Come & heckle my pricing strategy

Drawcard
Drawcard Posts: 83
edited November 5 in Type Business
Although I've been a hobbyist type designer for a couple of decades on & off (mainly on free and personal projects), I am very much a novice when it comes to the business of type design, retailing and selling, etc. and I'm rebooting my effort to produce fonts again after a year or so pause in activity.

I literally have no idea how I should set pricing, what's fair for the consumer but also the foundry, etc.

Here is what I have at the moment: https://drawcard.lemonsqueezy.com/checkout and more about the licensing strategy: https://type.drawcard.com.au/licencing-made-easy/. I also offer discounts to qualified buyers: https://type.drawcard.com.au/discounts/

I keep debating whether I should do one of the following: 
- Just offer the font at a flat fee for everyone (U$29), rather than a complicated tier system.
- Offer a 'pay what you want' system
- Just pack it in and offer it entirely for free, and use it to attract customers to other fonts (my foundry is relatively new and just has this release as it's only item for public sale). 

What pricing strategies do others use here? I'm not really looking to make any sustainable profit, as this is a side gig to my day job. But I would like to try and sell the font independently if I can, and make just enough money to keep fuelling my font design software addiction!

Also, I used to be somewhat bothered by the fact that someone can just use the NC licensed version for commercial purposes (or rip the webfont off my website), but honestly I don't know if I care so much about that anymore, given it's nearly impossible to police that.

Honest and frank feedback is welcome... It's open mic night! You can even heckle my EULA if you really want to.
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Comments

  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,507
    edited 4:50AM
    Corporate clients usually don’t like interesting licensing, and that’s where the money is. I think progressive licensing is fine if you’re aiming at freelance buyers, but in my experience that’s a rapidly shrinking market.
    I still find it worthwhile to offer one or two styles with a free desktop license as part of a larger family. Offering a standalone typeface with a free desktop license used to work for me...there were enough paid embedding licenses to make it worthwhile, but that stopped working around the mid-2010s.
    As for the actual price point, you’ll need to decide that yourself. I’d be cautious about competitors advising one another on specific prices, since that can raise competition-law concerns.

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