Publishing License for comercial project isnt affordable or scalable for indie developers

🧑‍💻 Technical Support
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Hey team,

I hope this letter find you well, Its early in the morning here and I cant stop thinking that you miss 100% The shots you take, in other words, every non sale of a license could have been a sale.

What im trying to say is that I dont see any developer friend papying via credit card 3000, monthly on behalf of the client.

The reality of developing with 8thwall is that, is everything fine and shine and awesome until you have to close a deal with a client, I have never been able to close a deal with 8thwall project and mostly the money I’ve made is through challenges.

But I do had the chance to develop something very very simple ( and image target and reproduce a video) and there was no way I could charge 50 USD for my fee and 3000, MONTLY.
The client stops me right there always and tell me, nahh thanks I might go with a filter that is free, how much would you charge me for making a filter and publishing it on my Instagram or tiktok account?

Thats sad. When reflecting on the future I want to build one I want to have a platform that is equal as awesome in technology that at price.

Is still for me unknow why I have to pay such an expensive license, per month. When doing transactions with dollars and credit cards in Argentina the goverment has a tax of 130% for each dollar. So the end amount to pay for a license per month in Argentina would be around 6900.

No body wins that amount of money on here permonth, sorry that wont scale. I think the core bussiness of 8thwall is oriented toward building developer products but I feel it should migrate to be more like firebase. Firebase is also a developer oriented product but has a price calculator and you can really see how much you can pay and the best part is that you can scale when you grow or when you have traffic.

The only products that keep me comming back to 8thwall are the ones that dont come with aframe or three.js and ofcourse VPS. But I dont feel 8thwall is a technology developers can adopt in Latam where I live and where I make AR.

At least all the other AR social apps even with the policies you can still make money out of developing filters since its free to publish for life, and you can charge just for making the filter.

in 8thwall sadly there is no way, I can close a deal of a license with a brand, Small or Big, becase the return value doesnt match with the money to pay. Its more the amount the business need to pay for making the most out of the license and features.

Completly different would be a 100usd licenese per month and billed anually 950usd for example. ITs way easier to close a deal that includes animation, 3d modeling, ar compositing, landing page creation and charge around 3000 with license for a year including that closing a deal where my net worth will be 2000 and the license for a year is 36.000 usd. (3000 x 12).

So Im building my metaverse toward gaming and im pretty excited for what is up to come but at the same as a solo developer and not an agency, its imposible to scale at 8thwall and everyday I keep developer I keep wondering if its really worth the time and effort since I know its imposible for me achieve those numbers and afford a license.

please consider how to help latin american developers like me.

I believe real world metaverse is the future and I’m helping building that dream, but what is niantic / 8thwall making towards helping developers to monetize, and scale?

I still think I could close deals with a 100usd license per month and Niantic would make money out of it. Every shot you dont take, you miss it 100%. Niantic could be earning more if just break the features into pricing tears. Here is the example of an excellent developer price calculator allow me to make budgets for clients easly.

Firebase Pricing (google.com)
Calculadora de precios de Google Cloud

Kind regards,
Diego

Oh one more thing, kudos to the team for making Niantic Studios, I have heard only good things about it!

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Hi Diego!

I read your post and it got me thinking so I wanted to share my thoughts as a fellow Latin American XR Creative Technologist.

I’ve been consistently getting commercial 8th Wall projects since early 2021 from both international and LATAM brands and production studios, and I understand that some clients can react strongly to that fee, but there’s a few reasons I don’t necessarily consider the pricing is too high.

I’m not involved in how 8th Wall resolved their pricing, but there’s a few factors that need consideration imo. Running a company that provides 8th Wall’s technology and maintaining high infrastructure availability is not easy and it’s costly. Over the years, I’ve only seen the platform go down a handful of times during live projects. This is extremely rare and hard to maintain for any platform - I’ve seen AWS go down more in their early days.

