Hello all. I have just released version 3.21 Beta2 to the www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm page, from where you can download it and (hopefully) test it and let me know what you think.
I’m planning to announce to all users tomorrow (December 1st) the pricing changes/simplifications discussed in prevous blog postings, namely:
- Only one price for the normal (local database) version, for unlimited donors: Full License $80, Annual Renewal for support and upgrades $40. Also, additional organizations/databases on the same computer will now be free, not $20/year as they were in the past.
- Only one price for the network version, for unlimited simultaneous users: Full License $150, Annual Renewal $75.
- Availability of the completely free limited-feature Lite version (read the previous blog posting on this at http://www.software4nonprofits.com/blog/?p=115, or the Help topic on Lite Version Limitations in the new version 3.21 Beta2, for details). This will only have free support for the first month, though; after that, $20/year for support. (Since the Lite version is free, obviously upgrades to it will also be free.)
- Elimination of the current free license criteria (under 50 donors, under $5K total annual income for the organization etc.), in favour of the Lite version. Existing free licenses I have issued will of course be honoured until the end of the one-year period they were issued for.
- The new pricing will be effective immediately, but for anyone that was already in the process of cutting a cheque, or feels strongly about having the current cheaper prices for under 200 donors, I will accept the old prices through the rest of December.
If some of you could please test the Lite version, that would be great. From the pretest.htm page, you download and install doninstLite.exe to switch to the Lite version. You can then easily switch back to your paid (or free) version by downloading and installing doninst.exe.
And of course, testing of the other fixes and changes in the program will be greatly appreciated. Although I plan to announce these changes to all users tomorrow, I will probably wait a couple of further days before actually releasing the new version, in case any of you who are reading this blog posting find any bugs in the changes!
And I will also very much welcome any further comments you have on these pricing changes! I do realize that I’m taking a risk with the Lite version, that it will steal away too many of my current paid users, but I’m hoping that when they see the list of the features that are excluded from the Lite version, not too many of them will switch. Hopefully, it will serve as something of a loss leader.
Thanks, all.