Fill nanoCAD season tickets with buns - or is it possible to make money on a free one?

Our company ( Nanosoft ) continues the development of the nanoCAD project, in which we are trying to combine the incompatible: the development of an affordable (in every sense) domestic CAD platform with obtaining finances sufficient for further existence and development.

Recall that we have been developing and producing the universal nanoCAD design system since 2008. We distribute the program itself absolutely for free - register on the official website and get a license. Work and earn money - nanoCAD allows it both legally and technically: the functionality is pulled up to the eminent CAD systems, the file format (DWG) allows you to use old developments, and the number of bugs is rapidly decreasing.

We earn on two things: on the development of specialized solutions that provide automation of design work (very useful for design organizations wishing to increase their competitiveness) and, more recently, on technical support for a free product.

If the former is more or less clear, then the latter is a very big issue for discussion. I want to bring my thoughts to the discussion - maybe someone will be interested; or maybe someone will share their ...

What is technical support?

The question is very broad and the answer depends on what point of view to look at it. 99% of users (and myself, as a user) think that these are consultations and technical support calls: they say, if something doesn’t work for me, I can call \ write to the developer, and he will help, solve my problem here and now. Is free! In the end, I bought this product, and the developer should be interested in having me work in his program.

But the free software product is distributed “as is”, the developer does not owe anything: computer configurations can be so wild that it is amazing how it works at all; the user can formulate the problem so abstractly that it is just right to open a psychological center. In such cases, only paid technical support can help. This is the first.



The second is that for the developer, technical support is more than just consultation. Questions can be various: from a low qualification of the user to wishes for the development of functionality; from the simplest program settings to the processing of function algorithms. Some issues are resolved by a set of FAQs, others require a week to study and reproduce the conditions, while others require software processing ... But everyone wants an instant solution.

Next - how to weed out “problematic” users that always appear with a mass product and concentrate on “promising” users? Indeed, often “problematic” can be “promising” and vice versa ...

At the moment, we solve these issues with the following rules:

• Paid solutions - technical support is included in the price of subscriptions and boxes. This is the classic way to support software; everything is clear here.
• A free software product (now it is nanoCAD 3.0), which is freely available on the site. Naturally, there is no official technical support for it - there is an official forum for discussing technical problems, consultations and other things : the community works on it, advises each other, discusses, and collects wishes. The more mass product, the more mass community, the faster everyone gets answers.
• For a free product, you can purchase a voluntary subscription for technical support (3,000 rubles / m). In essence, a subscription means: "if you want our attention, then buy a subscription." There was a question about the program, I want to solve it - you get technical support (inexpensively!) And communicate with the developer. Again, hot, massive problems can be quickly addressed through such a subscription. Subscriptions have more advantages - more on that later ...

Technical Support Subscription

Everything seems to be beautiful and correct: but there is one “but” - not all users need technical support. If the product works correctly, I can use it, and bypass some inconvenience, then why should I pay for something? Or if I run into a technical problem with a free product, why should I pay for technical support? Most likely, I will look for other software ...

The subscription technology is remarkable in that we can expand it by providing users with additional services. And here the question arises, what else can be included in the subscription?

The first thing that comes to mind is software product updates. Is this technical support? No doubt - the updates primarily include bug fixes and the implementation of wishes. Does it apply in IT? Yes - remember the gaming industry; cloud technologies etc.

What else? To summarize, here is what we decided to include in the subscription for the free version of nanoCAD:

• Network licensing - An additional convenience in licensing a software product is the installation of a license server and the use of floating licenses. Those. the user has a choice - to use the free version, but to install software on each of the 100 computers in the organization, or to buy a support subscription, deploy one server and quickly distribute the program in images.
• Printed certificate - It is possible to issue a legal user certificate for the free version distributed via the Internet only in electronic form. When buying a subscription, the organization closes accounting documents, which means that you can transfer a paper certificate to the client.
• Software Updates - After a period of time, collecting requests from free users, a set of errors accumulates that can be quickly fixed. They can be attributed to the work of technical support, so we include them in the subscription.
• Access to materials on the site - Various materials that will be useful to users of the organization: video tutorials, software updates, manuals, PDF-tutorials, etc. These materials can also be considered as a form of technical support - often technical issues are associated with poor product knowledge. And the user can choose: either collect knowledge on the Internet and from colleagues, or pay and get access to the knowledge base.

It seems that such a scheme is convenient in every sense: both free users work with a mass product, and subscription users get advantages compared to free users, and we, as developers, are open to the further development of services.

In addition, a technical support subscription can be considered as a veiled form of donation - donation, which is found in many free software products and services. If the user is satisfied with the product and is ready to thank the developer, the developer will never mind :-)



For our part, we actively support subscriptions: the other day there was an update for nanoCAD, which we distribute only among subscription users - a complete listcorrected errors and improvements made exceeded 300 points. When I realized this, I realized that this is actually a new version of nanoCAD, which so far is available only to those who paid. Overdid it? Let's look at the sales results :-)

Conclusion

Now, developing and releasing nanoCAD, we try to cover different layers of users and take into account various wishes:

• If you use nanoCAD from time to time, then most likely you will be happy with the functionality of the free version and you do not need technical support;
• If you professionally use nanoCAD in your work, then it is more important for you to use the most stable version, and then it makes sense to purchase a subscription;
• If you want to "sponsor" the development of nanoCAD, then we are ready to accept donations in the form of a subscription for technical support - the cost of a subscription for technical support is only 3,000 rubles per year;
• If you are ready to automate design work, consider specialized solutions - we already have 11 of them .

But for now, all these are our thoughts - our view of the situation. What is the attitude of the Habr community to subscription? What other services do you think can be extended? Are you prepared to potentially pay for a technical support subscription, or is this idea disgusting? Let's discuss - any thoughts are interesting.

And another suggestion - let's join the community :-) Judging by the number of licenses issued (77 thousand r.m.) - there are many of us. But I would like more feedback - I would like to see examples of ongoing projects, comparisons, study experience, development proposals. We are waiting for active users on the forums, LJ, blogs, Twitter, on the Habr pages.