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I am selling an utility that is consisting from 5 different modules. This modules are thematicaly connected, but could also exist independently. My utility is $24.95.

I was wondering if I should also create 3-5 other different utilities from those 5 modules, and sell them for (lets say) $14.95?

What is your experience? Has anyone done that? How will this effect my sellings? Will this canibalize a lot from my main utility? Will I gain anything more by using this model instead of selling only one program?

Yes, the downside is that I will need to support and maintain 3-5 more programs (instead of BIG one), but the main question is will I gain more money this way or by only selling one BIG solution?

Any suggestions according to this? Maybe some living (un)succesfull example(s)? :)

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up vote 5 down vote accepted

I was in exactly this situation.

I ended up with a "line" of tools. This is nice because folks can purchase something individually, but many people (especially with business customers) are willing to spend even more on a "bundle" (typically 30%-50% of the cost of buying all 5 individually) even if they don't intend to use all the tools in the bundle.

Note however that tool #2 ended up (years later!) to be most efficient for us in terms of our expertise, its position in the market, etc., so it ended up being smartest to get rid of all the other tools!

So the moral of the story is: Yes create separate products because it lets you "fail" a few times and still have a few successful products, but also don't be afraid to decide that some of the tools actually don't make financial sense.

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Thank you for your answer. I really appreciate your time and efforts to answer this. Thanks! – Spiro Jan 14 '10 at 14:36
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You can try and see if there are demand for modules. I also intend to sell part of may program (analytics library) separately. Most users probably will want to buy easy and ready to use product but some of them will like to use my library and implement a product by himself. Splitting a product on modules does not mean that the price have to be splitted. In fact modules can have bigger price then the product itself if they are sold to enterprise customers that will use them in they own systems.

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Thank you for your answer. I really appreciate your time and efforts to answer this. Thanks! – Spiro Jan 14 '10 at 14:36

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