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by ff7f00 2235 days ago
There are definitely big players making a lot of money from plugins they develop. Here are a few to check out:

($1200) https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bund...

($300) https://www.soundtoys.com/product/soundtoys-5/

($500) https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/v-collectio...

However, piracy is also pretty big when it comes to plugins.

2 comments

Sure, but,

>Do solo or small shop vst plugin developers make any money?

Quite a few small developers in this space. It's not like indie gaming, but there's also less competition. I think you need to be a musician/producer to be successful here though.
The implication seems to be "no".
Steve Duda wrote Serum, probably the most popular synth plugin in modern electronic music. everyone I know has a license. so "yes", with the caveat that it's difficult to actually create products of this level of quality
That implication would be wildly incorrect.
With the operative word being "developers" I disagree.
Yeah but facts don't really care about agreement: there are loads of renowned single-person VST shops, and many more "just a handful of folks" ones. Chris Heinz, Steve Duda, Strezov Sampling, Matt Tytel, heck even Plugin Guru, etc. etc. are all renowned folks in the VST/VSTi world, and that doesn't even scratch the surface.
Having a friend working at Arturia, I don't think they're "small shop" nor do they make "a lot of money" to be honest