Business end of Alpha Software

[CharlesParker]

I would like to hear the business end of development from you guys that are doing it. As an independent developer, do you charge for time? Obviously there is the ongoing cost of the server license and the size of the project. Do you charge by the component? Do you pay the server cost or setup your client with their own payment to AS? Do you have a contract spelling out update costs? I would be happy to hear about your woes as well in customer expectations, to learn form it. Do you insist on certain server requirements? Do you manage those? All thoughts welcome!

[cptutrecht]

Re: Business end of Alpha Software

We work with subscriptions (monthly / yearly)
- for usage, maintence and updates of our software
- for hosting (with a contract clause for consultation that it can be adjusted if our supplier(s) significant increases cost or at significant change in exchange rates)

In theory we allow third party hosting. But when we spell out the risks and extra cost for our customers, nobody chooses that.

[CharlesParker]

Re: Business end of Alpha Software

so do you charge a subscription service for your services? Is that what I am to take from that, or do you handle the subscription to AS and then back-charge them or require in advance, etc? I appreciate your willingness to share, I think a lot of people might get intimidated by the question - charging too much not charging enough and the like but this really isn't about that it's more about like how your answering - sounds like you charge for services rendered pretty much on a flat scale across the board.

[cptutrecht]

Re: Business end of Alpha Software

Ofcourse I won't disclose details of calculations, but no problem to share principles.

In our case it's important that on our infrastructure (yes, Zebrahost :-) we have multiple clients which can share resources.
And ofcourse it is for us more efficient to manage our infrastructure, than render systemservices on infrastructure of clients.
Furthermore important is that our clients are SMB with no staff equiped for alpha applications, so they have to hire us anywayfor that.

So we can certainly offer installations and the management of it on our own cloud to a better price than on a third party cloud.
What we charge is a fixed fee, but not a totally flat fee. It depends on how much resources a client uses and is negotiated at the start, and will raise if he substantially grows. It is not too difficult to calculate that (total cost of serverresources and licences, and hours needed for management, reasonable profit and risk of underutilisation).

Better to charge more and have ample resources than charge a little less and have complaining customers.
But all commercial possibilities depends ofcourse on the value of the application for the customers....Most of our customers still know the effort and cost before they entered our cloudservice, and don't want to go back to own infrastructure.

[Jay Talbott]

Re: Business end of Alpha Software

Charles,
You may be interested to know that I am hosting a panel of Alpha developers at this year's DevCon to discuss topics exactly like this.
I hope you can make it.
Jay

[CharlesParker]

Re: Business end of Alpha Software

Jay according to my calculations, I will need at least 3k to attend. I had it in savings for that purpose, however, I have had to use that to pay bills recently due to a downturn in income. Self-employment can have it's ups and downs! I am working on rebuilding it for this express purpose - I hope also to see and meet everyone.

[lvasic]

Re: Business end of Alpha Software

I'll be there Jay. We designed our app to be SAAS. We charge a monthly fee. The user doesn't know anything about Alpha or Zebra Host...