need to change the parameters or stop doing this, which is completely understandable.
I agree with something like a maintenance fee, I can understand price increases. What I think people are at odds with is that the software price just tripled, and a maintenance charge was added inside of a week. I don't think there is a product anywhere that can have such a change without some kind of outcry from the general population.
From my perspective the price increase puts this into a different category, and makes me want to revisit some of the other options out there that are a fraction of the cost. Or to look at trying to roll my own MCE plugin which is where I was at when I first found CocoonTech and thought I would be buying a HAI system. I am not a Crestron home, for example, great stuff, excellent products, just too expensive for me.
One other point I would add in case it is helpful: The timing of your announcement leaves a bad taste in my mouth in that two days are allowed to buy the product before the price triples. I would recommend considering longer time frames should this situation come up again. I could more understand looking at that price but putting a gun to my head does not influence me to buy (as it comes off more like extortion), and the price as of Saturday probably means that CQC is not for me (to give you an example).
I hope this feedback helps, and I do wish you well with your business, whether I am counted among your customers or not.
I certainly respect your need to make money, and the work you have done.
I am wondering if with this change you are isolating a lower end piece of the market that you were enjoying considerable success in, that will now be lost to lower cost competitors. At the same time, if all this is true, will you really increase market share on the higher end where you already have such a presence?
Everything counts in large amounts. I would have thought getting pieces of the high and low market would be preferable to just getting the high end.
It is your business, and your lifestyle, and if you are not making enough money you need to change the parameters or stop doing this, which is completely understandable.
I agree with something like a maintenance fee, I can understand price increases. What I think people are at odds with is that the software price just tripled, and a maintenance charge was added inside of a week. I don't think there is a product anywhere that can have such a change without some kind of outcry from the general population.
From my perspective the price increase puts this into a different category, and makes me want to revisit some of the other options out there that are a fraction of the cost. Or to look at trying to roll my own MCE plugin which is where I was at when I first found CocoonTech and thought I would be buying a HAI system. I am not a Crestron home, for example, great stuff, excellent products, just too expensive for me.
One other point I would add in case it is helpful: The timing of your announcement leaves a bad taste in my mouth in that two days are allowed to buy the product before the price triples. I would recommend considering longer time frames should this situation come up again. I could more understand looking at that price but putting a gun to my head does not influence me to buy (as it comes off more like extortion), and the price as of Saturday probably means that CQC is not for me (to give you an example).
I hope this feedback helps, and I do wish you well with your business, whether I am counted among your customers or not.
Most of these features should have been in that package to begin with, or you couldn't consider it a home automation package. Having more frequent upgrades than any other product doesn't mean it's good, it could even mean the opposite.IVB said:While I don't yet know how I feel about the new price, i gotta say that that's an uncalled for blow.Guy Lavoie said:CQC = Cost Quickly Climbs
CQC has gone through 4 MAJOR new versions in the <1yr that i've owned it. He's just called the V1.4, V1.5, V1.6, and V1.6.21. [i didn't agree with that either - at least 1.6 should have been a V2.0]. All of them have been for free. There's 2 points to be made there:
1) There have been 4 upgrades/major new versions in <1yr. Please show me ONE other product that has done that.
2) ALL of those upgrades have been for free. Please show me ONE other product that has done that.
Frankly, if I had to err on the side of "this is good" or "this is bad", I'd have to say "a pricing adjustment is long long overdue".
Dean priced himself out of the DIY market, it's his decision, but I personally believe he made the wrong decision. Several people have already mentioned to me that they are cancelling their plans to evaluate/buy CQC. I understand that the $300 price tag might not pay the rent, but maybe Dean should concentrate on selling more copies of the product, instead of raising the price. If he is confident that his product is that good, that strategy would not have been a bad one at all.
... All IMHO of course ...
Guy Lavoie
Active Member
So you already have over 19000 installed customers?Dean Roddey said:
toymaster458
Active Member
Charmed Quark is not to far out of line. I just priced what it would cost me if I was to use MainLobby instead:
MainLobby3 $99.99
MLServer3 $99.99
MusicLobby $59.99
CD Ripping Engine $29.99
WeatherLobby $59.99
WebLobby $44.99
Russound PocketPC $54.99
MusicLobby PocketPC $34.99
ElkM1 Plug-in $99.99
Russound Plug-in $99.99
-------------------------------------
Total $684.90
Then I still need HomeSeer to handle the Automation that ML can not at this time.
And this does not include other drivers that are still needed.
So for CQC at $895 for everything including current and future drivers it is not a bad deal!
MainLobby3 $99.99
MLServer3 $99.99
MusicLobby $59.99
CD Ripping Engine $29.99
WeatherLobby $59.99
WebLobby $44.99
Russound PocketPC $54.99
MusicLobby PocketPC $34.99
ElkM1 Plug-in $99.99
Russound Plug-in $99.99
-------------------------------------
Total $684.90
Then I still need HomeSeer to handle the Automation that ML can not at this time.
And this does not include other drivers that are still needed.
So for CQC at $895 for everything including current and future drivers it is not a bad deal!
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Just to be clear, the first mainteance fee is a year out, since the first year is part of the price.
It certainly wasn't intended as a gun to anyone's head. Basically it came down to the fact that the increase needed to be tied to the 2.0 release, and we needed to have an interrim period where the highly discounted 2.0 package was available. Because we were very busy with actually getting 2.0 ready, and in continuing various negotions over getting access to metadata (any of which would have affected our pricing), we were late making a decision to do this, and so got stuck a bit between a rock and a hard place.
The extension to Friday was intended to give those who were basically ready to buy a chance to do so. There were a number of folks who had already made the decision, but were just holding off till the next release arrived. We just wanted to give them a chance to do so. After that, we are pre-selling 2.0 for $495 (full system package including the new media stuff) until 2.0 is officially out.
Thank you for the clarification on the maintenance.
My only comment on the timeframe was that it was such a short amount of time. It has been clear that you have been busy on the 2.0 release, and I know it was not intended to be a gun to anyone's head, it was just a bit frustrating (buy by tomorrow or it costs $400 more).
My other points on large amounts was tied to HS stating they have over 9000 users (which amusingly enough is close to the number you stated).
Personally I'll have to give it some thought. You message had a large shock value if it was not apparnet. The $495 value is much more palatable than the $895 and I can respect you needing to make money and you have clearly supported your customers well. I can also understand the maintenance charges going forward after the first year. If I was coming into this conversation on Saturday though, I suspect I would be moving on (and would have been upset to not have heard about this, so while it stirred the pot, thank you for making this clear here).
I'm curious what things look like in another year and how all this is percieved at that time (and what the market looks like).
My only comment on the timeframe was that it was such a short amount of time. It has been clear that you have been busy on the 2.0 release, and I know it was not intended to be a gun to anyone's head, it was just a bit frustrating (buy by tomorrow or it costs $400 more).
My other points on large amounts was tied to HS stating they have over 9000 users (which amusingly enough is close to the number you stated).
Personally I'll have to give it some thought. You message had a large shock value if it was not apparnet. The $495 value is much more palatable than the $895 and I can respect you needing to make money and you have clearly supported your customers well. I can also understand the maintenance charges going forward after the first year. If I was coming into this conversation on Saturday though, I suspect I would be moving on (and would have been upset to not have heard about this, so while it stirred the pot, thank you for making this clear here).
I'm curious what things look like in another year and how all this is percieved at that time (and what the market looks like).
