NATS - time for a "Lite" version?
 

I guess only one person can answer this, but thought I'd throw it out there to see if people agree. In these times of economic instability, paying leasing fees for software is often seen as an easy way to cut back on overheads.

Personally, I wouldn't know, but I've had a good handful of clients move away from NATS to more lightweight or free affiliate admin tools, which is fine as they still pay me to skin their new backends etc. However, besides the obvious, the reasons that resound are NATS is too complicated and I only use a fraction of what it does.

Which is true, it is a beast of a tool, and will support the single-site webmaster or the multi-site, multi-partner, multi-biller setup. And for what it doesn't support, you know those niggly things that have helped nats grow, a TMM ticket and discussion their end usually ends up with NATS supporting that feature.

However, at a couple hundred per month for the full whack, would it not be prudent to slim down nats to a "Lite" version for the much smaller site owners and offer it at a reduced cost? If so, what should go?

I agree, as much as there are many great features of Nats, I do not use many of them, and I do have to think as to were my money is going when times are getting tougher.

I think the stepped down version of Nats is the built in affiliate software included with CCBILL and Epoch.
Learning all the features of NATS is worth it and can help your program grow if you use all the reporting NATS can give you!

You certainly hear wrong about people moving away from NATS. Our client base grows nicely every month.

As far as a more cost efficient solution, NATS starts at $150/mo. If you can't spend $150/mo on the software that runs your business, you shouldn't be in the business.

How is he wrong about people moving away if he's the one actually doing the work of moving them away?

And the attitude of "if you can't afford $150 for your business then...", well that's just bullshit too and you know it.

AMEN AND A FUCK you Jon is in order! A lot of start up sites can't afford $150.00 a month! You should just stick to your over priced crap and leave the boards the fuck alone! JUST MY :2 cents:

"Choosing" not to pay $150 a month and going with something like CCBill, is a very different from not being able to afford the service. But just because you can open a program for free, doesn't mean you should or can really afford to do it.

Why would the Affiliate ever want to promote someone that 'can't afford' $150 a month?

How are you going to pay visa fees, domains, hosting, buy content and get it into order, and get webmasters, provide galleries, promos, bannners, etc.. and lets not forget proper password protection? And still... make a site that converts, deal with support, affiliates, etc..

If you can't "afford" $150 a month - YOU SHOULD NOT open or be running an affiliate program.

You misunderstood - I certainly didn't mean to imply people are moving away in droves, just a few here and there that I deal with. And the other side of the coin is testament to that, where new nats customers are asking me for help. So there are clearly new joiners as well as some moving away. But that's what competition drives - one unit opens and of course there are some who are going to say "hey, that's better suited for me because of xyz".

I was just wondering if a Lite version may in fact bring in more people as an entry level solution.

And neither does moving away to cut overheads mean you can't afford it. :2 cents:

There's not a single business in this industry that is rosy all the time, and when the economic tide turns, some are hit more than others. So when you've got servers, bandwidth, billers, staff, and software bills grating away at the profit, then well, software is the easy target when other solutions are available.

Also, if you can't afford $150 a month for me to call you a porn legend on ICQ and keep you motivated to run your business then you shouldn't be in business.

That logic is pretty funny. :1orglaugh

I think I have a better idea of how many people are moving onto NATS vs. moving off of NATS than he does.

If $150 per month prices you out of software which runs the core of your business, then perhaps you aren't ready for an affiliate program. Your time might be better spent doing other things in the industry.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

I didn't think you were trying to be negative with the thread. We're already offering a better software at a lower price tho. $150/mo for the product we provide is a bargain.

I'm sure a lite version would bring in people that aren't on board now, but its a matter of whether or not a product as complicated as even a stripped down version of NATS would be makes sense to offer at say $75/mo.

I have toyed with the idea of say a CCBill limited NATS which would be limited to using CCBill only, provide non-cascading type functionality, and utilize CCBill for payments, but at this point, with the growth we are experiencing it doesn't make sense for us to dedicate the time it would take to roll that out vs. the demand we see for it. Of course, who knows what the future might bring.

Now my day is ruined. :(

TMM_John is the biggest bullshitter on this board

:1orglaugh

I think you'd find that NATS is one of the lowest of those costs.

Let's say a program is paying 15% at CCBill and does 250 joins per month. For simplicity let's say they don't do trials and charge $24.95/mo. On average each customer has their initial join and one rebill. That's 500 x $24.95 gross or $12,475. CCBill's fee on that would be $1,871.25. The NATS cost is $150. Of course, CCBill is providing a vital service and you need credit card processing, but the NATS cost really is a bargain for what you are getting.

Moving your business to a less capable software because it has a low cost might seem like a good business move, but I'd bet it plays out pretty poorly in the end most of the time.

The bottom line is our cost of $150/mo is lower than our nearest (yet still distant :-P) competitor.

And you sir are an industry icon!

Careful, you don't want to get sued do you? :1orglaugh

If you knew the circumstances of what you were referring to you might feel differently. :)

Wait, this is Batts?

Yes, it is. :disgust:

Any which way you slice it, killing the outright purchase and trying to kill v3 when the billers in v4 are still halfassed is kind of a dick move.

I support TMM, and TMM supports me - but we're all here to make a profit.

Yeah, something like that - a "crippled" version to get them on the road to the full version. Business is great for you, which shows, but I'd take the other side of the field and say that even though nats is growing in customer base each month, there is still a herd or 50 that could be rounded up with something more "entry level" that could grow into bigger things once in the pen.

Crippling nats isn't difficult - I do it inadvertently all the time :Oh crap

Outright purchase is killed? v3 is killed?

Hi.

