In a previous article we presented our vision of what "Nette Pro" would be. I mentioned a list of plans for companies and even for individual developers. Today I would like to present those plans. (P.S.: it is not yet final, we are still trying to accomodate our supporters, so it is quite possible the plans would undergo revision during the first half year).

When you look at advantages, you may think that it's not neccessary for to get involved, but I beg to differ.
The primary goal wasn't to offer premium features, but to ensure continuity of the development and stability of the whole framework. Documentation, roadmap, LTS, more content, all of this and more will be financed from collected funds. The more funds we acquire, the better and faster we can start doing something constructive and push whole Nette platform in the right direction.

Plans are split into two basic groups - for companies and for individuals. To us, the company customers are the most important, but we appreciate all supporters among ourselves, the programmers.


Individual plans

You can choose from two plans, Personal and Personal Plus. If you use Nette Framework as a developer and you want to spare a penny, the Personal plan is exactly for you. It will replace current donations. Besides being mentioned in the donor list, you will receive a T-shirt if you decide to pay annually. You will also be included in a Czech newsletter, which will be focused on the development of the frameworks. If you want to contribute more than 5€, you're very welcome. Given prices are the minimums, the upper limit is not set.

The secondoption for individuals is the Personal Plus plan. It resembles the lowest of the company plans and is the right choice for a sole traders, who are independent of outsourcing to other software houses. Plan includes one support ticket and the ability to vote about the future direction of the framework's development.

|---------------------------------------------------
|                       | Personal | Personal Plus
|---------------------------------------------------
| Price per month       |    5€    |   19€
| On the donor list     |   YES    |   YES
| Newsletter            |   YES    |   YES
| Private forum         |   YES    |   YES
| Support tickets/year  |    -     |    1
| Number of Jokers      |    -     |    2


Company plans

Company plans are separated into five levels. To begin with - why are there so many of them? When David and me started visiting different companies, we realized that needs of individual companies vary a lot. Nette framework is used by companies with one developer, but also with 25. And amongst them there are many web studios with 5 programmers maximum. And every team, every company use the framework in a slightly different way.

There are smaller companies, which build their own solutions on top of the framework. They don't need advertising, they take framework development more like a consumer than a producer. But they are aware of the amount of work put into the framework and they would like to contribute to development.

Another category comprises of companies, that work for their clients. General web studio, that produces dozens of web sites annually and these web sites tend to run on their for a long time. For these clients the top priority was the LTS (long term support) version. They know there are not going to be any new features in the version they use, but on the other hand their web sites will keep silently running with low maintenance overhead. They have probably also met with the complexities of the framework and would welcome the opportunity to get official solution to their problems. Maybe they have some interesting ideas, that they would like having pushed into the framework. Or just consult some internal behavior, which hinders their development.

The last two categories are representatives of larger projects - teams. With them we invented a concept of regular internal workshops. We would meet for one day with their developers and each would pass on recent experience. How and why to integrate innovations into their apps and, on the other hand, listen to their needs. As there is a large time overhead associated with these plans, the number of subscribers will be limited.

The last category is mainly focused on business promotion and recruitment of new people. For company brand, it supplies highly visible placement on prominent positions within framework's communications media (a.k.a. homepage logo) and the top position for job offers at the upcoming jobs portal. Number of jokers and support tickets just illustrates that we see such partners as a very proactive co-authors of the framework.

All company plans also include the ability to add a job offer to the jobs portal for free.

Having drafted the plans, the hard part came. To set the prices.
How do we start? What to take into consideration?

On the train we got the idea of coffee and toilet paper. How much money does the company monthly spend for toiletries and coffee for their programmers? After a little survey we found interesting numbers and by multiplying with recommended number of programmers and an arbitratry constant, we wrote down first prices and with a bit of polishing they passed the last negotiations with companies.

It is not necessary to describe each plans - look at the table below and see for yourself.

Changing of plans is possible. If a company shows interest in higher plan and there is a free place in a given category, a higher plan can be temporarily activated.

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                   |   Dural  |  Bronze  |  Silver  |   Gold  | Platinum
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Price per month                   |    30€   |   55€    |   148€   |   370€   |  1110€
| Max number of partners            |     -    |    -     |    -     |    16    |    5
| Mention on the donor list         |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES
| Newsletter                        |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES
| Private forum                     |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES
| Support tickets/year              |    1     |    2     |    9     |    30    |   365
| Number of Jokers                  |    2     |    4     |    8     |    16    |    32
| Jobs portal                       |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES
| Feature development               |    -     |   YES    |   YES    |   YES    |   YES
| Workshops                         |    -     |    -     |    -     |   YES    |   YES
| Jobs portal - Top advertisement   |    -     |    -     |    -     |    -     |   YES
| Logo on the home page             |    -     |    -     |    -     |    -     |   YES
| Recommended number of programmers | up to 3  | up to 5  | up to 10 | up to 15 |   15+

What is the "Feature development"? In several companies we came upon a request "Could you develop this feature for the framework, we would pay for it, but we cannot afford to do it internally". The question is, whether the feature would become the part of the framework, new extension or something else.

We hope, that the plans will be attractive for both the companies and the individuals, and we will all together ensure stability for the Nette Framework in the upcoming years.