How much is Paint.NET worth?
January 15, 2008 – 2:32 amI was reading over at John Cow (yes, Cow, not Chow!) how he turned down an offer for $30,000 to buy his blog outright. The blog’s income is about $3,500 per month from advertising sales. I think John made the right decision, as he’ll easily make more than $30,000 over the next 6 months.
It got me thinking though, what is Paint.NET worth? My projections for 2007 earnings at the beginning of the year were 1/5th what I actually finished the year at, so it’s a good thing I didn’t sell then (not that I had an offer!). Even if this year is up 5% from my year-to-date projections I’ll be happy. (Yeah yeah, projecting from 2 weeks to a full 12 months is a bit of a stretch…)
If you ask the individuals who’ve donated to Paint.NET, then it’s worth anywhere from $0.01 to $250. Those are my favorite e-mails by the way: “Notification of Payment Received” from Paypal.com. It’s encouraging stuff when someone goes out of their way to send you money that they’re not required to, just to show their appreciation 
Back in June if you had asked a certain company who was interested in purchasing a “stake” in Paint.NET, then it’s worth about $1.5 million based on the download rates at the time. So that would have been $735,000 in my pocket to sell a 49% “stake”. They wanted to make a “professional” version, and I told them their idea was boring. Then they offered me $25k - $35k/month if I just put a page in the installer that by default would set the user’s web browser home page to their search engine unless the user un-clicked the checkbox (it would be Paint.NET branded though! which takes, umm … an 8kb PNG and 20 characters of HTML?). It was very, very tempting but eventually I told them no. It just made me feel slimy all over. I made a rule a very long time ago that I’d never let Paint.NET turn into something that I wouldn’t want to install myself, and this would have violated it. I keep meaning to write a blog post about scummy bundleware, but every time I try I just get annoyed and the post turns into rambling junk.
I think Paint.NET actually has a lot of untapped revenue opportunity. I’m not really interested in doing a traditional “professional” or “full” version, as I feel that’s already been done to death in this industry. I’ve been having more fun experimenting with other revenue models, like advertising and donations. Using AdSense on the main website has been very good to me, but it’s still volatile and scary. I may branch out and find other ways to bring in money that leverage the value of the Paint.NET brand reputation.
Sometimes people ask me why I don’t just sell Paint.NET and go live on the beach and retire or something. The problem with that is that I’d be selling the thing I enjoy doing the most. I just really, really like to write graphics, UI, and application code. What would I do then … drink alcohol all day? Well, I guess that doesn’t sound too bad. $1.5 million back in June clearly would have sold me short. Everything has a price, but Paint.NET is worth way more than that to me.
Although I still don’t know how much Paint.NET is “worth” … any ideas?
12 Responses to “How much is Paint.NET worth?”
“Then they offered me $25k - $35k/month if I just put a page in the installer that by default would set the user’s web browser home page to their search engine unless the user un-clicked the checkbox”
Wow. Just, wow.
I’ve always wondered how much Google pays Mozilla to do that… I’m sure firefox gets more downloads than Paint.NET
By Dean Harding on Jan 15, 2008
I kicked a few USDs your way - but what I gave is far less then what it’s worth. I had an odd problem with PayPal during this transaction - which my credit card company thought was fraud - so it did cost me some grief. However, well worth it.
For *me* I would have sold out by now. It’s not like selling Paint.NET would have to end your work writing “graphics, UI, and application code” - you could do something else… it’s not like it’s required to do the beach/beer thing (plus, that would take a lot of cash to completly retire - more then the numbers you’re seeing - esp if you’re in the age bracket I think you are).
But I’m happy you haven’t sold out!! Web-based advertising seems OK to me - maybe if I had more of a reasons to visit your site…?
By Aardvark on Jan 15, 2008
http://mashable.com/2007/10/23/mozilla-google/
For its most recent fiscal year (2006), Mozilla reported revenue of $66.8 million, up more than 25 percent from last year. According to Mozilla, 85 percent of that revenue came from its partnership with Google, who serves ads alongside the search results generated by the Firefox browser.
By Gabriel Topala on Jan 15, 2008
Glad you don’t “sell” (or should that be license? I’m not sure ;)) Paint.NET. I’m currently building a front-end for my book using VB 2008 and all the PNG icons for the program go through Paint.NET before being placed in the app. If I had to “pay” for it (as opposed to donate), I wouldn’t use it. I think I’d turn to the more cumbersome GIMP. Keep up the good work.
By Mike on Jan 15, 2008
That’s a moving question.
The less often you update Paint.NET, the less interest there is, and the userbase will wane. On the other hand, more frequent updates and greater distribution will grow the base and, thus, the value. Since your ability to update Paint.NET is limited, the real opportunity for growth would be in distribution (name recognition/brand equity.)
I know you’re against bundling Paint.NET into Windows (even though ALL of the Windows accessories are in dear need of an overhaul, and Paint.NET would be a boon to the millions of users who rely on Pbrush for lack of knowledge); however, if Windows ever implements an easy-to-use online package repository like many Linux distros, Paint.NET would surely be a top download. You’d get at least hundreds of thousands of new users.
By Francis on Jan 15, 2008
Dean - Mozilla makes money by having the search box in the top right default to Google.com. They get revenue sharing when people click on the ads that are shown with search results.
Aardvark - It’s true I wouldn’t have to stop programming, but I’d have to start from scratch on a new project and I’m just not anywhere near finished with Paint.NET yet.
Francis - Bundling with Windows would just entirely change everything about Paint.NET, especially its release schedule. As for the package thing, I think Windows already has something called Digital Locker. It hasn’t really taken off though, as witnessed by the fact nobody’s really heard of it. I’m curious as to what you mean by, “your ability to update Paint.NET is limited”.
By Rick Brewster on Jan 15, 2008
“your ability to update Paint.NET is limited”
I think he’s just referring to the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day
Mind you, the pyramids, Rome, the great wall of china, [insert big engineering project here], were all built with exactly the same number of hours-per-day… so it’s not MUCH of a limit!
By Dean Harding on Jan 16, 2008
Just a suggestion:
[quote]I may branch out and find other ways to bring in money that leverage the value of the Paint.NET brand reputation.[/quote]
What about affiliate programs with e.g. Amazon?
By Pandu E Poluan on Feb 16, 2008
starbucks coffee $4,59
aspirin $6,39
staying up all
night coding
paint.net priceless
By RECON04 on May 22, 2008
How much is it worth? To me…..a fortune hard to put a number on. My 12 year old daughter is a budding artist. I am a computer geek, among other things. I built her a laptop and showed her Pant.net, as well as Open Office, and other free software. She does incredible things with it.
I am getting ready to migrate her to Linux. I am happy to see that there is a project porting Paint.net to Linux. I am sure she will move on to GIMP, but Paint.net will always be there as well.
What is it worth? What is my child’s education and future worth?
Those of you who provide such free software via Open Source are changing things in ways larger than you know. For me at least, and my daughter, that means too much to put a number on.
By FERNANDO on Jul 21, 2008