Still a question about buying any plugin & pricings

If you are not purchasing the Plugin from the Developers but another party then you risk malware. I think you know the answer already.

Hello,
so to summarize the plugin /theme part of WordPress.

You basically get what you pay for. While sites like Codecanyon do offer some quality control as well as money back guarantee if the item doesn’t fit some form of quality standard (you have to contact support and explain why you want a refund for the item). In other words, sure you might be paying $20 for a plugin, even thought a similar plugin exists for free somewhere, but for the most part the premium one does come with support, is of higher quality and has more functionality.

Same goes for themes and other resources. I’m basically at the point that if I need something and know it’s free, I’ll first search every marketplace for an alternative before using the free resource.

Many thanks for your quick response.

@radices – I’m not sure, because some distributors wrote something like “..offers you the same plugins from Wo.. but at a fraction of the cost .

This because the plugins are under GPL licence and you get the exact same plugin .

We can offer such plugins and themes at such a great price because what you are paying when you buy from … is the support .”

This is the important quote from that site and the one that you are glossing over or not seeing:

To be able to offer such low prices, we are unable to provide any support for the purchased products.

They use their one subscription to obtain the code from the original vendor. Then they charge their own subscribers a monthly fee for zero support and that’s just unethical and exploitive.

*Checks, sees that I’m out of fresh coffee and thinks that is a shame.*

Note: the opinions I am posting here are mine and mine alone and do not necessarily apply to any group that I am a part of.

The GPL

With GPL’ed software it is perfectly acceptable and 100% allowed to purchase the software and share it with the whole world.

Honest, there is nothing wrong with that at all and any GPL discussion needs to acknowledge that. As long as you maintain the credits and do not claim copyright on work that is not yours then it’s all good.

I’ve probably left out about 200 words that explain it better. We are all beneficiaries of authors contributing GPL’ed code and that’s a cool gift to the community.

Problem #1: there are many places on the Internet that get commercial GPL’ed code and insert malware in it. The users get a discount and turn their WordPress into a hacked spammy mess. That’s the number one reason to stay clear of “nulled” themes and plugins.

Problem #2: some companies take these commercial GPL’ed products and host them in “clubs” (and that is as close to my referencing that place as I will ever get). Then they offer the code with no support at a price that’s massively discounted.

The no support part is important. If a club member had any issues then it would be tremendously unethical for that someone to go to the original author seeking support.

That lack of service they provide does not exclude them from charging subscribers a monthly fee. That club is building their revenue off of the hard work of another company. That’s not cool at all and the problem I have is that they are exploiting their users to make money.

Many thanks!

Great answer that really helps to understand what i asked before.

Ethically and morally I like to support the developer of a genius code/script.

So, the next step I will find out which one is the best for my project. It’s time for me to go to the other sections of the forum ??

best regards
Peter

You basically get what you pay for. […] In other words, sure you might be paying $20 for a plugin, even thought a similar plugin exists for free somewhere, but for the most part the premium one does come with support, is of higher quality and has more functionality.

Same goes for themes and other resources.

@danielfonda I’d say that’s very insulting to the tons of free plugin and theme developers (many I know personally) who offer an incredible product for free along with dedicated free support.

Price does not dictate quality, after all, you are relying on a free CMS (WordPress) as your base, right? See https://ma.tt/2011/08/the-timthumb-saga/ from the founder of WordPress for some thoughts on that.

@james Huff
While it very well may be insulting (which was never my intention), I’m just speaking from my past experiences.

That being said, I’ve found that premium (quality premium) plugins and themes are better than their free counterparts 95% of the time (again, my experience – please put away your pitchforks).

Again, there are SOME exceptions from the rule (contact form 7 & woocommerce), but then again – whatever contact form 7 does, gravity forms can do better.

Woocommerce – sure it’s free, but the creators still make money by selling add-ons, themes, etc.

So to be completely honest – I can’t think of a single free plugin (stuff like Woocommerce excluded) that would be better or go even with its premium counterpart. Not trying to take away credit from anyone and trust me – I love the good ol price of “free”…. it’s just, I prefer to be able to demand stuff like updates, a working script, support, etc. rather than be at the mercy of a developer as to whether they want to provide any of those, seeing as “hey, it’s free – what do you expect” seems to be the justification whenever you call someone out when their products don’t work.

