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For example this company...
http://www.thepaysitecms.com
Who wants $30,000 for a copy of their paysite CMS script LOL
I mean really, do they actually expect anyone to pay that much when to have a script custom coded from scratch is only going to cost around $2k?
I sometimes wonder if people price their products to find out who the idiots in the industry are that have more money than sense.
Regards,
Lee
That's a totally outrageous price IMHO. What happened to a reasonable price tag and achieve lots of sales as opposed to a few sales to those that can afford such a price tag? And as you already mentioned, a custom job wouldn't price in at anything near that.
What an insane price, and while it might be an extreme example, I think it is bang on... many are indeed out of touch with reality. sad part is, they will never admit it, nor change.
It's possible this is made by the same bozos that were at internext a few years ago selling their shopping cart. They'd created a nice shopping cart that was used with the (then huge) online pharmaceutical industry. They were used to getting paid something like 20% commission on each sale - just for the shopping cart, mind you, no marketing or anything like that - and by the time we talked to them, they realized their payment model wasn't realistic, but hadn't figured out a reasonable one.
I doubt this CMS even has any installed customers. It was "announced" at Internext 2007, their "testimonial" section has the same paragraph ("We offer the CMS on a leased basis for webmasters who want blah blah) repeated 6 times, the live demo doesn't work, and they have incorrect information about 2257 and it sounds like they have no idea of the 2257 requirements.
The other thing is... I think I'm pretty much done with pay-by-month or pay-by-year licensing programs for software, and also done with software that's Zend encoded. If I'm going to license software, I want a reasonably priced perpetual license with source code so we can maintain it if the company disappears or flakes.
Further reading shows it's developed by AdultDesign.com, whom I'm not familar with. Supposedly they own some of their own paysites, so perhaps it's something they developed for their own in-house use and are now trying to sell it. I sent 'em an email and told 'em they were basically about $28,000 too high on the purchase price and if they decide to change their pricing structure to get in touch :)
let me think here... i can get a copy of MAS, which has been tested and used by dozens of people i know and can do virtually anything for $4000 or i can pay $30,000 for a script which no one i know uses that is advertised on a site that hasn't updated since it was released, doesn't even have testimonials and that made the testimoniails page with repeating text on it like a paysite template. hmmm... which would i go for?
want to get a real idea of their professionalism and the way these people finish up their projects? go to http://www.thepaysitecms.com/faq.html and have a laugh.
sure, some sites do have issues but if i'm supposed to be convinced to spend $30,000 on a script that won't do more than a $4000 script, the least they could do is finish the site.
btw, they list 4 programs at the bottom of the page that use them.
Well if it has been made by a design company, the site says a lot about their design skills, with all the blank pages, typos, etc :eek:
Im wondering though if they might be going after the green newbie webmasters who beleive what they are told about 'new' paysites costing them over $100k to start, would certainly explain the price if that was the case.
Regards,
Lee
hehehe...
don't forget though.... all they need to do is make ONE sale :) to make a buck
surely there's a aucker out there that'll shell out that much.
This is really expensive. I can make similar scripts for only $1,000 too.
Certainly ridiculously expensive. But I call bullshit on being able to get something custom coded to do the same job for $1k-$2k. You really think you can get a decent custom coded solution for that much when even the out of the box packages are 3-4 thousand dollars?
Our current CMS which was custom coded, cost us about $1700 and, for our needs, was *far* more flexible and capable than anything we found available at the time (2 years ago.)
The new revision we're writing the specs for now is another level of complexity and flexibility, including integration into our (custom coded) 2257 solution and will probably cost us another $1000-1500, but will completely streamline the way we run our business.
So yes, it's absolutely possible to get a high quality, custom coded CMS for under $2000.
Well then I guess I'll be eating my words now! And hook me up with your programmer, Chip! Hehe.
Well guys, it was made by EnvisionExt Adult
http://adultdesign.com/
They're quite known in design community (ask justusboys, edengay, etc.)
Regarding price... maybe they accidently put one zero too much
Yep.Quote:
Originally Posted by chodadog
My current CMS only cost me $1500 initially and it does everything the off-the-shelf scripts do and more.
Regards,
Lee
Lee, since you don't run a software company, you have your own reality, and i have mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
I can bet you any amount of money you want, that you will not get a script with 10% of features that we have available for 2k.
Our development cost us over 250k in 2 years.
You are calling some of the brightest minds in our business idiots, because you obviously don't know who our clients are :) If you care, i'd be happy to tell you under NDA, as our client's privacy is important to us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
No it's not :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Wrong again, we do have installed clients, and software has been so successful that we didn't find it a priority to fix the site, which i agree was a mistake, that's why when our potential client pointed out this thread, i wanted to make sure site was fixed before i replied.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
If a company spends a decent amount of money to develop software, which firstly not everyone CAN develop on their own, they would want to protect their IP. You have the right however to choose the software vendor who provides the option you desire.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Reading first, posting later usually helps. Thanks for your feedback, we'll take it into account :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Where are you going to find a developer who will work for less then 2000/month and who will develop a whole content management system with a video & image transcoding engine, clustering solution with geographical load balancing, multiple social features etc.. I would love know.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Thanks for the feedback, i do agree having a site not finished is unacceptable, i have discussed this above.Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
You can get MAS and you can do 'virtually anything' however we just had a large brand name make the switch for the reasons that 'virtually anything' was not enough to do what they wanted to do, and they found those features possible with PaysiteCMS.
