WordPress, the multi-billion dollar software industry that has us begging for money

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It seems a year can’t go by without the pesky lifetime WordPress license topic popping up to spice up the holiday conversation.

A struggle dating back 7 years ago to the month when Jeff Chandler covered, now defunct, Sidekick.pro where then owner Ben Fox shared his pricing experiments.

When Brad Touesnard purchased Advanced Custom Fields back in June, he was swiftly reminded how hard lifetime license pricing really is. I mean, he did his due diligence, he knew what he was getting into. But the lifetime license woes lingered well before the new owners arrived. Elliot Condon wrestled with it, “get it all for one price forever” that is, until he finally revised pricing for 2020 to build the business a better runway.

Lifetime license holders will get **all** ACF Pro software updates forever. They won’t be required to pay for version 6.0 or any other major or minor releases in the future. They signed up for updates for life, so we’ll continue to deliver on that promise forever. 8/10

— Brad Touesnard (@bradt) June 3, 2021 On Delicious Brains acquiring Advanced Custom Fields

Amidst a fumbled start, Brad, did bless all lifetime license holders with access — forever. It’s on Twitter, so it’s permanent in my book.

This isn’t the first pricing rodeo for Brad and company.

When asked about lessons learned with pricing in a 2018 interview with Joe Howard on the WPMRR podcast, Brad had this to say:

“I think the biggest thing that people don’t do is experiment with their pricing.

When I launched Migrate DB Pro, I think the developer license was, $99 per year.

In December of that year, I doubled the pricing. Which would have been totally uncontroversial, except that I changed all the prices for the existing customers as well. I didn’t grandfather it.

And there was definitely quite a bit of blowback. I’d regret doing it because I feel like at that point, it wouldn’t have hurt us to like grandfather those people in but I don’t believe really in grandfathering people in forever.

That’s the same aversion I have to like unlimited things and “lifetime this and that.”

Brad Touesnard

Pricing is challenging, no doubt, and lot has already been said about lifetime licenses.

Should you offer them as a product owner? Clearly the data (and the community) is pointing to a firm “no” at this point. Should the customer expect that a lifetime license actually means a lifetime of free…everything? Read Chris Lema’s take, On Lifetime Licenses.

WordPress, the only billion dollar software industry that has us begging for money

Paul Charlton of WPTuts posted a reaction video to a recent e-mail sent from Delicious Brains, the new owners of Advanced Custom Fields. In the video, Paul shares his frustration with the ask of lifetime license holders to “pitch in” to keep the development of the popular plugin alive.

Paul was one of the first in line to question what would happen to lifetime license holders when Delicious Brains acquired ACF back in June.

From the current events: Agency Principal, Alex J Vasquez doesn’t seem to have an issue with the ask, stating “ Could this have been said differently? Sure, a better crafted msg would go a long way but I have zero issues with the ask.”

Could this have been said differently? Sure, a better crafted msg would go a long way but I have zero issues with the ask.

— Vah–skezz (@alexjvasquez) November 27, 2021

Where for folks like Charlton, it “sticks in his throat” that customers are almost feeling guilted into supporting the product. Charlton has no problem if users want to support their favorite software, but is not entirely thrilled when a brand requests it.

When the dust settles

After reaching out to Paul for a post-publishing lay of the land, he responded:

“My biggest takeaway is the complete silence from them to be honest. They’ve been tagged in many replies and spin off comments and nothing at all has come back from them.

As for learning anything new, it’s pretty much radio silence across the board. Just speculation and frustration from most commenters.”

UPDATE: An updated quote from Paul after the recent ACF tweet

It’s good to hear Delicious Brains are going to honour the LTD, but maybe it would be a good idea to run future emails through a competent PR company first to avoid confusion.

The ACF Twitter account tweeted:

“Lifetime license customers: We are still firmly committed to honoring lifetime licenses and all future emails. We will reaffirm this commitment. So there is no confusion. Signed, Brad Touesnard.”

When I asked Brad for a comment, that was the tweet he shared and pointed to his previous thread, posted back in June.

Some of our WP Minute Producers have expressed their thoughts in our Discord server:

“Well, Brad is in a tough spot here—there are a ton of these “lifetime deals” with ACF that he inherited and their something of a liability from a business perspective.”

Dave Rodenbaugh

“Brad should save himself a lot of LTD headache in the l...