How do developers make money from freeware?
I’m thinking along the lines of free mmo games but this question can apply to any type of freeware.
So how do the freeware devs make lots of money, or even just enough money to sustain there product thats needs constant attention i.e firefox web browser, anti viruses software like avira and avast, mmorpgs with severs like maplestory?
I know some software companies give out freebies like Microsoft and Adobe but they’re already rich, I’m talking about regular indi developers.
Thanks.
They often ask for donations. They often use words like "If you find this useful, Please donate $1" or some other small amount. It helps when they make it easy and safe to pay like with paypal. If the program goes viral, It can make a good return. There are also link tie in services like "clickbank" that generate income by you drawing people to your website, then the link distracting them away to other websites that pay you a commission if a sale is generated. The amounts are small per click, but under a lot of high traffic, it is possible to make money.
Not all freeware developers are in it to make money. In years past, I developed some freeware that I did as a project to teach myself certain coding.
However, some companies like Red Hat, make money by providing professional support to a freeware product, Linux. Others may hope that you’ll like the free version enough to upgrade to a paid version that has more features.
Freeware is NOT a good business model if one wants to make money doing it…
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They often ask for donations. They often use words like "If you find this useful, Please donate $1" or some other small amount. It helps when they make it easy and safe to pay like with paypal. If the program goes viral, It can make a good return. There are also link tie in services like "clickbank" that generate income by you drawing people to your website, then the link distracting them away to other websites that pay you a commission if a sale is generated. The amounts are small per click, but under a lot of high traffic, it is possible to make money.
References :
That really depends, if you purely want to make a living from it then it’s not a good path to follow, however, if you wanted to make some money from it, maybe to cover hosting costs etc, your best bet is by using PayPal’s Donation button. That way you can slowly receive donations for your work.
Another option is to create a premium version of the freeware, maybe with better features or something, that way you can earn money from the program.
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You should concern of your site and software security if you wanted to make this type of biz site. Freeware doesn’t mean people will like it because the software safe & trustful certificate…
It’s a lot of work for making a product successful. The point is why people get there? Why they need the software? How work with it? is it safe download?
If it was good, your site can run higher; otherwise, your site will died because the untrusted…
Site can make money formula: Make the site traffic!
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