[microcolonel]

Well, depending on how you marketed the initial installment, you could be the one at fault. The industry norm is that quality and security updates are free for the support life of the product (which is usually longer than you say it is). In some jurisdictions you might have no legal right to deny the updates, regardless of what your contract says about warranty.

If you want to save yourself the hassle, factor the cost of maintenance updates into the initial cost, and market upgrades as big new releases like Windows or AutoCAD do.

Which product is this, by the way?

[NameNickHN]

Five years ago I specifically added the clause that updates are free within twelve months after purchase. So the customer is kind of right to be surprised if he bought the software before that time.

On the other and, that exact same customer already ordered and paid for updates. That's one of the reasons I'm annoyed to have had that update discussion.

It's an online appointment scheduling software, btw.

[microcolonel]

> It's an online appointment scheduling software, btw.

Oh, I thought it couldn't be appointmind, because on that website you literally say "We take care of software installation, updates and data backup.", granted right after saying "Monthly terminable".

I think your pricing model, customer flow, and messaging is incredibly confusing; and I don't think I would necessarily know whether or not ongoing updates are free of charge from your website.

I think the problem lies entirely in your marketing and presentation.

[NameNickHN]

Thanks for your feedback. Five years ago we switched from a software that you install yourself on your own server to a Saas offering. The reason for this was that customers didn't want to update their software and if they wanted to do it, they didn't want to pay for it.

The trouble is exclusively with old customers that don't use the Saas, don't want to use it, and still run the software on their own server. They believe they bought the software and therefore own it. Paying again for something you own is, understandably, not something people gladly do. But then again, software isn't a thing, it's a work in progress. A concept hard to grasp for some people.