Extensions, plugins and apps
For audio plugin makers: which demo videos and sale weeks bring buyers who come back.
An audio plugin is heard before it's bought: a demo video, a preset walkthrough, a trial in the producer's own session, then a licence at intro price or in a seasonal sale. Tally ties every licence, upgrade and bundle to the visit behind it, so you can see which videos, forums and sale emails sell plugins.
14 days free, no card needed.
01How they sell
- One-offA perpetual licence per plugin, plus bundles and crossgrades, with intro prices at launch and deep discounts in holiday sales.
- SubscriptionRent-to-own or all-plugins plans on your own checkout, renewing until the licence is paid off or cancelled.
- FreemiumFree plugins that put your name in producers' sessions and lead them to the paid ones.
02Payments it reads
- PaddleMerchant of record for plugin shops selling to producers worldwide; transactions, rent-to-own renewals and refunds are read.
- StripeShops on WooCommerce with a Stripe gateway, or custom checkouts, charge through your own Stripe account; those payments are read.
- Lemon SqueezyLicences and bundles for smaller developers, read with refunds.
What Tally can't read
- Sales through Plugin Boutique, KVR Marketplace or other resellers are paid out by them and aren't read.
- Rent-to-own plans sold through Splice are paid by Splice and aren't read.
- A shop that checks out through Shopify isn't read; only payments through the four connected providers are.
- Trial activations and authorizations inside the DAW aren't counted.
03Where buyers come from
- YouTube demosProducers' walkthroughs send viewers to the product page; a UTM on each video's link puts its revenue on a row.
- Producer forumsThreads on gear forums compare plugins in depth and send readers who buy after trying the demo.
- Sale emailsYour own list carries the holiday sale; tagged email links show how much of a sale week came from it.
- Free plugin usersPeople who downloaded a free plugin come back for the paid ones, with the free plugin's page as their first visit.
04What Tally answers
Which hours carried our holiday sale?
Set the period to the sale and switch peak hours to revenue: it shows each weekday and hour, and names the busiest three when the data is there.
Peak hoursDo free-plugin users buy the paid ones?
Lifetime value groups customers by first source, so people who first came for a free plugin show their average lifetime revenue and repeat rate beside the rest.
Lifetime valueWhich YouTube demo sold the most licences?
With a UTM campaign on each video's link, the campaign breakdown lists every demo with the revenue behind its visits.
Sources with revenueHow long does a trial take to become a licence?
Path to purchase gives the median time and visits from first visit to purchase, with a histogram, so you can see whether buyers wait for the next sale.
Path to purchaseWhich source brings the refunds after a sale week?
Each refund hangs off the licence it reverses, so its receipt shows the same visits and credited source as the sale.
Receipts
05Numbers worth watching
- Repeat rate
- The share of customers who bought more than once, which plugin shops with a catalogue depend on.
- Revenue by source
- The money behind every demo video, forum and email, for the sale week and the quiet months alike.
- Median time to buy
- Median time from first visit to purchase; a long one can mean buyers wait for a discount.
- Refunds and chargebacks
- Refunds and chargebacks by source, which flag a channel that oversells what a plugin does.
06An example
Busiest on Mondays, 14:00–17:00
2.1× the visits of an average three hours. Post around Mon 13:00 to be there as they arrive.
Shades are each hour's average over the times this period holds it, so a weekday that comes round five times doesn't outshine one that comes round four. The totals beside and below are the period's actual sums, not averages.
07Setting up
- WordPressIf the shop runs on WordPress, add the tag through the theme header; the Stripe payments behind WooCommerce orders are read and link by email at best.
- PaddlePass tally_visitor_id in customData when the product page opens Paddle checkout, so licences link with high confidence.
- Give every demo video's description link a UTM campaign, so each video gets its own row with revenue.
08Questions
Does Tally read Plugin Boutique sales?
No. Resellers sell and pay out those licences themselves. Licences sold on your own site through Stripe, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy or Polar are read.
Are bundles and crossgrades separate sales?
Yes. Each payment is its own sale, credited to the visit before it, and all of a customer's purchases add up in lifetime value.
Can we tell how much of the sale came from our own email?
Yes, if the email's links carry a UTM campaign: that campaign's row shows its revenue next to every other source.