Now that we are gearing up for mass sales, i have made sure site is fixed up, if you find any problems let me know i'll get them taken care of asap.
Chdadog, i am with you on this :) someone who's never done this type of project before can make a speculation, but i dare they try.Quote:
Originally Posted by chodadog
Care to put your money where your mouth is? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by delobucks
Hugh?
Why would someone bump a thread six months old?
Bec - If I am not mistaken this is the same company that sold a review script a while back and when we went to look for the url, the account was suspended by webair.
I think it's called either trying to do damage control or trying to drum up interest in your product.
I don't care what the application does, there's no way you can justify $30,000 for a CMS. Affiliate management software such as MPA, NATS, ExecutiveStats is considerably more complex because of the need for reporting,and the very complex amount of testing and debugging needed to integrate with various billers... not to mention maintaining the software as the integration requirements change... and those products sell for $10,000 to $20,000 which is still on the high side.
No offense, but if you spent $250,000 developing a CMS, you either got badly hosed by programmers, had a bad spec to begin with, or had terrible project management. That sort of pricing was common in 1998 during the dotcom boom, but not now.
Nonetheless, there are a handful of adult companies that are rich beyond belief and probably are willing to pay 10 times the market rate for something they don't have to hassle with... but I would never build a business model assuming I could continually find people who were either ignorant enough or reckless enough about money to pay that kind of money for a piece of software they wouldn't even have full ownership of.
If you were to actually read my response you would see an explanation.Quote:
Originally Posted by abostonboy
And it's not the same company :)
Well, this is the same company that wants $ 1,800 for a logo.... obviously they can put their prices that high and still get clients..... good for them
Does it matter what it's called? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
How can you judge a price if you don't care what application does? :) Our software easily pays for itself if you do a DVD site for example with 700 titles or more. Your cost savings which are realized through automating manual tasks of generating screenshots and video formats (our software will generate over 30 different formats from a single source).Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Flexibility to re-use same content on unlimited amount of sites, and simply generating sites by using a meta tagging system provides an ability for large scale operations which are not available in other products to best of my knowledge.
System is built for clustering from ground up, and we offer geographical load balancing solutions, which is very important in our global economy.
This is just tip of the iceberg of the functionality that we offer, but i guess you knew that already because you read our white papers, or saw a demo?
. We've done both Affiliate software and a CMS, if you have not, you can't judge what's more complex :)
I am totaling cost of R&D, development, Testing, re-development, improvement.. etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
This number rises every month, as we have a staff of 8 developers who continuously develop new functionality which is requested by our customers.
As i mentioned above, it's not about being reckless, if you really took an hour to look at the system, and if you have a large operation in mind, i am sure you would see the potential for the ROI in our system.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
We understand our system's pricing is not geared towards a single paysite owner at the moment, and we are working on plans that will allow for this type of clientele. With a large scale footprint that this would set we need to be ready to support the clients, thus we are introducing pricing as we are prepared to handle the growth.
We already offer a $15,000 hosted version, which is clearly posted on our site, which has been available and taken advantage by multiple clients in the last 9 months.
Not interested in a pissing contest. I did actually read your white papers before I posted, I'm one of those RTFM junkies :)
You have some very impressive features, and it does seem like a strong offering... one of the reasons we built our own is we didn't see the flexibility we needed in either MAS or CARMA... but nothing I've seen in your application would cost me anything close to a quarter million dollars to reproduce, and actually, with the exception of global load balancing/clustering and transcoding video into a bazillion formats, I haven't seen anything that our version 3 CMS spec for our own content system won't do. I have managed some pretty large software development projects (before I was in this industry) so I do have some idea what's involved in coding this sort of application.
Honestly, I'm sure you have a really good product, and actually I wouldn't mind seeing a demo. And if you really do have an affiliate management system that is on par with NATS or MPA or ExecStats, we would be VERY interested in looking at that. I just hate hyperbole, and I can't, as a software project manager, imagine asking anyone with a straight face to give me a $250,000 budget for development of a CMS, no matter how sophisticated it is... but as someone said, if you're getting $1800 for logo designs, you can probably get the same customers to spend $30,000 for a $3,000 piece of software... so hey, if you can get it, more power to you :)
I am not interested in a pissing contest either :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
I appreciate the comments, rarely does anyone reads the info )
I am not saying developing a system like ours, when you have all the functionality laid out in front of you would yield a 250k budget :) but that's the fact that we were not copying features we were coming up with them on our own, as well as further continuous development by requests of our clients, and having a large staff of people working on it.. it just adds up:)
1800 price for a logo is also incorrect, it's obviously a hearsay, and he never got a quote from us :) I am the president of the company so i would know the pricing :)
Dear Mr. President,
I did get a quick quote from your online sales... he said:"aprx. $1,800 and up". Not making up....