Compared to other web AR platforms, 8th Wall is superior. They offer so many built-in solutions for developers, plus documentation, support and community. Besides the high infrastructure costs, they have to pay their teams which have to be specialized professionals to be able to create a platform that’s so niche, and they have to generate profit to sustain the business and compensate the people who’s running the business and taking all the risk. And this I’d say is the most important point of all. They took a significant risk betting on an industry that has caused a lot of eye-rolling over the years. Even today is not really that popular. So 8th Wall has helped popularize webAR a lot more, which made business possible for studios and developers, betting on a high-risk technology.

Both 8th Wall, developers, and brands, face the high risk that comes with innovation when getting into webAR. High risk ventures can pay off really well or it can go really bad.

Another element that I think matters to take into account is exclusivity. A little gatekeeping prevents oversaturation with low-quality experiences. If webAR becomes something that anyone can do, then it will happen the same that happened with social media filters. We’ll see brands doing the same copy pasted experience over and over. There’s so many cool innovative things that can be done with social media filters and all we see it’s that 90% of it it’s make up filters and randomizers so the technology becomes misrepresented and the brands that are willing to pay what’s fair loose interest in it.

Ultimately, the brand should cover the license cost and it’s up to them to be able to do it. There are more budget-friendly options for smaller brands. Developers shouldn’t pay for the commercial license. It should be part of the overall budget for the experience. Brands willing to invest in innovation will cover these costs. While $3000 might seem like a lot in LATAM, I can assure you is not. Web AR projects normally have budgets above 10k - depending on complexity - and I’ve seen companies throw in 20-50k extra on projects like this when needed without making a big deal about it. Keep in mind that digital marketing strategies that take on webAR and XR experiences often times utilize leftover budgets from the overall brand marketing budget (this is in part why December is such a busy time for us).

I normally don’t like talking about numbers but it pains me to see you charging only $50. I’m sure you’ve seen the “It’s not about the time it takes to complete a task but how long it took you to learn how to do it” but that’s not all, there’s also a risk factor of specializing in a niche skillset as this one. Specializing in this tech is a high-risk bet, which is why few people do it. When I started doing this I was in Uruguay, there weren’t many resources available so obviously being self-taught I learned by doing, and you couldn’t even dream you’d get a job doing XR. That’s why it used to be my hobby before I was able to make a business out of it.

I strongly believe artists, developers, and designers deserve fair compensation and it’s up to us to respect our work and the value we provide as well as to respect our colleagues by asking for what’s fair and not undermine the market for all of us. Take it from someone who’s been freelancing on and off in digital innovation since she was 14, freelancers bear their own taxes, business expenses, and you’re in charge on saving for retirement and making sure if you have enough to survive if you don’t get projects for a while. Add the risk factor of specializing in a niche skillset that might be the next big thing for a bit, or might just be a trend that everyone’s forgets about too soon. I encourage you to do some market research to see what brands and studios are willing to pay so you get a fair compensation.

Lastly, innovation shouldn’t be out of reach for low-budget regions like LATAM, at all. During covid I collaborated with an ed-tech for women entrepreneurs in LATAM to create a course in digital innovation and help them find solutions within their reach. There’s lot we can do about this individually if we want to add our little grain of sand to help develop the region.

I hope my reply was insightful!

Kindly,
Florencia

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Hi Florencia, thank you very very much. You know thank you for bringing your vision to the conversation, it really made me realize a few things and see things from other perspective, I think you are absolutely right, I never though monetizing and the why this way.

Hmm nothing to add, honestly you hit the point I was looking to discuss, thank you very much and happy coding :wave::sparkles:

Btw: you are the best thanks for the kind detailed answer, kudos ma friend :pray:t2:

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Thank you both for sharing your challenges and insights regarding 8th Wall’s licensing costs. We hear your concerns about pricing and appreciate your feedback.

We’re committed to supporting independent developers and are actively exploring ways to make our platform more accessible. Stay tuned for more updates :dizzy:

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