Reseller

Hi Larry,

Well we do have up to 50% discounts when you buy licenses in volume, and we do let you credit purchases made in the last 90 days towards volume discounts, but it sounds like you know about that already.

Some of the other things we've seen people do is private label the software and charge more for it, or keep the license themselves and charge a setup + monthly fee for CMS access. Even at $25/mo you'd make back a non-discounted license cost in 8 months and be making $300/year re-occuring revenue per client after that for no work.

Hope that helps!

Yah aware of the 90 day stuff, and don't do enough to buy a block. My business model is not one that lends itself to an ongoing 'fee' system I generally charge per hour.

OK I will just have to tell them to buy it themselves so that I am distant from the transaction, that kills doing a package oh well.

Larry

The 'value' is the software, it's not like they'd be spending $200 for nothing is it. You say you charge by the hour, so why don't you just do that, sell them the software plus two hours installation. Simple eh?!

Sorry to hijack your thread >
"keep the license themselves and charge a setup + monthly fee for CMS access"

This is the model I have been using. When I purchase the licenses though I have just been putting them in my customers business name (for convenience) but of course if they cancel the subscription to their site, I use the license on another site.... although this situation has not presented itself as yet. With that in mind, should I be putting all the licenses in MY business name?

Honestly - that's how we do it. All licenses belong to us (the company). Re-issue when needed. I can't think of any customer who could take the software and do what we can do with it.

Think about how much you have to know to be able to adequately implement this software and then think about the people paying you to implement it for them... Why would they pay you in the first place if they could do it themselves?

Normally, if a client wants a new website with another firm, they expect to start over from the beginning.

On the price note, we don't charge a setup, we just charge a flat annual price for all inclusive services - design, programming, email, hosting, and support. It's peace of mind for the client and annual revenue for us.

Just my POV... I like to see how others do it, too.

Kenny

Great discussion!

We actually do "sell" the software to the client. We buy licenses in blocks and charge the SRP to the client. The cost they pay for a site includes this price plus the time needed to set-up & configure the system on top of site design and dev. No extra cost to us. A client who can't put $200 into a great script is not likely to be able to pay for a good site anyway.

Our contract stipulates that the ownership of this (or any) tool, stock images, licenses, etc. transfers to the client upon final launch payment. This makes the product portable an empowers the client to take this with them should they choose to retain services elsewhere. Under these circumstances I wouldn't want to start bickering about who owns what.

We've only had one client walk away after completion and he did so with a smile and full payment due to change in his career. If we owned the lic I guess we could have re-used it elsewhere, but this is a rare event.

$0.02 worth.
J.

Kate,

As far as who (we think) owns the licenses. We go buy the email and phone number on the original order, not what is entered when you install the software. If you have any concerns or need to update something just let us know.

Hope that helps!

Also, this is an interesting thread so I'm going to stick it to the top for a while, everyone please feel free to post how you charge for licenses and sites and anything you want to say about it.

We don't mention the license cost at all when we resell CMS Builder. We just offer a "Content Management Solution" as part of our web proposals. The cost we quote is based how much or how little they want to control within the site, and then we pad the number a little to account for the license fee.

I am a freelancer and sell my web building services to various ad agencies. I quote the agency a fixed price to build the website with the cost of CMSB hidden in the price. They in turn markup my price and sell it to their client. The software is privately labeled with my company name and my company appears as the "Vendor". I am the true owner of the license as I am the one who initially purchased it from Interactive Tools.

1) When I hand over the site after final payment, I am still listed as the "Vendor" and the license agreement states there is no ownership of the software, only the license to use the software. Should I be changing the Vendor to the Ad agency's name even though I am officially the owner in Interactive Tool's eyes as I initially purchased it?

2) Once a site is built and paid for, what is stopping the agency from copying the software, cutting me out and building a new site? I am the one that checked the boxes when I purchased it saying I have read the License Agreement and will not copy the software, not the agency. If they do this and are caught, I assume my neck (and all my sites using the software) will be on the line?

3) The statement in the License Agreement about not having ownership of the software scares some clients as they think I will be able to "pull" the software whenever I want. How do others handle this?