
Ask HN: What you wish you knew before launching your first Wordpress Plugin? - wp_newb
I&#x27;ve been looking at launching a premium Wordpress plugin as a sideproject, following the model of having a &quot;lite&quot; version in the official plugin directory and selling premium versions with support and more features through my own website.<p>AFAICT, the trade-off of using something like codecanyon does not appear worth it. They set the price, they take a significant cut, and I&#x27;m not convinced that their marketplace gives you significantly better exposure.<p>Do any of the grizzly old veterans in this space have any advice for someone starting out (or a tale of what NOT to do)? The plugin would have a fair amount of competition in general, although I&#x27;m looking at targeting a specific niche that appears to be under-served.
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coreymaass
I've been working with WordPress for 6 years (so consider me a grizzly old
consumer), and launched my first premium plugin 6 months ago.

I wrote a rather rambling article on some of my observations a few months ago
here: [http://gelwp.com/articles/a-few-months-after-launching-a-
wor...](http://gelwp.com/articles/a-few-months-after-launching-a-wordpress-
plugin/)

I still believe the freemium business model, with the free version in the repo
and the paid version on your own site, is the way to go. The marketing that
comes from being in the repo is unbeatable.

I initially went with Freemius, then looked at EDD. In the end I rolled my
own, and I'm happy I did, but I'm a developer that likes re-inventing the
wheel, and I wanted the experience. I would encourage most anyone else to buy
into a system.

The reason is the amount of code. I now have to maintain the site, the core
plugin and the 5 add-ons. It's doable, but takes a lot of time away from
everything else you need to do - sales, marketing, etc. For this reason I'd
also encourage you to have a single, premium version of your plugin and avoid
add-ons.

