About pricing for school license

[JoKa]

Just wondering how I can find a realistic price for a school license. Which factors should I consider, how many % of the sales price should I give as discount?

[Sol_HSA]

Disclaimer: not really an expert, but been pondering on this for a bit.

Is this for classroom use only? Will it be used only by the teacher, or by the students? Will the students be able to take the programs home? Should the pricing be per-seat, per-classroom, per-school?

[JoKa]

It's about pricing for a limited number of computers at the school only.

[Sol_HSA]

It pretty much depends on how much the school is going to gain from the application, but basically the fewer instances you sell, the higher the price can be..

i.e. a single license of a CAD software might be thousands, but if you're selling classroomfuls of them, schools might not be quite as happy.

On the other hand, selling 20 copies at 75% discount still makes sense, as it doesn't really cost you any more than the single copy would.

edit: to make this clearer: let's say 1 license costs $2000. If you sell 20 licenses to a school at $250 each, you'll get $5000 - less than the $40k of "full licenses", but much more than the $0 you'd get if the school just says "no". =) And cost for you to make 1 or 20 copies? Pretty much the same.

[JoKa]

Sure, you're right. Just wondering which base values I could use for realistic discount ratios. But it's hard to find any rules based on hard facts...

[Sol_HSA]

Talk to the people who buy software for schools. That's pretty much the only "real" way. Alternatively figure out what other software they've bought and try to find out how much they cost.

[Applewood]

There's one key point that I think developers sometimes miss to their discredit, whilst bulk software buyers already understand, and that's how pricing tiers actually work.

Say for example you come up with an offer thus:

1 copy = $1000
10 copies = $500 each
100 copies = $200 each

And they say "great, lay 100 copies on me please"

The bill is:

1 @ $1000
10 @ $500
89 @ $200

Giving a total bill of $23,800, not 100 x $200 = $20000

[AlexWeldon]

Not an expert, but I think a lot depends on whether you think parents (or the students themselves, if it's a higher education thing) are likely to buy the program to use at home after their kid uses it at school. If they are, then you should probably sell at a huge discount to schools, because you're benefitting as much as they are, because you're getting paid AND advertising at the same time. On the other hand, if you think the schools themselves are going to be your biggest customers, you probably shouldn't offer too substantial a discount unless they're buying many licenses at once.

[JoKa]

Interesting points to consider, thanks for your advice, guys!