Jim,

Do you happen to remember what that record was?

No - something like 3 months, I think.

If you price something reasonably people will always find it and buy it. The main reason I ever don't buy a program I use regularly is they simply ask too much for it (though a lot of the stuff I use is free open source, hooray!).

Even small time software developers ought to know they'll make more money selling 20 copies of something for $10 than they will selling 2 copies for $60 and having the other 18 people download cracks. If something you really want a legit copy of because it becomes a pain finding cracks or keygens for new versions costs $20, then you'll just say stuff it and register it. If it costs $50 and you're not a rich person then you'll probably keep looking for cracks.

All single-task over the internet software should be priced $25 or under in my opinion. Boxed games or massive software suites are a different story, of course.

Pricing is actually an extremely complex issue, and I don't pretend to know a lot about it. I picked a number that has worked out very well, but there may be other numbers that would have done better. Lowering the price causes more people to buy, but then you have more customers to keep track of. You have to hire a bigger staff, but you have less money per customer to do it with.

Conversely, raising the price causes more people to turn to bootleg versions, but you have more money per customer from the ones who do buy, and less customer-service.

Once you set a price, it's extremely hard to do any further experimentation. Whether you raise or lower the price, half the people will be angry. EXTREMELY angry, in some cases. Death-threat angry.

I once paid $99 for a program which six months later I had the programming skills to write myself. That sucked.