How to Price and License the Software You Sell

Most developers spend months building a module, a theme or a script, and ten minutes deciding what to charge for it. Yet the price and the licence terms are part of the product. They tell buyers what they are getting, how long you stand behind it and whether your item is safe to build a business on. Fair, clear terms bring more sales and fewer arguments.

This guide is for authors who sell, or plan to sell, software on a marketplace such as DevMarket. It explains how to think about price, licence tiers, support and updates, and how to price in more than one currency.

Start from the buyer's value, not your hours

Buyers do not pay for the time you spent; they pay for the time and risk you save them. Ask yourself:

• What would it cost a buyer to build this themselves, or to hire someone?
• What does a comparable item cost, and what do you do better or differently?
• How much support will buyers need? A simple script needs less than a module that touches accounting.

Price a little above what feels comfortable only if the item is well documented and supported. A very low price can signal low quality, and it attracts the buyers who need the most help.

Two licence tiers and why they exist

On DevMarket every item can offer a Regular licence and an Extended licence:

• Regular covers one end product or one production deployment: for example, one company's Odoo database or one website.
• Extended covers use in a software-as-a-service or multi-tenant product that the buyer charges others to use.

The Extended price should be clearly higher than the Regular price, because the buyer earns money from your work. A common pattern is to make the Extended licence a multiple of the Regular one. On DevMarket the Extended price must not be lower than the Regular price in any currency.

Write down in your description what each tier means for your item. The platform's Licence terms set the general rules; your listing can add context, such as "one licence per database".

Support: promise only what you can keep

Support is the number of months in which you answer questions and fix bugs in the supported versions. On DevMarket you can set it from none up to 24 months. Think about your own capacity:

• Six months is a common, sustainable choice for a small author.
• Longer support suits larger items with a team behind them.
• Zero months is honest for a script sold as is, as long as the listing says so.

Say clearly what support includes: installation help, bug fixes, answers about use. And say what it does not include, such as custom development. Buyers read the support period next to the price, so a clear promise is a selling point.

Updates: lifetime or while support lasts

You choose one of two update policies:

• Lifetime updates: the buyer can download every new release.
• Updates while support lasts: the buyer can download releases published until their support period ends.

Lifetime updates are attractive to buyers and make sense if you maintain the item for years. If maintenance would become a burden, limiting updates to the support period is fair, and it creates a natural reason to buy again for a new version. Whichever you choose, keep your changelog honest, and mark security fixes as such.

Pricing in more than one currency

Buyers prefer to pay in their own currency, and a price they recognise converts better. On DevMarket you set a price for each currency you want to offer, such as US dollars, Saudi riyals, UAE dirhams, Kuwaiti dinars, Qatari riyals, Bahraini dinars, Omani rials, Indian rupees, euros or pounds. Think of each currency as its own price tag:

• Round to a number that looks natural in that currency, instead of an awkward converted amount.
• Check the decimals: some currencies, such as the Kuwaiti dinar, the Bahraini dinar and the Omani rial, use three decimal places.
• Review your prices now and then. Exchange rates move, and an old tag can end up much cheaper or dearer than you intended.

Open-source code and your licence

If your item includes open-source code, or you publish it under an open-source licence, say so clearly in the listing. A buyer should not discover it later. The marketplace licence does not remove rights that an open-source licence gives; it describes the terms of the sale, the support and the updates you provide.

Before you publish

Keep improving

Your first prices are a hypothesis. Watch what buyers ask in support and in reviews, and adjust. If many questions are about the same thing, improve the description. If buyers praise a particular feature, make it more visible in your listing, as we describe in how to write a product listing that sells. When you are ready, read how to ship releases that pass review and then apply through the seller page.