I'd 100% push people towards offering an extension for free to build up a good amount of reviews & user base, then switching to any paid model (One off, Monthly Subscription or Annual Subscription). If people are happy to pay for something that was free, it's a good indictor that you've built something decent. I went for Annual Subscription because I felt it offered a fair price point ( < $5 a year per a user ) and it created an incentive for me to keep maintaining the extension. I'd recommend playing around and seeing what works best for your extension.

> Do you see any practical risk with someone offering a copied version of the extension

They're are already a bunch of extensions doing something similar for free. I like to think people have used my extension because I'm never more then an email away if they have any questions. Also as it's paid, I have no incentive to sell it to a 3rd party who might start injecting ads into webpages or something.

> offering an extension for free [...] then switching to any paid model

I find deliberate bait and switch distasteful. It will eventually breed an atmosphere of suspicion tainting the whole system.

(Nothing against an honest "Free for now, will see next year" right upfront)

FWIW, as a developer if I'm willing to break out my credit card to pay $5/year for a tool, I am every bit as willing to pay $20. I would wager you'd get far more than just a 1/4 of your users if you jumped up that price.

That's interesting to hear. I'm thinking about experimenting with different prices next month, I'll make sure to do another write up :)

I agree that if someone has to get out their credit card, they're likely willing to pay more than $5/yr.

The key question here is what percent of the potential purchasers already have a Chrome wallet (or whatever it's called now) and just have to click "buy".

Impulse purchases by these users would be more likely to drop off with a price increase.

On the flip side, the little things do add up. Consider as an example, the cost of a $70 per month cable subscription, versus 5 streaming subscriptions at $15 per month. The developer might not see this, but the accountant should.