Can you make money by releasing free scripts?

Hey,

Well, I'm a PHP programmer myself, and I see alot of individual developers out there developing software and releasing it to the public for free.

Now, I was thinking someone who has a site that offers free scripts, they can probabley do some adsense revenue or something. Any ideas?

- John

 

Well, it depends. Different people have different reasons for releasing free software.

Some do it for name recognition and fame and hopefully with their effort, someone would buy over them or employ them. If I ask a freeware developer from Russia why he did what he did for free, he did say that the prospect in Russia for programmers at that time was bleak and by releasing his software for free, it will get distributed widely and people will come to know him. His hope is that someone who owns a software house from the US would employ him and that is his ticket out.

Some just want to return to the community at larger

While others offer basic free scripts but charge for installation, support and customization.

 

Some offer free scripts for link on the site that uses them.

 

Another idea that came to mind is that you can sell "sponsored script" spots for your script, so advertisers can pay to have their link go along with your script that you are handing out for free. Just an idea

 

You can put adsense at your free website and earn good money.

 

1. Put adsense, hosting referral links, paid script referral links, etc.
2. The linkbacks to your sites from free-script users will make your site have good SEO rankings and pagerank : you can sell text links for monthly fees in a few months!

 

I agree that this is a very effective way to make some money off free scripts. You can bring in $50+/spot for sponsored links on a free script (of course, you might not get that much for your first couples scripts because we won't really know how well you are at releasing them and getting downloads).

It all depends on what the script is. Another idea would be to have two copies of the script. One that has the footer links and another that comes link free, which might only cost $5. Then you could add reseller rights in the mix for another $15.

Really though, it all depends on what the script you're building is and how much work you've put into it.

 

i think that ppl will be probably earning more from adsense on their high traffic site (due to the availability of 'FREE' stuff).

 

What are you all talking about adding sponsored links?

It would seem so out of place to have an embedded link in the script that points to some random company...?

 

If you provide customizations for the user, yes.

You will like a support peson.

 

Offer your scripts for free but put a link somewhere when it is published. You can get lots of backlinks and then raise your PR or SERPs standings for more traffic.

 

what about all the people that sell free scripts...they would get it for free and then modify it and sell it?

 

Well, then it depends on the terms of the free script license.

 

When you offer free service , it's mean that you have a fund or sponser from somewhere else. mostly from advertising banner or textlinks. some they offer a free script but also put commercial script. if customer like it and click&buy script from your site, you got a commission. got it? ^^

 

You can make a ton of money doing this if you are smart. As someone who has authored a 76 page ebook I can tell you this, you absolutely must be sure of the demand before you invest time into development of anything, free or not but especially free. This is the key. So spend as much time or more on assessing demand before releasing anything or it will be an outstanding and well programmed flop. If you can capture the needs of a segment you are started on a successful business. Monetization follows with addition of backend / onetime or affiliate offers.

take it easy.

 

if you had a site with downloadable free scripts then plagued it with adsence and text links, then your in the money

 

I think that u can make good money with adsense... once the free script that u release becomes popular

 

If possible put a sponsor links in your script, just like free wordpress themes. And you can sell the sponsor link - I saw on in this forum.
If not, just put a link to your site for back links.
If not, juts put adsense in your site. If you script is good enough, many visitors will come.

 

yes u can. ur business model basically to earn $$ through advertising. That is basically a good way too. Once your site is very famous, you may start charging membership fee.

toby

 

why don't you do two version of all your scripts, one free version with limited feature, and pro version with additional features..