I also don’t think it’s ideal that the Online Editor in the Pro version is priced per domain … but honestly, it does make sense to a certain extent.
Here are the reasons: first of all, you can still use CMS2 fully without the Online Editor. In addition, there is the free version, which will probably be enough for around 60% of users and should be perfectly sufficient for them — meaning they can run a blog without any extra bells and whistles.
The Pro version is likely aimed more at web designers, agencies, people who make money from their websites, and some private users who simply want to run a professional website.
That last group of users probably runs only one or two websites at most, so the costs are still quite manageable.
If you’re an agency building CMS2 websites for clients, then it also makes sense that this feature is paid for by your customers — and that Realmac benefits from it as well.
That’s absolutely fair and makes complete sense. It’s probably also one of the main reasons why Joe Workman still has TCMS3, while Foundry by Elixir Graphics no longer exists.
Let’s be honest … you bought Foundry once and could use it on as many websites as you wanted. I’m quite sure there weren’t many users who bought more than one Foundry license. Even though Foundry had far fewer features than TCMS, that exact reason was also why it was so popular with many users.
So it makes perfect sense that web designers and agencies who create websites with CMS2 and sell them to clients should need an additional license. That’s fair and should be clear to everyone.
Maybe one idea for the Online CMS Pro version would be to structure the entry pricing so that the first license includes 2 or 3 domains, and each additional domain costs extra.
I could imagine that this might attract more users to the Pro version and lead to greater acceptance of the pricing model.