The Joel on Software Discussion Group

in other words, imagine that I am distributing a desktop app that can basically work without interacting with my server (although it does interact with other things over the web). But, I am a greedy SOB, and I want to charge people for using this app, e.g. per hour. So, I would like the app to login to my server, notify it when the user started and stopped working. And, I want my server to track the payments from the users, track down and shut off the deadbeats, keep statistics and so forth.

Ok, well, is there a simple way to implement this using existing services? Sort of like, can I just put in an API call into my codebase (much like shareware protection, only a continuous one), get an account with a nice IT company and have all these hourly payments managed for me?

Just by way of random analogy, I know that there are already companies providing time management and billing for webcam type setups. Of course I don't want any webcams here :-) I just want to charge people for using an app.

why not make it a service/server and at the same time charge more per desktop version?

(This is what quickbooks does)

Originally this was the Plimus business model back in 2001, but the world was still not ready for it. check out with them and see if they still support it.

I think it was called Plimware...

We offer charge on demand, its a mechanism with variant subscription charge or dynamic invoicing.

In addition you can implement some code we offer to dynamically change the price on the order page in an encrypted way per product with some secret key to make sure its secure...but I am not sure if this is what your looking for.

Cheers,
Matt
www.payproglobal.com