How to monetize my product

If it really is a useful product, you should definitely sell it for a one time fee, as you mentioned. Of course, you'll need to provide some level of customer support too. I don't care how easy you might think it is to use, there will always be some folks who have problems.

If you end up giving it away in order to build a list, use the list to market related affiliate products. If your software really is good, people who are using it will have a level of trust in you regarding affiliate products you might market to them. Of course, you can damage that trust by recommending affiliate products that turn out to be crap in the eyes of your buyers, so take great care in selecting affiliate products to recommend.

I hope this helps.

BF

Hi Matt

There is no way you should give such a useful tool away for free. I am also in the process of creating a product. My original thought was to give it away free of charge, however I realize the more I develop it the more valuable it turns out to be.

My advice is to think about it as you progress. To explain a bit more I firstly decided to give my product free of charge, however the more i developed the book I realized that the content I am providing is valuable, needed, and immediately applicable in my niche.

In fact I started thinking about how many years of experience I was putting into it and it's over a decade of learning all in one place. The next thing that crossed my mind was when I was first starting out. If this product was available then how much would I pay for it? I still haven't come up with a final price but I know I want it to be less than $20 but more than $15. However this may likely change the more I develop.

If you wanted to monetize the product I would consider creating supplementary products and updates for the original work.

I think you also may need to re-think your whole idea and concept.
First, no coding is perfect! You will have issues...and will have to offer support and fixes and updates or you won't sell any (or get a lot of refund requests).
Second, consider taking this on as a longer project! Not only sell the initial release.......but work on add-on and features that you can sell for more profit!

This could have potential!

some very good responses here, thanks! i particularly like the idea mentioned by jacob, where we are selling value and not necessarily basing it on hours or ROI.

also, my supplementary products could be premium themes. will have a think. thanks again!