“hey, it’s free – what do you expect” seems to be the justification whenever you call someone out when their products don’t work.

Never really been my case here, I have actually been denied support on a premium plugin with “I do not provide support,” sorry you had a bad experience with a free plugin developer.

I guess your mileage may vary.

It’s always possible that you may get no support for a free product, but never assume that it’s of low quality or unsupported simply because they didn’t ask you for money. After all, how much did you pay for WordPress? ??

I have actually been denied support on a premium plugin with “I do not provide support,

So have I, but the issue was quickly resolved by the marketplace with a full refund (and I got to keep the plugin).

It’s always possible that you may get no support for a free product, but never assume that it’s of low quality or unsupported simply because they didn’t ask you for money.

Not saying that. I’m simply saying that if you have the money to spend on a premium plugin – it’s usually going to be better than a free one. Although it’s up to each individual to decide as their situation will vary.

And yes yes, I see where you’re getting at with the whole WP being free and all lol. One of the rare instances where I’m not aware of a premium counterpart that would be better than the free one. Then again, the community behind WP has a lot to do with its success.

So, I wanted to know if this could be serious or a potential (example malware infected)not legal/not offered legal plugin.

Yes you tend to get malware on free distributions of paid plugins.

But I think most of the posts in this thread are regarding free distributions of free plugins – not what you’re referring to?

Yes and also I didn’t mean some kind of (illegal) filesharing.

My first/last 8 weeks of WP experiance/discover (before that I used dru…), I got most of the time great support for free (versions of) plugins or themes. (e.g. thx varktech) A really great community!
So, it is no problem for me to pay for beautiful plugins and great support.

But while searching a working plugin for my webproject like dynamic pricing or bulk discount etc, I found some websites selling the same plugins as the linked one from the developers.(please apologize my poor english)
In fact of the price differences I asked myself, if this could be serious or a fake. On the otherside whatt did I pay for? For the developer (?),the with pleasure, but about 70 % for a thirdparty holding some rights, unwillingly.

Sometimes went in contact to the developers and they sell directly, but in most of the cases there is a big site/portal/distributor offering/selling codes from different authors. (Same question: paying for what? Author, or third party extra earner).

Yeah we can’t really answer this accurately for you, we’re in the same observation position as you. We can just guess at the motives behind what you pay for, and I guess if it’s a third party thing your payment goes towards the third party and the author in some split ratio.

That’s why I’m not too sure these queries are suitable for www.remarpro.com forums.

Best way is to contact/asked the developers directly.

I share a part of an answer which I got for a few minutes “..no way associated with us and are using our brand and illegally reselling…”

So one of the question is answered ??

@pitpeter
I actually am aware as to what you’re talking about. Basically there are websites out there that offer premium plugins at a fraction of the cost. So lets say a Woocommerce plugin costs $200 – $300 each (some do only cost about $80), the site will have an offer saying: “register for $15 a month and get all of the plugins on our website”.

I’ve actually tried some of those offers and have honestly not found many issues with what I got. I can however assure you that the developers of the plugins get absolutely nothing from that amount, so… there’s that.

Apart from that, the thing is that you never know whether or not the plugin code is clean or not. At the end of the day, if you have money to spare, just buy the plugin for full price from the author. If you’re just testing it out on a sandbox installation and wish to play around, it may just be worth the risk. (Obviously ignoring the morality behind it all – those are just my personal observations of the whole ordeal).

GL

I share a part of an answer which I got for a few minutes “..no way associated with us and are using our brand and illegally reselling…”

I don’t believe anyone says what they are doing is illegal. What I’ve said is this.

They use their one subscription to obtain the code from the original vendor. Then they charge their own subscribers a monthly fee for zero support and that’s just unethical and exploitive.

Generally when you purchase GPL’ed code you are also paying for the support and that has value. For a company to take the GPL’ed code and make their own revenue stream based on the hard work and effort of others is distasteful. And as I’ve said I think that revenue stream is unethical and exploits the GPL in a negative way.

Which is entirely my opinion. Others may have different opinions. ??

I’m closing this topic down because I don’t want to get into a conversation about pricing or the benefits of those “clubs”. That’s really not what these forums are for.

These forums are for supporting the community using the WordPress software and other code that is hosted in the repositories here. It is not for getting into conversations about the virtues of one third party company or the other.

That’s why I closed the original topic. If you wish to carry on that conversation then please do so. Just not here please.