This was my misinformation; I believed that outright purchasing the product was no longer available. Thank you for showing me where I could find the outright purchase for the non-pro release.

My only concern with v3 is the amount of rings one must jump through to get it installed, and the 'we won't support this' tactics discussed over ICQ which may have been construed differently due to the application at hand.

OK I SAID IT I WAS WRONG ABOUT NO MORE OUTRIGHT PURCHASES.

Did someone say niggly?

people often forget that NATS has overheads of it's own, and their core clients have a long list of very specific needs.. I personally am happy they don't support some 50 USD a month setup.

already get mad that I have to wait 5 minutes for tickets instead of my standard 2, imagine what that becomes when you let everyone in their mother into the support queue? *At a support fee far lower then your own.

Re: Nats 3, no hoops there, I just did two new installs this past month. if nats 3 is what you want, tell them. They like NATS 4, I like NATS 3, and they know the customer is always right ( Which is why I love NATS )

isn't he the guy that is suing the soccer mom?

Right - this is what I was expecting. The big guns saying "no thanks, I pay for premium support and I don't want that playing second fiddle". The fact that there is premium support shows that nats has grown, which is already testament to a 2-tier system in place.

But there haven't been too many takers on wanting a Lite version, so I guess I was wrong.

Amen.


This is a transient business. Rare for a program is around (in it's original form) for more than a year or 2

I'd have to say that John's first response was pretty arrogant when just a simple point was made that people might feel its too costly in these downsizing times or simple too high of entry costs. So he posed a question. John thanks for acting like your the best thing since sliced bread. But to get back on point I would welcome a lower cost of entry that had some features disabled. I can assure you when/if MPA3 comes up with a "lite" version then TMM will respond as such.

I just don't see how $150/month could ever be considered expensive considering what it does for your business. Building something custom would cost thousands. As others have mentioned too, if that is really putting a dent into your bottom line, running an affiliate program is probably not where you should be at this time.

I do think Borked's suggestion was good and doesn't need to be trashed. For me it wouldn't necessarily be about price, but about the system as a whole. The newest version of NATS looks real powerful and has a ton of features. Can be a little intimidating to someone who isn't a hardcore affiliate. For smaller programs, a lighter version might be nice. Could run quicker, use less resources, and be much easier for affiliates.

After 6 years of fucking with my own affiliate script i finally want to move on NATS this year.

i need some suggests now and contacts who are can handle all installation and transfer stuff? is it possible to transfer my old affiliates and their links to NATS?

Thanx

See what happens if you post a photo with your Lambo?

Next time don't let them know. Anything.

I agree with it.

$150 is not a bad price, but there are some webmasters that might be 'caught' between some of their other price points because of their sales. If someone makes 301 sales, the price doubles for that extra sale above 300, and so on.

TMM will do the installation. You can't simply have your affiliates transferred (if non-nats) and expect their links to work, since the nats codes are different. However, I can help you move them over preserving their links so that they still get credit for their traffic. If you have simply one payout type (eg revshare), then this is quite straightforward. However, if you have >1 type (eg revshare and pps, or different revshares) this can be more tricky.

we've bought and changed many programs to nats, all with more then one payment type.

if you want to move to nats, tell them. they will write whatever you need to get it done.

systems I've migrated from to nats : mas, ccbill, riverstyx, partnersoft

seems like they got that too

As it's their software, I'm pretty well sure they can, but at $120/hr, sometimes that's a little steep for custom coding something.

However, for migrating affiliates, I would expect TMM have something out-of-the-box, so if the guy negotiates this into his initial purchase, he may well get it thrown in for free :thumbsup

If you're moving to NATS from another software we import your affiliates and redirect the links as part of our normal initial costs. There are no additional costs for doing this.

Your affiliates will be moved over and their links will be redirected to their new NATS links. We will import any current balances on their accounts and assuming the data isn't a horrible mess in the old system and we can get the info, future rebills will be credited to the affiliate's new NATS account. If the data isn't recoverable to do this, we recommend leaving the old system up for rebills of old members. Really the only thing we don't do is import past stats from the old software. This is all included in our standard costs.

We had to get some support from FreePBX the other day and they charged $150/hour just to answer a simple question! That question even turned out to be a bug on their end which needed a patch and we were still charged to find & fix an issue in their software! Its a free/opensource product, so their income comes from support, but sometimes people in adult don't know how good we have it compared to mainstream :)

I didn't know this - nice :thumbsup

well, if they're income is 100% through support, I guess it makes sense. A different business model.

And I wouldn't expect custom stuff for nats stuff to come free, and I am not complaining, or else I'd get much less stuff coming my way :winkwink:

Thanx for the answers! I already got the mail from TMM manager and i believe he speak my language, thats will help us to move quickly .. 8)

I'm using 1 payment model - revshare, and 2 billings: ccbill and segpay. Old payments since 2003 will leave in old system...

What I have been wanting to see is a NATS version for those who do not wish to have affiliate programs. This could let us design and control our own join pages easily and cascade via a single join page.

I guess everyone will say there's no need for this because CCBill has a cascade. But CCBill's cascade is more of a join page redirect where the user is confronted with completely different pay page designs.

LOL, yeah, you should wish we did nothing! :)

Vlad will take good care of you, just be careful if you end up drinking around him.

You could of course not use the affiliate side of things (disable signups, etc.). Do you mean at a lower price point tho? NATS has morphed into more than an affiliate or "cascading" software. A lot of people don't realize everything it is capable of doing. Many of those who do, do quite well in this business.

I know a lot of people staying away from NATS due to costs and complexity, I would personally use it if it were more affordable. A 'lite' version would definitely be interesting.

What would you expect to pay?