Many of you told me they were “bleeding”; especially because of their server cost.
But I have good news for you
PluginLab now allows you to configure both Quotas and Subscriptions for your users.
In 10 minutes, you can link your Stripe account and get a nifty payment portal to charge your users depending on the quotas they want.
We suggest you provide a large free tier so your users don’t get any paywall until a certain point.
But once they exceed the limit of your free tier, ChatGPT will send them a payment link so they can open the payment portal and choose a plan that suits them.
Some of our clients already earned their first subscriptions.
Here’s how it looks (all of this has been made with no code):
Total Query creator here, I had no Stripe account, I followed the PluginLab setup and 10 minutes later I got my first subscriber using the PluginLab payment portal. Seems promising
is monetization via your platform in accordance with OpenAI Plugin policies? Have you checked with OpenAI whether they support the freemium model where a certain amount of Plugin usage is free and further usage is paid?
I would love to try Plugin Lab for monetization but I want to be sure my Plugins don’t violate OpenAI policies.
Can I charge people money for my plugin?
Not at this time.
However, it has been explained here in the forum that OpenAI mainly wanted to discourage people of having a Paywall during plugin installation.
This would result in a bad user experience for sure.
But on the other hand, you have plugins like Zapier that are completely free but Zapier itself is a freemium and monetizes their platform.
So to us, there’s such a small nuance between making people pay for the plugin itself, which is forbidden, and making people pay externally for your service, which is not forbidden if we take the case of Zapier, for example.
At PluginLab, what we do is we only protect your main API with Quotas. So in that sense, people don’t pay for your Plugin. They pay for unlocking new limits in your external service.
The thing is we integrate that directly by sending a link in ChatGPT so the user experience is optimal.
To be honest we didn’t catchup with OpenAI on this subject, but I would love to get some thoughts from @logankilpatrick about this.
@logankilpatrick Would be really helpful to get clarification from you guys on this. It makes sense that Plugins shouldn’t be behind a paywall but on the other hand smaller startups can’t afford to run servers entirely for free - so paid over a certain quota is the perfect balance IMO.
Did anyone get clarification from OpenAI on this? I am wondering the same thing - my plugins are free of charge for limited usage, and folks are asking for more. And I am not sure where the policy stands.
Reading the available information gives you this unambiguous result
“Can I charge people money for my plugin?
Not at this time.”
Now the case is being made that so long as you allow users to install the plugin you “could” charge them for usage, not for installation, and the additional point is being made that if you use a quota system then that’s ok because you give the users X amount for free.
Ok, but there WILL be Plugin makers who decide that the numerically acceptable value for “free use” is 0 or 1 or some number so close to none that it is effectively a shareware style demo.
I do not know the inner thinking of OpenAI in this particular regard, but I do know who controls the Plugin marketplace, and they decide how they wish things to go within the ecosystem.
Ok, but there WILL be Plugin makers who decide that the numerically acceptable value for “free use” is 0 or 1 or some number so close to none that it is effectively a shareware-style demo.
On that particular point, I agree that plugin creators will have to use the quota feature wisely.
But this is about creating a good user experience in general and not only about monetization/quotas.
You could create a free sh*ty plugin that would be worse than a paid awesome one.
So to me, it’s clear that plugin creators should be responsible, don’t abuse with paywalls, and try to provide the best service they can.
That being said, the limit between paid plugins and “free plugins with paid service” is very thin. Partnered plugins like Zapier have no problem providing a “free” plugin while providing a paid service in the end. So this logic should apply to everyone and I am quite confident about that.
but I do know who controls the Plugin marketplace, and they decide how they wish things to go within the ecosystem.
The sad reality is many plugin creators are bleeding with server costs. As a user, I prefer using a paid plugin for someone who put their heart into crafting something amazing than not paying and seeing my favorite plugin shut down because their creator was not able to pay the bills.
I know right especially since when you click on a paid plugin, and try to back out you have to hopefully remember where you where or search again since it starts you off at the beginning of the list when you come, back. Or dont make the paid versions so automatic that you can’t cancel. Anyways maybe that was just my experience.
The sad reality is many plugin creators are bleeding with server costs. As a user, I prefer using a paid plugin for someone who put their heart into crafting something amazing than not paying and seeing my favorite plugin shut down because their creator was not able to pay the bills.
If it’s a passion project I am agreeing strongly here, it would be nice to have this separated from commercial plug-ins though. Not making loss/ensuring existence is a very different goal from profit maximization.
As mentioned, Zapier’s plugin is freemium. But it seems Zapier gets preferential treatment, being a YC company. They seem to have functionality allowed that no other plugin developer can mimic. So is an open question if Zapier is allowed to “charge” for their service while other plugin developers will be denied.
Another question in my mind is if OpenAI will start charging plugin developers a percentage of sales, like the Apple app store…
openai itself is primarily a non-profit, with a limited profit part. I am not in favor of a ban of commercial plug-ins if openai is taking a good cut of the profit or sales, then it likely will have a positive impact.
I would simply like a sorting function just like in the app-store and also information about the plug-in developer, such that GDPR etc. can be properly enforced.
did anyone find out of this is acceptable. @kevinpiac did you get any word from openai if we’re good charging for usage? I’d like to give a quota and then charge for usage beyond that.
