Customer Reviews

Don't Just Roll The Dice - A usefully short guide to software pricing

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This short, but not overly short, book is a great primer on any sort of product pricing. Whilst the content is aimed at software products, it has wider appeal to any sort of product business. The content is varied and original, and is worth putting in front of anyone who doesn't understand the role of customer perceptions in pricing decisions. It's essential reading for anyone who's ever said "no-one will ever pay more than $50 for my product" without actually trying different pricing strategies.

Given that there isn't really anything else that covers this topic well, I only have two very minor points to make.

Firstly, it doesn't really cover the services side of software. This isn't authors goal for the book, but the content is most helpful if you are selling products.

Secondly, I would have liked to see more action photos of the author wielding his calculator whilst in the process of pricing. Leaving this to the readers imagination was, in my opinion, an editorial oversight.

If you've created software for sale, you have dealt with the all-important question... what do I charge for it? Neil Davidson does an excellent job in helping you figure out the answer in his book Don't Just Roll The Dice - A usefully short guide to software pricing. He doesn't tell you *what* to charge. Instead, he give you a short lesson on how to come up with the best pricing strategy given your situation. And best of all, he does it in a concise 73 pages. I was impressed!

Contents: Some - but not too much - Economics; Pricing Psychology - What is your product worth?; Pricing Pitfalls; Advanced Pricing; What your price says about you (and how to change it); Product Pricing Checklist

It's tempting to think that the cheaper you price your software, the more you'll make. But Davidson puts that misconception to rest right at the start. Depending on your target audience, cheap pricing may either leave money on the table or cause people to perceive your software as low-value. Davidson helps you understand your market and develop a pricing strategy that can maximize the profit you receive from your hard work. He also outlines a number of mistakes that are common and lead to people turning to alternatives without considering your product. For instance, some companies try to throw a variety of different feature combinations at a purchaser, all with different price points. But unless it's easy to assign value to the different features, too many combinations can cause the purchaser to either buy the cheapest or most expensive combination just to save the mental anguish. That means that potential purchasers may again bolt for other alternatives, or you could end up leaving money on the table.

This is an inexpensive book and a quick read, but don't be fooled into thinking that it's of limited value. Don't Just Roll The Dice may well pay for itself with the first copy of software that you sell. And it will *definitely* give you a much better chance at avoiding pricing errors that could be hard to overcome in the market.

Disclosure:
Obtained From: Author
Payment: Free

After reading Free: The Future of a Radical Price and this book in two weeks, I have a clearer idea of the full Pricing thories and trends in software. I highly recommend to read both books together as they show complementary data.

Free might be the answer for extremely huge companies, but the rest 95% will still need to take this guide into account ;)

I found this book with a better content-size rate and very well written. Highly recomendable.

This white paper sized introductory guide to software pricing is very well put together. After Davidson walks the reader through some basic concepts from economics and marketing that specifically relate to pricing software products, he addresses some of the more advanced aspects of pricing that include areas such as versioning, bundling, and licenses. The discussion provided in the fifth chapter, "What Your Price Says About You (and How to Change It)" is especially well written. The author reminds the reader that one should never forget that practice trumps theory, and that product pricing is as much art and craft as it is science: "Sure, it helps to understand the economics and psychology of pricing, but theory can only tell you so much. At some point, you need to make a decision and do it. Use the information in this handbook to make an informed stab at what a good price would look like, and how your customers will react, and try it out. The exact price almost doesn't matter - get it broadly right, don't screw up totally - and you can tweak it later. You're never going to know if you've chosen the exact right price or not, but you should experiment once you've set your initial price; not experiment in the scientific sense of forming a hypothesis, changing a single variable, and accepting or rejecting the hypothesis, but in the sense of changing something and seeing what happens." Especially well recommended to those new to economics and marketing theory. Note that this book is currently available free of charge as a PDF document download at the author's "dontjustrollthedice" website.

Thats right, you should read this book.

This is an easy to read book on the subject of software pricing.
Easy to read as in, informative, engaging, useful AND I did not fall asleep reading it.
I read it in one day. Even if like me you rarely get time to read, you will be able to read this.

Unusually for a successful software business CEO Neil Davidson spells out what he thinks
is important when it comes to software pricing. A lot of folks would keep this information under
their hat.

The book is packed full of interesting real-world examples of how a given pricing
strategy can work for you, or not work for you, depending on what the product is, what the
price point is and what the context is for entering the market. Examples include products I've
never heard of, products I'm familiar with and even two examples from his own company's history
where the pricing didn't go according to plan (you can learn from failures).

The book will not tell you at what price you should sell your software, but it will give you
some sound reasoning as to how to price your software.

I recommend this book to anyone running a software company large or small.

Neil Davidson has subtitled his book, "A usefully short guide to software pricing." I think he shortchanges himself and the book. This is a tremendously valuable book. If you're involved in pricing software, it's priceless. If you're pricing anything else, it's extraordinarily useful.

Believe the "short" part too. Only takes about an hour to read. Read it on the plane, train, during lunch, in the john. You'll thank yourself afterwards.

Thanks to the author's free eBook release, I was able to preview the content. I read it in one sitting and did not take copious notes, so please take this review with a grain of salt.

It helps to have some experience in the technical field (programming or gadget lovers) in order to appreciate the details mentioned in the text, but the writing is straightforward and the concepts may benefit self-starters who are not creating software for their business. In recent months I have been learning from various self-publish/freelance artists (on the web) about their processes and struggles. Pricing is one of the much-talked-about subjects for them as well since freelancers must handle their own finances to a painfully exact degree.

Some of the similar suggestions from the two groups are a tiered pricing model (include a free but fully-functional version and a paid version that has much more benefits), product bundling (raising the value of the comparatively less-popular item), and not engage in under-cutting methods unless one is ready to "fight to the death" against existing competitors. Research the market value, or make a product that has nothing to compare to. And don't forget to educate the consumer about the cost that went into the creation, lest they presume all web-product (web applications, webcomic, YouTube video, etc.) cost $0 to make. The book also discusses some example of the consumer psyche that may interest a self-publisher who take their business to conventions.

Although the book may appear to be a collection of "common knowledge" to some people, it is still well put-together and a worthy read.

First of all, I must say that software pricing can be a rather illusive subject and is very difficult to quantify.

That being said; after reading this well written guide, (I read and noted this book in literally 2 days) I walked away with a much greater sense of how to price our software for our product based start-up. In addition to this, although it may not have been the writer's intention, I gained insight as to what directions pricing our software various ways can lead our company in the future.

This guide covers a range of subjects from basic economics and customer buying habits to pricing pitfalls and advanced pricing strategies. All of which is delivered in an easy to read, concise text with several diagrams.

All-in-all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who would like a moderately-detailed guide to pricing their software in a market where the right pricing choice can make all the difference!

I just finished this book for the 2nd time. It gives very practical info on how to price your software. As a software company owner, there's always a question in the back of your mind if you're pricing your software most effectively. This book answers those questions for you.

I was one of the participants in the software pricing group at Business of Software 2007 lead by Michael Pryor. The info in this book is exactly what I was looking for in that round table.

Having recently started my own software company, I found the technical aspect is easier when compared to the business model and especially how you price your software. Neil's book succinctly describes what approaches you can implement and gives applicable examples of those approaches to guide you in pricing your software. His ability to compile and disseminate what I am sure could have filled volumes is greatly appreciated since I do not have a lot of time to spare, especially to read textbooks of unproven theory. Thank you Neil for putting this together.