Hobbiest should get the pro? Is there a one time purchase option?

[McD]

In fact, the price of all software, that is, their chances of gaining market benefits, depreciates “rapidly” over time, as technology accumulates, competitors emerge, and open source competitive solutions, unless certain Technical and market protection. Therefore, in order to recover the investment as early as possible and prevent the price of the software from collapsing before the recovery, the initial price must be defined as high as possible.

After all users who can accept a certain high price are satisfied, the sales volume decreases, and the developers naturally reduce the price to win another part of the user opportunity, and then continue to drop. From a certain perspective, a certain long-term price of software is something that developers try out-imagine that as long as they lower prices, sales will increase, but where can it be squeezed out of the largest market space? Of course it’s a penny. But the price was dropped very early, and the cost could not be recovered. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the price first and then lower it slowly.

Under this big internal logic, even if some software uses pay-per-view, in fact, many cloud storage applications already have this charging strategy. The price of single-use software will still start from a very expensive price. Lower, otherwise it will hit the overall purchase market income. According to the period of charging, it has evolved into a “three-day free trial” form of many software. In the end, the developer still hopes that you can buy it in full, so that it can recover the maximum income this morning.

(Software is based on certain essential attributes of itself as a commodity, and its price logic is very special. The biggest feature is that the marginal cost of software is zero, which means that the second commodity is essentially zero cost, and you can earn a net by selling 1 cent. profit.)

[McD]

Shapr3D, as well as all software requires programmers and engineers to creat it, maintain it, and furthermore, improve it. These people do not work for free, so it should be expected to pay to support this. SolidWorks is around $6K to buy, and $1800 per year to maintain. Shapr3D uses the same engine as SolidWorks. We can’t expect Shapr3D engineers who answer these forum questions to work for free either. $200 per year is a great bargain.

[wangzhide]

很抱歉我不能用你的语言和你交流，不过谷歌翻译和我想要表达的意思基本一致，不过这也难以避免您在理解谷歌翻译后的的文字时候，结果仍然是有误差的。毕竟他们都是由谷歌翻译得到的。它不会自我矛盾

[wangzhide]

我非常赞同你的观点，并且shapr的定价相对SW来说，的确是便宜的多。实际上，认为shapr定价贵的都是业余爱好的用户，他们很难使用shapr创造出与其定价相匹配的价值。所以其实他们并不是Shapr主要的核心用户群体，所给出的建议更多是从扩大用户规模，发展多元化的用户群体的方面说的，对于优化产品定价的帮助可能不大。

[jmdo]

I don’t disagree with your statement about price, nor the need to pay Devs.
Maintaining any application require Devs and they should be paid.
I do not judge the price itself, and I’m not shocked by the price of Shapr3d.

From a company standpoint I understand the need to secure founding, and subscription is a great way to do it.
Yet on the market there is plenty of example of companies that use other way to keep the money flowing while respecting the customer.

For independent professional, purely based subscription is scary.
Do they work to pay for their tools or do they pay for their tool to work ?

Shapr3D made a choice, there is no right or wrong.
Maybe one day there will be an other choice to make to target a broader audience.

Keep in mind that the value of a customer is not only the money they pay.
Are customers cows to milk ? or partners to your company ?
The advertising they provide is value too.
We can see review of shapr3D on youtube, I’m sure paid clients came from there.
A price plan that target hobbyist would not make too much money in pure sells, but taking the added exposure on social network could justify such plan.

[stringboy]

Interesting discussion. There are many models for income. Of course they do depend on the product and the type of customer. It would be nice to know the thinking behind free drawing packages like Blender and how they can get progressive updates using crowd software writing.

[rundandan]

Given the pro version is at $20/month, what if the hobbyist version be half of that @ $10/mth?

Looking at your pro feature offering vs what I need as a hobbyist, how does the following look? Would it be a reasonable compromise in terms of increasing paying customer base vs loosing customers to other apps?

Hobbyist

• Everything in Basic, plus:

• 5 active designs (designs will be automatically discarded after x days of inactivity? 14 days?)
• Mid-quality STL export (Shapr3d gets to determine definition of “mid-quality”)
• STL import only

To be up front, I think Shapr3d is the most intuitive CAD app I’ve seen on iPad and I really enjoy tinkering on it with an Apple Pencil. However, as mentioned above, the price is sincerely too high in my opinion. As a hobbyist, I tinker around designs fewer than I can count with one hand on a monthly basis. It is just such a waste to see the platform not get better traction due to the high price.

I hope you find a path forward to create a mid tier pricing model that balances your goal of paying the bills as well as growing the business. Thanks for reading.

[wangzhide]

我不太同意您的观点，我认为.STL文件的导入导出是属于“专业性应用”的，仅仅通过限制STL文件和有限的活动设计，很难将业余爱好者和专业用户有效的区分开。目前Shapr 3d本身作为一个独立的CAD设计软件还并没有形成一定专业认知度，专业人士很少或难仅使用shapr 3d完成全部的产品工作。作为一名设计师，Shapr 3d让我更喜欢的是直观的操作体验，是使用笔这种最原始的交互方式进行创作，相对于使用鼠标键盘，它能让我的交互体验愉悦感成倍上升。但作为一名专业使用者，我在专业上对shapr 3d的需求仅购买业余爱好者水平的产品也足以满足我的设计需要。实话说，这是因为我对shapr并没有形成足够的依赖，也就是产品信任度并不高，我相信很多专业人士有同样的感受。所以至少现阶段并不该实行针对业余爱好者的定价策略，因为这很大程度上会降低很多专业用户给予的付费。

[haysja]

I recently was gifted an iPad Pro and, as I plat around with woodworking, I encountered a video on You Tube singing the praises of Shapr 3D. So, I downloaded it and gave it a try. I am currently using SketchUp for my woodworking drawings and was impressed with how easy it was to transfer my skill set in Sketchup to Shapr. When I started Shapr 3D for the first time, I was greeted with a test project. Then I followed the tutorial on how to draw the metal image that was given and was able to complete the tutorial successfully. Now it was time to try my first project. I am planning to build a small table for my wife and I have some plans on Sketchup. I thought I would redraw these plans in Shapr 3D to see if I liked it better than Sketchup.

So, I ffired up Shapr 3D and tried to add a new design. Shapr tells me, “Only Pro Subscribers can created more than 2 designs”. I don’t want to “try” Pro for 14 days. I want to design something to see if I like it first. But the test design and the tutorial design “count”, I am unable to even try ONE DESIGN before I commit to Pro.

As a hobby woodworker and a retired teacher on a fixed income, I can’t afford to lay out $20 a month for a product that I am unsure that I will like. (And, no, I don’t want to “try” Pro for 14 days as I don’t even know if I will have time to get back to designing within 14 days.)

Needless to say, Shapr 3D, though an interesting program, will be deleted from my iPad.

I guess I will stick to Sketchup.

[Laci_Shapr3D]

Hi!

You can always delete the designs, even the tutorial ones from the Designs screen (long tap on them, then you will have the option).

Cheers