What's your preference - monthly or annual fees?

[Fingerfood]

Hi everyone,

I've been looking through a lot of posts here regarding accounting software.
I'm not going to ask if you can recommend one as there are so many posts but that's how my question came up.

I have come across two versions, the one you pay a monthly fee and the one you pay annually.

I would like to know what your preferrence in general for fees is. Any kind of fee, may it be insurance, software etc.

Do you prefer to pay monthly or annually?

I'm looking forward to your responses!

Regards,
Mel

[Normanby]

In my accounting practice most of my clients have taken up my offer of monthly billing rather than the traditional annual fee.
I offered it as a response to a client survey, and it works better for me too.

[flower-child]

monthly, if it's not going to cost (too much) extra

[JacquiPryor]

Monthly where possible - I find it easier to manage outgoings. Even when you break-down annual fees to figure out how much you expend each month, it always happens that 'something' comes up so you still end up having to find the annual amount when it comes due instead of always having the right amount put aside each month.

[bluepenguin]

Personally, if I can afford it I prefer annual fees simply because I can pay the bill and forget about it for 12 months.

[gossipism]

monthly if its not a big one up fee.

[Khalid Adam]

in this day and age, pay by installment works better.

ofcourse there are the 5% - 20% cash rich clients who will happily pay in full for a decent incentive or to get a "deluxe" version of your service that is unavailable on the instalment plan.

Just by looking at harvey norman ads, you can tell that instalments are great and you can sell at full price or even higher.

I know a guy who doubled his price, sold it on instalment and offered a 50% discount for cash purchasers. It's all in the perceived value. His business doubled. Of course he had a great value proposition and educated his prospects why he charged much more than his competition. Every extra $1 = extra $5-$10 in value.

[tonyk]

i prefer monthly.

[BranchingOut]

I think that there are other considerations that need to be taken into account when deciding if you prefer monthly or annually.

If someone is offering me to own something after I have paid for it, then I will go with monthly installments.

Whereas, some monthly payments only allow me a subscription to use their service and once I stop paying I may not be able to access my data, so in this instance - for me the answer will be upfront and then annually.

Hope I made sense