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Monetization via Paid Consultation

Payment offers made by companies or individuals to get face-to-face consultation time with the maintainer(s) in form of workshops, talks, or pair programming sessions. Often these bookings are one-time payments for one consultation, but many users might have need for consultation.

Requires:

  • Setup of a payment mechanism (hosted or self-build)
  • Might require the legal status of Freelancer (country-specific)
  • Optionally, setup of a platform to conduct pair-programming sessions
  • Optionally, preparation of slides for specific talks and seminars
  • Optionally, preparation of examplary code for workshops
  • Time to conduct the consultation

Variants & Options:

  • Pair-programming: Maintainers works with client directly to understand the product or fix a problem
  • Workshop: Maintainer works with a customer's team to understand and work with the product
  • Talk: Maintainer gives a talk about using the product
  • Auctioned Consultation: Highest bidder gets a time-slot for consultation

Platforms

  • Codementor (Mentorship and Pair-programming support)

Evaluation

Characteristics Value Note
Effort to set-up Days Requires a booking platform and banking info. Might require freelance status
Effort to maintain Medium Constant reminders to consult might be necessary. Updating slides or acquaintance with customer's problems might be necessary
Cost to set-up None
Cost to maintain None
One-time Income Medium Often based on hourly wage - but can grow with demand
Recurring Income Low Only for longer projects with companies
Income Predictability Low Too complex --> no users; Too easy to understand --> no income
Full income Threshold 100+ clients per month;
Recipient I
Additional Work Medium Extra time to consult necessary
Visibility Medium Easy to forget, ignore, or overlook, but community might talk about it
Necessity to pay Low Might increase with the complexity of the software
Entry Threshold Low Credit card is sufficient
Countervalue Work
Scalability Low Scales to the time available to consult
Effort for marketing High
Competitors O
Software types All Better for fast changing software

NOTE: Potentially, the consultations can also be done by non-maintainers (i.e., just an expert), which could increase the competition.