At some point I'll have to write a post about how we've been playing with Ninja Forms, Formidable Pro, and Gravity Forms at Crowd Favorite.
I haven't written about these things because they're more “enterprise-ish” and that's not really what I talk about on this blog. But I can tell you it's been fun.
We've been working on progressive profiling, continual questions, behavior-based pop-ups and more.
What I can tell you is that the teams behind each of these products is top-notch and I have no doubt that they'll each keep innovating – which is good news for us all.
Let's look back for a second….to see how Ninja Forms started…
When Ninja Forms first showed up on the scene a couple of years ago, the innovation looked like it was coming from a business model perspective.
Where Carl was selling three options, each which was a bundle, James was giving the core away for free and selling add-on options, one at a time.
Both of these were great options for very different people. People who wanted it all should have made the logical choice to go with Gravity Forms.
People who wanted just one or two features, didn't need to buy Carl's Developer edition, and would benefit from a free+one paid extension James was offering.
Over time, things have been changing…
Ninja Forms went on to add a whole series of add-ons. I'm talking about tons and tons of feature-based add-ons.
This is a bit different than the 150+ add-ons for Gravity Forms that are present in the WordPress repository. Many of those are integration-based where other companies are building connections between their product and what was the de facto forms plugin for WordPress.
Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that some of those 150 Gravity Form related extensions don't offer features. They do. But choosing those has its own risk.
Some haven't been updated in a year. Or more.
Some haven't been downloaded and activated on more than 200 sites.
And they're not officially Gravity Form extensions.
That's what Ninja Forms has done differently. They've basically told us, regardless of the author, that these extensions are “certified” – which reduces a lot of stress.
And now Ninja Forms is enhancing their game
A bit ago I did my own analysis of Gravity Forms and their pricing – suggesting that new segments might lead to better monetization. But it was an exercise without complete data. And it was just an externalized sample of internal thinking. I was trying to articulate how I saw the world and why segments can induce pricing shifts.
I have no idea if the Ninja Forms guys read it. I'm guessing they were too busy running their own business.
But somehow they came up with a bundle offer that is exactly what I think is right for Application Developers – the people like me and my team at Crowd Favorite – where we want it all.
That bundle will go on sale shortly (according to this post) and it will run you $499.
And trust me when I tell you, it's a steal!
Here's why the Ninja Forms Bundle makes sense
First – it gives you everything. People like buying solutions. Pippin has rolled out successful bundles for Easy Digital Downloads – including one for a Marketplace site – which gives someone everything they need. There is a group of people who want ALL THE THINGS. When you make it hard for them to buy it, you leave money on the table.
[Tweet “People like buying solutions.”]
Second – this offer is for a targeted user. If you run a single site and need a simple form, you're not buying this. This is for a special kind of person who is building a lot of stuff and needs lots of these features. Don't you think they would want to know who those people are? It's always good to know which of your customers are making money with your product. It's a very specific segment that they ought to embrace, support, and get much closer to. And the easiest way to do it is to easily sell them the tools that will help them make money.
[Tweet “It's always good to know which of your customers are making money with your product.”]
Third – it will encourage innovation. Here's what I know to be true. A few weeks ago we decided to try something specific with all three form plugins (Formidable Pro, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms). We discovered that for this specific thing we were trying to do, Ninja Forms had the perfect hooks for us. It made our work easy and fast. What was the result? We thought….maybe we should try this other thing…. When you get your product into developers hands, it can inspire them. Inspire them to try a new extension, or even try to build an additional extension that works with extensions they'd never looked at or used.
[Tweet “When you get your product into developers hands, it can inspire them. “]
In the end, this particular bundle just sounds like a no-brainer to me – for them as a business and for certain segments of users that make their business using Ninja Forms.