It's impossible to know if software is worth the asking price, even if it's free, if you haven't used it. Value of software only becomes apparent over time. It takes time to evaluate and learn the software, to manage your information with it, and to fit it in your workflow. Only after that you know how valuable the software is to you. So how much should you pay the next time you hit that buy button?
Well that depends how much the developers are asking for it of course. And they're guessing as much as you do. They can prize their product out of the market, by being too expensive. Or they might prize it so low that you think it isn't up to the task. They might not tell you the price at all and have you call their 'representatives'. They might give it away for free!
And God help you if an A-list blogger finds out that your premium printer is identical to the cheap printer, with the speed inhibitor turned off. Joel Spolsky
ANY price SOFTWARE bring its own problems
So recently there seems to be a trend to allow customers to set their own price for the latest audio-cd or software package. If you want to pay £1 for it, that's fine. If you think it deserves £100, that's ok too. That's a very brave move on the part of the creators and I have respect for that. It must be hard to hand over the responsibility of valuing your software to people who do have no idea about the value.
As for letting people name the price they pay for the album, he said "It's fun to make people stop for a few seconds and think about what music is worth, that's just an interesting question to ask people."
But I have no idea how much more valuable the latest operating system is before I use it. Especially not if one variety is available for free and another costs me my monthly salary. How much money would you be prepared to pay for an iPhone for example? Other people paid $200 less, are you still happy?
Don't worry be happy
So it's almost impossible to value software, and nobody really knows how much it's worth. This only leaves us with two other options that I have not explored: donationware and software-as-a-service (SAAS). Use the software for an amount of time and decide how much money it's worth to you. And then just make the most of it.