# Charging for plugins?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [October 28, 2020, 4:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482 "2020-10-28T04:40:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ti0](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ti0)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2020, 4:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482/1 "2020-10-28T04:40:17Z")
Is it ok to charge for plugins in the Discourse community ? Are there any paid plugins out there ? I know the official Discourse hosting offers Business and Enterprise plugins, I am talking about plugin authors charging for plugins.
I am creating a plugin, and I would like to consider the option of either making it a paid plugin, or a donation-based plugin, or keep it free, depends on how the community responds. Just want to know my options, and curious how the community feels about this topic.
If charging is ok, how to go about this ? Any guides ?
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2020, 6:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482/2 "2020-10-28T06:29:05Z")
The last time someone tried this, it did not go very well.
This had to do with both some [legal implications](https://meta.discourse.org/t/are-paid-plugins-with-undisclosed-license-allowed-to-exist-on-meta/32819) (TL;DR: is a plugin a derivative work?) and by the [attitude](https://meta.discourse.org/t/paid-membership-plugin-with-paypal-integration-version-3-0-2015-08-31/30972/23) of said developer (TL;DR: rude).
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### Author:  [@ti0](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ti0)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2020, 12:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482/3 "2020-10-28T12:38:09Z")
thanks for the quick feedback.
I was in two minds anyway, I love the free model of discourse, and I guess I can always put a link for anyone who would like to donate.
It was more out of curiosity – reading the other discussions was quite interesting, thanks for sharing !
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2020, 2:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482/4 "2020-10-28T14:57:37Z")
Most people who are making a living on plugins do so by making general-purpose plugins open source and charging for support and/or further customization.
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### Author:  [@neounix](https://meta.discourse.org/u/neounix)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/charging-for-plugins/168482/5 "2020-10-28T16:15:14Z")
A similar business model @ti0 is to build a useful third party application like Slack, GitHub, Sentry, etc and then create and give away a Discourse plugin that integrates Discourse with your commercial 3rd party app.