[Subscriptions] Subscription pricing concerns / ideas

My understanding of the aims of the current subscription formula is to... 1. Recover initial seed funding 2. Reduce subscriptions dramatically when initial seed funding is repaid 3. Not penalise practices for running extra workstations 4. Make it very affordable for small practices The potential market for OpenVPMS will predominantly have two existing software situations. Clinics will either be running recent software with associated (comparatively) high software costs, or they will be running a legacy system that has been paid for with low (or nill) runnning costs now. While price will be a motivator for those clinics with high software costs, it will not be for those running legacy systems. I have the following concerns with the current model... 1. It may be seen as expensive for large practices that run legacy systems. Expecially when these clinics factor in unknown support costs 2. The model financially penalises early adopters while promising very low subscriptions to those who wait for the initial funding to be repaid. Some additional aims... Encourage early uptake by clinics Encourage uptake by large clinics Encourage uptake by clinics running legacy systems Some alternative / additional ideas... Have a sliding scale for additional FTE's Have a lower maximum price per year for the larger clinics Have a ceiling for total contribution over time Discount the subscription each year to reward early adopters When speaking to Tony after the Werribee presentation he also mentioned that someone else had suggested that each clinic just pays a one off amount, say $1000. And two more from left field... 1. Ask clinics to contribute what they think it's worth or what it saves them. "Pay half your existing subscription", or ask them to pick something they think is appropriate between a specified min and max. 2. Continue to charge fees when the initial seed funding is repaid, but then start to refund money to those clinics that joined early. A twist on the pyramid scheme idea. Perhaps a bit of an administrative headache, but certainly rewarding for early adopters. I suppose it comes down to the expectations of the initial seed funders as to their time frame for repayment, and what they consider to be the potential market for the software, and how quickly it will be adopted. Obvoiusly, in the end it is their decision. John

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Large practices, legacy systems and a fair go

Such a good review of some of the difficult issues of subscriptions. Thanks John. I wish some eccentric millionaire would drop in and repay the seed funding in one fell swoop just to feel good about themselves... unlikely I suppose. Here are some of our opinions at Boronia Vet Clinic in regards to some of the excellent points raised; [quote]1. It may be seen as expensive for large practices that run legacy systems. Expecially when these clinics factor in unknown support costs [/quote] As one of those large practices running legacy software I feel that we have been eating at the "free lunch" restaurant for sometime. Having said that we aren't interested in moving to the most expensive gourmet diner either. Our perspective has been that we have been defering an inevitable cost because [b]our[/b] legacy solution has a finite lifespan. Additionally, whilst it serves our current needs, there is plenty we would like to do differently. Lastly and most importantly, we have been waiting for the crash we can't fiddle our way out of. The nightmare of not having a ready solution to run with straight away was almost a reality for us 3 years ago. Having been in the situation of being a large clinic without computer support for 3 days, we know the real $ value of a supported software system. In summary, large clinics running legacy software whilst seemingly going backwards in terms of their bottom line by moving to OpenVPMS are infact, just catching up and realising a deferred cost of business. [quote]2. The model financially penalises early adopters while promising very low subscriptions to those who wait for the initial funding to be repaid.....I suppose it comes down to the expectations of the initial seed funders as to their time frame for repayment, and what they consider to be the potential market for the software, and how quickly it will be adopted. [/quote] We did think that potentially the visionary practices would in some way offset the cost for late joiners. They probably also would be the practices that will work the hardest in being active at modifying and contributing to early development. Natural justice says they should be rewarded first when the subscribtions start to dropped. The difficulty comes in meeting this natural justice and not prolonging the drop in subscription rates that developers and future users want to see. Also, by effectively delaying the drop in subs, we might have a negative effect on uptake rates, hence further delaying the decrease! Speaking personally here, my feeling is that a tiered reduction based on numbers of years memebership is worth thinking about. eg. Of a given decrease in subs across the board, the decrease would be distributed proportionately according to maybe 3 tiers of memebership duration eg. > 5 years, > 3 Years, > 1 year & < 1 year. What do others think about this issue? Matt Costa
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