If you were to look up some shareware called Spyware Doctor 3.2 on www.Tucows.com you’ll see that about half a million users download a free copy every week. Want more fireworks? OK, go to www.download.com and you’ll see that another shareware title called AVG AntiVirus Free Edition was downloaded about 1,126,408 times when I last checked. These huge download numbers hover close to this figure every week!
Many shareware titles never hit these big download numbers but what if you had a title that got downloaded just 100,000 times every week. Could you make some money with it?
What do shareware developers know that most people don’t? Here are some ideas: 1. To achieve big download numbers try to develop an application that has mass market appeal. However, even niche market applications can do very well.
Second, you need to spend the money and time to create a product that out-performs everything else out there regardless of the cost. Most good shareware creates a “buzz” in the Internet community. People love passing on a good deal and if you can tell a friend about a five star rated program that is not only rated the best but is free to download you will have earned a whole pile of brownie points with your friends!
Remember two things. First, software is a digital product. Your cost per unit is zero because sites like tucows and http://www.download.com/ are only too happy to provide the bandwidth resources so that millions of people can download your software.
The download numbers for titles like Spyware Doctor are astronomical! Download.com shows over 10,000,000 downloads so far. Sites like www.download.com get so much traffic that their Alexa ranking is among the best of any site on the Internet. If your shareware is listed on hundreds if not thousands of download/shareware sites your download numbers can soar.
Were you to search for free software, shareware or freeware on Google you’d no doubt see over a million sites listed. Simply by posting your shareware titles using a PAD file to numerous shareware sites you can get the benefit of free promotion.
Can You Get Rich With Shareware? Mr. Thomas Deedy, a developer and closet genius, revealed many ways that shareware developers make money giving away software.
One of Tom’s favorite ways to monetize shareware is to offer support services. This is the “real” business and the shareware is just the means to feed it. Your technical person collects every possible support issue and puts them into a support database “solution tree”. Then, this tree is the way support staff troubleshoot problems.
These developers sell support packages for as much as $150 an hour by charging by the minute. Or, they sell annual support contracts for $250.
Of course, every time that happens the programmer adds that problem or glitch to the trouble shooting menu until it is a rare day indeed when someone asks a question that has never come up before. When a customer encounters a problem he clicks on “help” (from within the software) and finds out that support is happily available for a modest fee by “clicking here”. He pays for support by the minute or by the hour.
Believe it or not 900 numbers can be a profit source with support. The user simply picks up the phone and is charged either by the minute of a flat fee.
On an expensive program you could sell a support package that includes video and troubleshooting software. For a shareware program that might sell for $2500 at retail you could easily sell this package for $250.
Companies are more than happy to pay $250 for a support package like this. The numbers could get very exciting if your shareware was downloaded 250,000 times and only 2% purchased support.
Do the math: 5000 orders @ $250 each is $1,250,000 in gross sales!
If you outsource the production of the video and support software you have just developed an automated way to monetize your shareware that could make you a millionaire.
Sound interesting? Why not visit www.elance.com or www.Vworker.com? You can enter a project proposal free of charge and have professional coders bidding to work with you within 24 hours. Outsourcing to coders in other countries can be very reasonable.
Once your shareware has been created and tested you own the rights. That means you can license the program to other companies to collect royalties on all their sales or agree that you will provide support services and keep 100% of the revenues from support.
I think you’ll agree that this is a great way to become a multimillionaire yet you don’t have to be a coder to make this happen.
Support is where the big money is but some simpler software programs don’t really have any support issues; they are that good! Developers of simpler software can make money in other ways.
Try it before you buy it shareware puts the software into the hands of the user risk-free. If they like it they can donate or pay an upgrade fee to get a full-functioning version of the shareware. Many such programs install a donate or upgrade button right in the software.
————————————————————————————————————————– ” Please support my efforts to provide users with support and improve this software with a small donation. In return, you’ll receive a link to an extensive tutorial, help files and you’ll be advised when you can download the latest updated version of XYZ software. You’ll receive lifetime updates all for your small contribution of $10 or more.” ————————————————————————————————————————–
You can leave the amount of the donation up to the user but I recommend putting in three contribution levels: A $5 donate button, a $10 donate button and a $25 button that offers bonus software valued at hundreds of dollars at that level.
Every time a user donates or purchases the upgrade option you collect his name and email address. Ultimately, building a big opt-in list has the most value!
When you are ready to get started with your own shareware project look for a broad niche that has a real need. Research the competition and make your shareware better with more power and features.
Here’s a few more ways to earn money giving away software:
1. Include an upgrade option. Let your customer download a pretty cool basic version for free; then show him that there is a new, improved and five times more powerful version available for just $39.95 that includes lifetime support and upgrades. If you add enough valuable features and show that they can’t really live without the more powerful version your sales will go through the roof!
2. Offer users a newsletter and collect their emails.
3. I created lesson authoring software to make free lessons. You could download it free. But, I also made an upgrade version that permitted the teacher to make Super Lessons that could be sold on my site. So, I make money from people purchasing the Professional Lesson Authoring Software for $1995 and from sale of the Super Lessons. Of course I split the revenue for the Super Lessons with the authors of these lessons. See www.Tutorbug.com
I hope this has been helpful and that you realize that coders can do all the technical stuff for you. If so, you may just have found the perfect way to become a shareware millionaire.
Before you spend thousands creating killer software titles consider becoming a shareware posting agent to earn a fee on every paid upgrade. Click on shareware posting agent for complete details. This article, Source Code Millions has free reprint rights.