If you provide me with a date, i'll pull up the log. Every chat is logged.Quote:
Originally Posted by hotporn
Oh please, why would I even make this up?!
Plus, do you really think I'm saving dates for every online live chat I do? Especially if it is only one simple question....
Speak with your sales team and let them know your real pricing structure. Geeze.
I dont' know who you spoke to, if you can't provide me with the info, i can't figure it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by hotporn
For the record, we charge $1000 for a logo design, you get 5 variations with multiple revisions.
Price goes down, when it's ordered in combination with site design. And if you think it's expensive, trying getting a quote from any decent agency.
yesQuote:
Originally Posted by Lee
:rain: :rain:
.:rip:.
To be fair, in the commercial world, using US-based designers and a proper logo design process, he's right. I've seen at the low end $500-1000 for a logo, and if you're talking major national companies, I've seen $5000-25000 at the low end. It's not uncommon for logo projects to go through 15 revisions and cost $2000. But in the adult world, of course, nobody wants to pay more than $100.Quote:
Originally Posted by $tandaman
I suppose on one level if you get a great logo and you're happy with it, $1,000 is fine, but where I have a problem is if the design work is being done by people in India or Phillipines or Ukraine where the designer is getting $25 and the middleman is getting $975, and I think a lot of these design companies are doing stuff like that which seems a little uncool to me. I don't know if adultdesign's designers are US based or offshore, but if they are offshore, the prices seem steep.
I don't know of a single company, with a staff of 10 people or more who has US designers. What you speak of could have been true 5 years ago, when such drastic price difference was possible (but you are way off on the numbers). It's a global economy, because of the internet and you have to remember that.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Reality is, with USD being so down, everyone's costs who has employees in Europe has gone up by 50%(and more in some cases) in the last year and half. You don't realize that if you live in US, as very little has changed, but if you are in Europe you are well aware of that (if you charge in dollars).
Our prices remained the same, with slight adjustments for inflation. So now we get paid in USD, our costs are way higher then they were a year ago.. yet we can't pass the increase to our consumers, as we'll be getting 100's of threads like this :)
So we cope with it by increasing our volume. At this point we have 25 full time in-house designers & flashers, and with some people bitching and moaning, we are doing more business then ever. People try us, and they keep coming back :)
Actually I'm not off at all. We currently employ several offshore designers and I know exactly what we pay them. It is of course more (in USD) than it was a year ago because of our crappy economy, but I'm quite aware of the going rates for designers in India, Phillipines, Pakistan, and a couple of Eastern European countries... and I mean the rates the designers actually get paid, not the highly inflated rates all of the middlemen charge their US customers, or the rates that the freelance designers charge American webmasters. We've also used offshore coders and I have a pretty good idea of those rates as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by $tandaman
We also have a good relationship with several US-based design firms (and yes, there are many wonderful American firms with American-trained designers, which, with few exceptions, do much better work than any offshore designer I've used.) Plus, I actually know who is doing my work, whether offshore or in the US, so instead of wondering if my job is being given to the brand-new guy or the guy with the 10 years experience, I know for sure... and I can talk to that person directly, instead of going through an intermediary who translates, which often leads to miscommunication.
I'll also point out that anyone who can afford to absorb a 50% increase in costs without passing any of it on, has got to be working on enormous margin. Basic economics tells us that a 50% devaluation in currency would eat up the margin in practically any labor-based business unless the labor is being marked up hundreds of percent, which is I'm sure what the case is here.
There are a lot of people for whom convenience is worth a lot more than money. For those people, paying a middleman 5 or 6 times the actual labor rate may make sense if they want to avoid hassle and always have someone they can count on. The sad thing is, these same people, if they're willing to pay those rates, could easily afford an outstanding American designer with better skills and training, without having to deal with the hassles of offshore communications, time zone differences, payment via unstable services like Epassporte, and so forth.Quote:
At this point we have 25 full time in-house designers & flashers, and with some people bitching and moaning, we are doing more business then ever. People try us, and they keep coming back :)
As I said, I congratulate anyone who can market a product at such an enormous margin, be it design services, software development application software, or anything else. I don't have any problem with someone saying "We're amazing, we charge a fortune because we're worth it, and people pay it." What annoys me is when someone tells me their costs are a bazillion times higher than they actually are, and uses that as an excuse to justify the price.
I always get a little "nervous" of design firms that "claim" they did designs for big sites and actually use that as a sales tool, only to have the person that they supposedly did the design work have to clarify just how much design work they actually did and how much they changed the design before it went live.